Putting the fun back into funding

You may recall that back in April Creative NZ went into a spiral of despair. Lotto, one of its major funders, had announced that ‘due to the lower level of jackpots on offer it is estimated there will be $25 million less to dole out to community groups such as Sport New Zealand, Creative New Zealand and the Film Commission.’ Even worse, ‘Peter Dunne, who chairs the Lottery Grants Board, told CNZ he would not confirm exactly how much less there will be until July’. Creative NZ did some sums and figured this would mean it would ‘receive $11 million less this financial year than it did two years ago.’

After a bit of stick for being so dependent on gambling money, everyone went to ground until June. It was then that the Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage, Maggie Barry, somewhat embarrassed Creative NZ by stating that it ‘had "jumped the gun" by predicting a funding fall, and the Government expected a small rise in Creative NZ funds.’

Since then things have been kind of quiet in the media, so what happened funding-wise?

From CNZ's website it turns out that at the end July at one of its two monthly meetings, Creative NZ’s Arts Council updated its we-are-doomed budget to reflect ‘a significantly better funding forecast from the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.’ This is the same Lottery Board that was predicting major cuts only three months previously so who knows what pressure was put on whom. This new generosity couldn’t have been caused by a huge upswing in NZers gambling, could it?

You might think that the volatility of Lotto and its dependence on hopeless dreams might still give Creative NZ pause (#oncebitten). But no, it has a secret weapon. Creative NZ’s Arts Council in its post meeting summary goes on to say that, ‘An important feature of the approved budget is the new “double buffer” approach that will allow reasonable shifts in NZLGB funding to be better managed.’ Double buffer eh. ‘Reasonable’ shifts. Yes, that should work.

Numbers

0   the number of artists living in the South Island who have won the Walters Prize

1   the number of current advertisements by Te Papa for a Head of Audience Insights #anditsgoodnighttoyoucurators

1   the number of shout outs The Minister of Arts, Culture & Heritage Maggie Barry gave to Simon Rees and the Govett-Brewster/LLC in her speech at the Walters Prize

2   the number of sculptures by British artist Antony Gormley now on permanent public display in Christchurch

2   the number of dealer galleries that got funding to attend art fairs in the last Creative NZ funding round

7   the average number in cents that the Govett-Brewster/LLC received from each of its 151,000 visitors in its previous financial year

11  the number of comments made on the last 20 EyeContact reviews

13  the number of themed permanent collection hangs currently on show as ‘exhibitions’ at Te Papa

50  the amount in thousands of dollars that Shannon Te Ao received for winning the Walters Prize

66  the average number in cents that the Govett-Brewster/LLC needs to get from each of its visitors this year (assuming that there are again 151,000 of them)

75  the percentage of Wellington’s City Gallery’s core staff that are women

Hide and seek

What is it that Creative NZ is trying to hide away in its announcements of funding round results? We’ve posted before about how it has removed comparative charts and the ability to easily access results in different categories like the Visual Arts. While these were both useful tools in supporting informed advocacy and any debate around Creative NZ’s performance, we’re another step along. Now the total amount funded has been taken off the introductory information for the latest Quick Response grants. While we all do have calculators and can do the sums, it’s not a helpful or user-friendly development. Even more problematically though, the total number of applicants has been removed something we flagged earlier this year. For tax payers near enough is good enough. It’s been replaced with the comment that ‘typically one in four or five applications gets funded.’

For the record then, and in the same near-enough spirit: around 360 to 450 applications were received and just over $470,000 was allocated to between 20 and 25 percent of them.

So how did the visual arts make out? They received just under $82,000 representing around 17.5 percent of the total. Of these, a whopping 77 percent went to projects outside New Zealand.

Image: OTN’s Statistics Unit working its way through Creative NZ figures

By the numbers

0  the number of jobs currently being advertised by Te Papa to fill vacancies at Te Papa Press

0  the number of media releases by the Minister for Culture and Heritage on visual art-related topics so far in 2016

3.022 the difference in millions of dollars between what was applied for and what was granted in the latest Creative NZ Arts round

9 the number of media releases by the Minister for Culture and Heritage on war-related topics so far in 2016

12.9 the amount in cents per every rated dollar that goes toward arts and culture in Christchurch.

