We once joined an artist in the basement of the City Gallery while he was inspecting his work before it was sent off to Germany in 1995 for the exhibition Cultural Safety. The basement was a classic hard-core raw concrete space and would have been perfect for installations and performances. At the time it was being used for registering artwork coming in and out of the Gallery and was later leased to the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (or whatever it was called at the time) to store works they had repatriated from their embassies around the world. When the latest City Gallery building programme got underway it included earthquake strengthening and MFAT was asked to leave the space temporarily, a decision we understand that has now been made permanent. All this raises the possibility of the basement, or parts of it, being used for art that is less polite than is usually shown at the gallery (the muddy installation Morphic Resonance by Hany Armanious, Australia's selection for the next Venice Biennale, being a stunning exception). Now the Hirschfeld has been whitecubed, a tougher, more adaptable space is just what the City Gallery needs.
