Sweet 16

How much would it cost to have the Christchurch Art Gallery move half a meter to the left or to the right and back again without damaging itself or the art inside? The answer is about $20 million and involves something that sounds like Foucault on speed: the installation of 138 pendulums under the ground to counteract the movement and hopefully muffle it. All that has taken time but the Gallery announced it would finally open before Christmas with work already being put into the galleries. A few days ago (in what must feel like the tenth or so re-run of a bad joke for Director Jenny Harper and her staff) the opening looks like it has been delayed again. Everything is on track for the main project apparently but tasks that have been left over from normal maintenance are still to be completed. So now it looks as though the opening will happen sometime within ‘the first three months of next year.’ 

In the meantime Harper has been dropping hints. ‘We’re looking to present an important Martin Creed at our Foundation dinner in September!’ You’ll remember Auckland Art Gallery had a brief flutter with Creed trying for one of his large revolving MOTHER works in the foyer. Based on its experience over the past few years ChCh might find SONOFABITCH more appropriate. Although there's no news on the specific ChCh work yet maybe CAG will go with the idea of their previous curator Justin Paton who suggested a couple of years ago on the gallery blog ‘Everything is going to be alright’.