20 the number of art works purchased by The Chartwell Collection so far this year

26 the number of days before Jamie Hanton takes up his position as the new Director of The Physics Room

365 the number of days Te Papa is open ‘Te Papa is open 365 days a year (that’s every day!)’

366 the number of days in 2016

943 the number of ‘ideas’ thrown up by the Auckland Art Gallery’s website when you click on the ideas category in the ‘Art & Ideas’ section

Your pokie machine dollars at work

The latest round of Creative NZ grants has been announced. This time $1.8 million has been allocated, a nine percent reduction on the same round last year. The result is an average grant of $21,565 compared to last year's average of $24,478.

How did the visual arts make out? Well, thanks to Creative NZ becoming increasingly opaque since the departure of Alastair Carruthers, it takes a bit effort to work it all out. The charts that used to show percentage allocations have gone and so too has the ability to sort grants to the visual arts from the rest. This is the second year that some (but for some reason not all) Maori and Pacific grants have been included, it's a good idea but conveniently complicates efforts to make historical comparisons at the same time. The addition of Maori and Polynesian grants takes the visual arts component to a healthy sounding 26 percent of the total round. If you take them out the visual arts come in at around the usual 17 percent of the total allocation. Pacific Island grants were on average $15,626, Maori grants $25,000 and the rest of the visual arts grants averaged out at $18,449.

Here’s how the visual arts funding was divvied up with the Maori and Pacific Island grants included:

Publishing: $23,750 or 5.6 percent of the total

To NZ Institutions: $136,544 (32.15 percent)

Direct to named artist: $121,970 (28.7 percent)

Study overseas: $30,777 (7.25 percent)

Participation in overseas exhibitions and events: $111,702 (26.3 percent)

If you add in a couple of the named artists who have been funded to make exhibitions overseas, the total funding for off-shore projects is 39 percent.

And so it goes.

Time lords

The amount of cash Creative NZ has to fund artists may decline, but the number of artists applying for it is headed in the opposite direction. In the last five years, for instance, the number of applications for the round of Quick Response grants held each March has increased from 52 applications to 86. That’s around a forty percent increase. This is not a big surprise given the number of artists being churned out by the 18+ art schools operating in NZ currently and it isn’t going to do anything but increase year by year.

So here's an idea. Creative NZ might like to investigate an application process that is working for the National Science Foundation (for Earth Processes to be precise) in the United States. It found that by getting rid of deadlines for submitting grant proposals the number of submissions dropped of its own accord by 59 percent. A pilot of the process that resulted in a 50 percent drop has remained at that level for the last five years. What seems to happen is that people put more time and effort into their proposals and the ones that are hasty or ill-considered simply never get submitted. The hope is ‘that the change will filter for the most highly motivated people and the ideas for which you feel the most passion.’ Research has also shown that the reduction in numbers in an ‘anytime submission’ process had no effect on the demographic mix of people submitting. So there you go.

Double or quits

Creative NZ has pressed the emergency button. After 'signaling' (aka managing bad news) that more funding cuts are on the way now a letter has gone out to warn 'colleagues' that things could get worse.

As we have reported previously, for the year 2015-16 Creative CNZ covered its shortfall from Lotto from reserves. 
Lotto stumps up with around 64 percent of Creative NZ's funding. Government is good for around 31 percent and 5 percent comes from other sources. The problem is that Lottery funding to Creative NZ has fallen around 10 percent a year for the last two years. Lotto is now paying less than it did in 2008 ($27.4 million) and has indicated that there will be a further reduction for the coming year.

 Setting aside any ethical implications to the arts largely being funded by gambling (NZ Lotteries started in 1987) what's Creative NZ going to do? In his email Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright outlined CNZ’s plan.

1 Bury its head in the sand
'assumes our revenue from Lotto for 2016/17 is $30 million'
It's hard to see what this assumption is based on as Creative NZ has faced cuts in Lotto's contribution year after year: 2013/14 - $37.5 million; 2014/15 - $31.07 million; 2015/16 - $26.31 million. Surely based on this record of continuing 10 percent cuts it would be more realistic to expect around $22-24 million in the 2016/17 year rather than $30 million.

2 Whistle in the wind
'brief the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage on the consequences of the lower revenue'
None of this will be news to the Minister. The Government has barely increased its share of Creative NZ's funding for over eight years (2008 - $15.5 million; 2015 - $15.7 million). From the Minister's perspective Creative NZ's job is to manage the sector and protect its Minister when people send some angry emotions her way (like when their funding is cut). Job well done CNZ.

3 Pass the buck
'we would encourage you to run a series of  budget scenarios  including one that assumes up to 10 percent less financial support from Creative New Zealand.'
Let’s face it, if the reduction in Lotto’s funding for the coming year is only 10 percent on the 'budgeted' $30 mil it will be champagne all round.

4 Miss the point
'This shift in financial circumstances will be a major challenge for the Arts Council.'
... but not half the challenge it will be for a sector facing another round of cuts. Maybe this time Creative NZ itself will take some of the heat and reduce its 51-strong staff. Hmmmmm.....ok..... maybe not.

Spam

unvarnished facts, reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have arrived at overthenet.blog@gmail.com: a turnaround at the govett-brewster where a number of len lye sculptures will now remain in place during 'emanations', the upcoming ‘all-galleries’ photographic exhibition • artspace’s director adnan yildiz duked it out on his fb page with eyecontact’s john hurrell declaring of artspace's audience that 'we are expecting them to have questions with us’ but then not seeming to much enjoy hurrell doing just that • when creative nz announced that ‘funding from our two principal sources – the crown through vote arts culture and heritage and the new zealand lottery grants board – could decline over the next four years they meant will decline • leo dicaprio has lined up with the aag when it comes to collecting contemporary photography having snagged his own copy of andreas gursky’s 'ocean iii' • twinkle-toed rohan wealleans danced right through richard frater’s scatter installation at robert heald’s gallery without stepping on a single item • after their success with giant ww1 personnel te papa is going the big-bug way preparing an internationally touring show with weta on giant bug duty • new zealand’s venice biennale commissioner alastair carruthers is leaving these shores to settle in london but no suggestion of the baton being passed on at this stage •  any missed details, indignant denials or additions gratefully received, and any that makes us laugh out loud rewarded with an increasingly rare otn painting horse badge.

On the QT and strictly hush hush

Creative NZ is looking for some new peer reviewers to advise it on who should get funding. Anyone thinking about putting up their hand (you can get up to $40 an hour but the hours are tightly limited) may wonder what they're getting into, so some background.

Over the past decade Creative NZ has professionalised. There have been some positive results (e.g. clearer accountability and priorities) but also some negative ones. Its processes are more complex for users, it's more risk averse, and it's become remarkably protective of any information it receives. Confidentiality agreements are used to control outsiders working with them and to side step what we would consider the intent of the Official Information Act.

This is not just a problem with Creative NZ, of course, it's endemic throughout the public service. Ask any journalist. We had our own experience of it when we asked who had applied for the Venice Biennale gig for 2015. We weren't asking for the discussions or the opinions or the minutes of the meeting, just who had applied. We took it to the Ombudsman but Creative NZ was way ahead of us. All outsiders involved had been tied up with confidentiality agreements from the outset so we got zip.

So you have to ask why anyone would to sign up to be a peer reviewer when they have to agree in writing:

•    to keep confidential all information supplied by Creative New Zealand and any information relating to the assessment of an application (including assessment panel discussions) and to only use this information for the purpose of assessing an application. This means that applications cannot be discussed.

•    to ensure that all such information is stored securely and that it will be accessible to no one but me for the sole purpose of assessment and that electronic material is deleted at the end of the decision making process and any hard copy material is returned to Creative New Zealand.

•    not to discuss or write articles, including social media, on the assessment panel’s recommendations.

•    not to report back to other organisations on the work of the assessment panel.

•    To bite down hard on the green capsule provided should they be detained or questioned outside CNZ premises
 
As Agent J of The Men in Black said, 'Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.'

Image: Secret Squirrel

The Money Train on platform one has been delayed, passengers should seek alternative transport

For a few years now the government has been signaling that it's expecting the private sector to stump up with more of the cash and services needed to run the arts in NZ. This follows the UK example where severe cuts to arts organisations and grants have been made to try and shock the private sector to put its money where the government’s mouth was.
Last year the main source of Creative NZ funding, the Lotteries Commission via its Lottery Grants Board, suffered an unexpected 17 percent cut (from $37.379 million in 2013-14 to $31.074 million in 2014-15). It caught Creative NZ by surprise but by digging into its reserves it managed a successful 2014-15 financial year. For the coming year the cuts in Lotteries funding will be even harsher and Creative NZ is expecting funding that will be ‘materially lower’ for the forseable future. So we could be talking 25 percent down, even 30 percent. That's not good. 

Creative NZ's strategy to counter the sharp drop in funding is to build fund-raising capability. That is, by teaching institutions (and we presume artists) how to increase the funding they receive from individual donors, businesses, trusts and foundations. They call it Creative Giving. And it would need to be creative as there isn’t much on offer to make philanthropy/sponsorship attractive or worthwhile for the givers. Unlike most countries NZ only accepting cash contributions to registered charities for tax breaks cutting out a lot of services, and gifting of course. 

One organisation that is already off into the über commercial world is Te Papa. It looks to be in the process of converting itself into a production house with private sector wunderkinds WETA to build and flog exhibitions (no, Jennifer they won’t be art exhibitions, now go to bed) to the museums (read Asian) of the world.

Now arts organisations can make do and cut back but the real worry about this growing reduction of government investment is more insidious. In the UK art institutions are already talking about the ‘freedom’ they will achieve by being supported via the private sector rather than by government. This is deeply deluded as anyone who has worked in a corporate communications office will know. Even in the arts, nothing is for nothing.

So you might ask why doesn’t Creative NZ rally the troops, go public and push the government to increase its spend? Hang on, rather than ask CNZ it's probably better to email your local MP and copy the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage (it’s Maggie Barry).

Your tax dollar at work

Anyone looking at the latest round of general Creative NZ grants was in for a pleasant surprise. The majority of the funding for the 15 visual arts grants has been gone to women, 68.5 percent of it in fact.  And most of those grants (seven of nine) went direct to the artists concerned. That meant they received $271,965 all up plus another $25,000 to galleries for two publications. The guys got $95,680 (24 percent) although it was kind of supplemented by a separate $50,000 to the Serpentine Galleries for Simon Denny’s exhibition via Creative NZ’s International Presentation category. For some reason a similar grant of $26,160 to the IMA in Brisbane for a Luke Willis Thompson exhibition was included in the general grants.

There also seems to have been a significant rule change around the funding of university staff. Since the university art schools decided making art was ‘research’, the funding of their staff through Creative NZ was covered by a double–dipping rule (i.e. the same activity being funded by the state through both the tertiary sector and through Creative NZ) and they were specifically excluded in many circumstances by the following clause:

“employees of tertiary or other educational institutions, if the arts activity for which they are seeking funding is part of their job to include a written statement from your Head of Department, or the equivalent position, confirming that the activity is not part of your job”.
 
It was always hard to understand when their art making was not part of their research and hence their job so it will be interesting to see whether this change is bureaucratic (simplifying processes) or strategic (accepting the dominance of the tertiary sector over the contemporary art scene in NZ). While there is a case for staff at smaller educational institutions without much in the way of research resources to be funded, it's hard to understand in some other cases. In this round, for example, why couldn't a university the size of Massey stump up with $49,000 for one of its well-paid Associate Professors to prepare for a PBRF-rich public art museum exhibition?

You can see the former Creative NZ rules in full here on the Wayback machine (Let's hear it for the internet).

One day in the Creative NZ offices

A: We need to come up with some rules so the Trustees of the arts organisations we fund can keep their Chief Executives in line.

B: Sounds like a plan.

A: We’ve going to give them some high powered ammunition. So they can show them who’s who.

B: …and what's what.

A: I’ve been talking to some consultants who reminded me of a brilliant idea I had a couple of weeks ago.

B:  I don’t even know why we pay them when all the ideas we use are yours.

A: True. Anyway we’ve decided to focus in on what “cannot be done, rather than what can or should be done.” It's basically a DO NOT policy, a bit "like the Ten Commandments or the Road Code".

B: That’s totally brilliant but what about all that stuff about collaboration and partnerships we’ve been going on about all the time? (thinks) I guess we could slip it into the introduction.

A: (laughing maniacally) let’s see how clever the Art Org CE's are after we’ve taught their Trustees how to “constrain their freedom to act”.

B: You don’t think it’s a bit negative?

A: No. No, not at all. In fact we’re going to call it the “Thou shalt not” approach.

And that is what they did.


You can check it out for yourself here (section 7.7 page 44)

By the numbers: links edition

0   the amount of significant change (pdf.) in attendance by 10-14 year olds at visual arts events or locations since 2011

0  the number of flag designs presented in the flag panels current top 40 that are worth pursuing

3   the number of comments generated by John Hurrell’s review of the new Len Lye Centre on eyecontact that included his opinion that “there is a strong sense that the Lye Centre has hijacked the Govett-Brewster, that the Govett is only a mere annex to the Lye project.”

4  the number of lectures on Len Lye you can find on Circuit

5  the number of people (ok men) on the 185 strong 2015 NBR Rich List who chose to be photographed with art in the background

5   the number of prints of the 21 published for Artspace’s twenty-first birthday that have sold out

11    the number of visual art works Te Papa currently has integrated into its non-art exhibitions.

27    the number of artist talks available as Auckland Art Gallery podcasts

704  the number of days that have passed since the Government announced Te Papa North

799  the number of art works registered as ‘by New Zealander’ in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Your tax dollar at work

Some big grants from Creative NZ were announced late last week. These are the ones that support artists and organisations for one to three years so they give a good idea of CNZ's priorities. The total grants weigh in at just over $6 million so how did the Visual Arts feature? Not at all really with just $186,000 (Scape and the McCahon House) allocated. That's 3 percent of the total. SCAPE rather hilariously received $99,999.00 so some philanthropist out there might like to send them a buck to top it up. 

Who got all the money? It’s always been an insider joke that CNZ is run by dancers and this time Dance was certainly the winner on the night. This category fetched just under $3 million or near enough to half as it's known in the funding trade. One other thing, of the 22 grants awarded, 12 went to Trusts. You can make of that what you will.

Image: gratuitous dance funding joke

Spam

unvarnished facts, reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have arrived at overthenet.blog@gmail.com: in the tradition of creative nz the person with the most knowledge of how to organize nz representation at the next venice biennale is leaving the organisation • one of japan’s most prominent art collectors, founder of naoshima, the famous art destination island, and nz resident made a recent tour of auckland dealer galleries; any purchases have not been revealed • ngahiraka mason is leaving  her position of indigenous curator, maori art at the aag • missal adnan yildiz of artspace and robert leonard of city gallery had a very public spat and elizabeth caldwell told them to behave • the dom post no longer has any expertise on reporting the arts with the departure of tom cardy • the te papa out source cyber think tank is going to be called an ‘incubator’ • rhana devenport is the front runner in the race to be the next nz commissioner for the venice biennale • reuben friend ex city gallery is taking on the directorship of pataka in porirua • any missed details, indignant denials or additions gratefully received, and any that makes us laugh out loud will be richly rewarded

Distance looks our way

You can’t beat the kick of going into a large exhibition space in an international art museum as important as the Pompidou to see a work by an artist you know and admire. This time it was Oscar Enberg in the sixth edition of Un Nouveau Festival titled Air de jeu that dug into the connections between art and games. But we're not talking about some dice and arcade cabinets showcase but games in the big sense. This one's got philosophers, dancers, writers and even OuLiPo and Alighiero Boetti all ‘playing and thinking’ as the Pompidou like to put it. Yes, Enberg is in very good company and also showing alongside another favourite of ours Jonathan Monk.  
Len Lye is in the building too and Peter Robinson’s interactive felt scatter piece has just closed. Then, still hanging in the sky above the square outside Piano & Rogers iconic building, is the ghost of Neil Dawson’s Globe the star of the 1989 Pompidou exhibition Magiciens de la terre 

All this NZ-in-Paris action comes just weeks after seeing Simon Denny knock them dead in Venice.  You’d have to lay a lot of this level of exposure on Creative NZ’s simple focus on success in its international funding. The fact is those Art fairs, exchange programmes, residencies, support for exhibiting off shore and bringing interested curators, writers and bureaucrats to NZ are all starting to make a real impact.

Image: in the foreground Oscar Enberg's work in the exhibition Air de jeu

Hide and seek

Back in August 2013 when Simon Denny and Robert Leonard were selected by CNZ as the team for the Venice Biennale 2015 we asked Creative NZ if we could have the names of the other artists and curators who submitted projects. Creative NZ said no. We argued that the decision making process could not be properly evaluated unless those who had put themselves into the running were known. Creative NZ said no again. The names, we were told, were confidential. Creative NZ believed that people would be put off applying if their names were made public and suggested we take the question to the Office of the Ombudsman if we wanted to take it further.

So on 13 September 2013 that’s what we did. After six months of silence we emailed the Office of the Ombudsman on 16 March 2014 to see if there had been progress. There hadn’t. Six months later again, on 15 October 2014, the Office of the Ombudsman emailed us. Our request was now with a new officer who would be ‘assisting in the investigation’ and who would ‘keep us up to date with progress’. Four months later, we are now at the begininging of February 2015, the Office of the Ombudsman wrote to say that our request was ‘still under consideration’. 

Finally, two months later on 24 March (19 months after our original request), the Ombudsman sent us her report. It turns out that Creative NZ asks anyone who it deals with it to sign confidentiality agreements and the Ombudsman felt these agreements took priority over public access to information. Now you know. The Ombudsman asked us to comment before the final report was signed off which we did, arguing that using confidentiality agreements as a gagging device was not in the spirit of open government. This response still waits somewhere in the Ombudsman’s long, dark cave.

So there you go. By tactically using confidentiality agreements Creative NZ can block attempts by taxpayers to examine or assess its selection process, a process that involves the expenditure of $700,000 of public funds. And remember all that was requested was names not the discussion or deliberations that went toward the decision.

So should we just trust Creative NZ and its current processes to give us a fair result? Well no, not if the selection of Judy Millar/Francis Upritchard (additional representative added after the panel had made its decision) and Michael Parekowhai (no selection panel) are anything to go by. And is it reasonable to believe that the Official Information Act is designed to 'promote access to information held by various Government agencies'? No, it really isn’t.

By the numbers

1   the average number of statements per month the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage has released relating to the arts so far this year

3  the amount in millions of dollars per year that Te Papa gets from the Government for ‘collection development’

6  the number of Billy Apple reviews in EyeContact since his survey exhibition opened at the Auckland Art Gallery

10  the number in thousands of visitors who attended the last Auckland Art Fair

12.5  the percentage of male exhibition attendants at the Simon Denny Venice Biennale exhibition

58   the percentage of women selected as finalists for the Waikato National Contemporary Art Award by Aaron Kreisler, Head of the Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch

70  the percentage of Creative NZ funding that comes from money New Zealander's lose gambling

77.5  the amount in thousands of dollars that the Govett-Brewster paid Saatchi & Saatchi to deliver its new brand

143  the number in thousands of visitors to the exhibition Gottfried Lindauer. The Māori portraits at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin this year

700 the value in thousands of dollars of the sales and commissions disputed in the Bambury / Jensen court case

1585  the number of exhibitions held at the Auckland Art Gallery since it opened on 23 June, 1927

Old white men, gotta love ‘em

About once every four years or so, a magazine digs the ordinary-people-don’t-get-modern-art story out of a dusty file, smacks it around a bit, and lets it loose. This time it’s North & South’s (country folk) turn, probably to balance off Anthony Byrt’s enthusiasms in Metro (city folk). The writer is Mike White. He specializes in complex crime stories, has won truckloads of awards and studied at Cambridge, so it’s not a I-didn’t-know-any-better junior reporter at work here. 

The piece is titled … But is it art? and  here are the key points (plus - who could resist? - the odd comment).

• First up is Simon Denny’s exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery. White plods through a relentlessly negative description before launching into the irresistible mocking of the wall texts. God only knows we’ve done it ourselves but this is six paras in so White is making his position pretty clear. The 'balance' stuff he brings up later can be put down to window dressing. So why the question mark in the title it's pretty clear from the get go that White knows exactly where he's going.
• Next is Grahame Sydney (conservative landscape painter and regular contemporary art grouch). He gets to play the elitist card. 'They appear to be talking to themselves, rather than anyone else.'
• White then drags up a few of the stock examples regularly used to beat up the 'high-brow' art world. Et al in Venice (c'mon that was 10 years ago), Dane Mitchell at Waikato (six years ago) and last year’s Walters Prize. The final flourish is a quote from another well-worn critic of contemporary art post 1990, Hamish Keith. 'I think this Walters Prize has pushed the boundaries beyond commonsense, beyond credibility, and really it has made a hoax, a joke out of the whole affair.'
• White then raises his own colours a little higher and claims the art world thinks the public is 'hopelessly stupid', even using the phrase 'The Emperor’s new clothes' (insert laugh track here).
• Enter the contemporary art defenders (aka 'balance'). Christina Barton argues that the debate over art is 'frequently oversimplified’ and that people like White 'constantly reiterate old arguments and draw those battle lines in a really unhelpful way.'
• Wystan Curnow tells White that G. Sydney is 'living in a time warp' and that 'the inevitable rumpus around our Venice exhibits is tiresome.'
• Thinking this pro-contemporary stuff is putting the balance thing out of whack, White reaches out to Vincent O’Sullivan, poet, retired academic and writer on (you guessed it) Grahame Sydney. O’Sullivan lashes out at the art establishment. 'It's a sort of priestcraft with them, that they know the words to say but everyone else doesn't.' A bit rich coming from a long term senior academic.
• White follows up with print maker and art school educated Barry Cleavin who says he doesn’t want people explaining art to him and comes up with an insult directed at Wystan Curnow that’s a bit hard to work out.
• The big gun is saved for last, a real insider ex-City Gallery curator Gregory O’Brien. He thought the art in the last Walters Prize was all old hat but is 'happy for the prize to exist' so that’s a relief. Then O’Brien, who is a painter himself, wonders why 'we always choose installation artists' for Venice and that we are “trying to put ourselves on the world stage as a young sexy creative country” in a way he finds 'fatuous'. O’Brien thinks Ralph Hotere (1931-2013) would be less fatuous.
• Next up Courtney Johnston, director of the Dowse Art Museum, says that no art gallery sets out to 'alienate the public' (not hard to imagine what sort of question White would have to ask to get that response). She makes a pitch for something for everyone and adds a reminder of the geniuses who were decried and mocked in their own time (Monet, McCahon).
• Heather Galbraith, this year’s Commissioner for Venice, makes the point that new art always takes time to fit in and that many, many loved artworks went through a phase of being reviled and that people just need to give any work that seems obscure a bit of time.'
• The last word went to Creative NZ ‘s Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright. He thought the public’s right to give feedback was essential and “Inevitably some of it won’t be what we might prefer...”  

Encouragingly the only people White could find to trash contemporary art were five white males, with an average age of 70. 

Image: art cartoon by American painter Ad Reinhardt

Beta

The Ministry for Culture & Heritage and Creative New Zealand have just published An economic profile of the arts in New Zealand. They say it's a working paper. That could mean they're looking for feedback (although we didn't find a specific request) but there's not a lot to go on. The question is, does it work as a stimulus to ideas and discussion? There are so many disclaimers and excuses, it’s hard to see how.

Apart from a don't-blame-us-for-any-mistakes clause from MC&H and CNZ, how about these four game-breakers that kick the project off:

“Government support for the arts (both central and local government) is difficult to quantify, as there are multiple funding streams and it’s not always possible to identify funding for specific arts-related activities within the broader ranges of activities supported.” i.e. it's hard to identify arts funding.
“Because the research is limited to secondary data analysis (that is, the data wasn’t collected specifically for the purpose of this analysis), the data and the way in which it was collected were not the most ideal for this analysis.”

“Creative design activities such as graphic design and fashion design were excluded from the research, as most of the output of this type of activity involves mass commercial production.”

“Most of the data used in this research is drawn from Statistics New Zealand datasets and is reported according to their coding classifications for occupations and industries. 
Under that classification system a significant proportion of arts activities are not captured with sufficient detail to allow them to be readily identified and analysed.”

So, at the very least, buyer beware and probably best to wait for V 2.0