Spaced out

OK, the ‘news’ is that Te Papa is developing a new space down on level 4. Given that this is Te Papa’s third run at defining space for its art division it feels as though it is still struggling to tell what it calls ‘the story of art’. This round is not exactly a ‘bold’ move but it does seem that at last Te Papa has recognised that art is a relatively cheap way to fill new exhibition spaces and generate new content. The words ‘experiences’ and ‘immersive’ were used too often for comfort, but let’s hope that that was an effort to be on trend rather than a realistic aspiration.

The downstairs space will have eight meter walls (about the same as the current fifth floor gallery) and about 35 percent more space will be added.  The new space will be 860 square meters – a comparison for those who know it - the old Michael Lett space on Great North Road was around 650 square meters). There’ll also be a new staircase to the galleries on floor five. The budget for all of this is $6 million and it will be launched in December 2017.

So what is the ‘new direction’? There isn’t one really, but art has been given priority in the overdue ‘renewal’ of Te Papa. Maori and Pacific art will get increased attention and more collecting resources. Given the $million plus paid for Michael Parekowhai’s piano and the inevitable investment in Lisa Reihana post-Venice, you’d think that this idea was already well in play.  There was some talk of NZ art being given a global focus but we’re not quite sure yet what that means. Talk of collection exhibitions and even curated exhibitions Oh, and women. Te Papa will fill gaps etc and foreground women’s art. Ironically the mock-up of the new gallery features three giant guy works with Gretchen Albrecht and maybe behind the piano an small Ani O’Neill standing in for women.

So a PR exercise really demanding the usual Te Papa wait-and-see. Still at least there is an acknowledgement that art has the potential to attract audiences in its own right. But we kind of knew that already. 

Image: Warren and Mahoney sketch plan for the new gallery space

Way to go

This morning we’ll be at Te Papa bright and early to hear how it proposes to achieve ‘A bold new direction’ for art. We’ve already posted that it probably involves shifting the art down from the fifth floor but let’s hope it also includes news of a long overdue exhibition programme. To be anywhere close to ‘bold’ Te Papa will have to offer more than its current output of collection theme shows, housekeeping for most art museums. The last large scale curated Te Papa exhibition we can recall was Rita Angus and that was eight years ago (ok they did a Brian Brake show seven years ago but you know what we mean). We’ll live tweet the event and post more fully on what went on later in the morning.

You can see the list of Te Papa’s past exhibitions here.

Move, move, move

Te Papa has always been bad for art. From the early days of Ian Wedde’s curation when art was used as back-fill to illustrate ‘our stories’ to now when it’s just the permanent collection sliced and diced into endless theme shows, art has always been filed under T for tiresome obligation.  Up on the fifth floor, out of the way (retailers talk of a 30 percent drop in customers with each floor up), it’s been a sorry fall from grace since Te Papa took control of the National Art Gallery.

So when word gets out that art is to be moved down a couple floors, it’s got to be a good thing, right? Maybe. It will certainly be good to get it out of the low-slung area that was originally designed as a library and the long promenade that was initially pegged for functions, but let’s not get too excited. It will still be a move to another repurposed space and Te Papa’s art problems are more about differentiating the audiences it wants and figuring out how to engage them over the long-term. 

Still, as they said when Te Papa was being built, ‘you have to give it a chance’.  (#yeahthatworked). So in the spirit of here's-hoping, let’s see if a recent invitation to ‘arts stakeholders’ to hear about a ‘bold new direction for the arts at Te Papa’ on 18 November is going to be about more than just the art going down. We'll let you know.

Please be aware that this art work is being taped

Museum conservators are not big on change. The moment an artwork hits a public collection the goal is to keep it in suspended animation from then on. If that painting by Gordon Walters gets a scuff on it, action must be taken. Just as in Peter Pan’s Neverland, in the world of art museum collections nothing must ever grow old. Ok, that was all very well with your basic oil painting and bronze sculpture but with contemporary art and installations, it gets more complicated.

We saw a classic example of how far the museum profession will go to try and stop time (#tellittokingcanute) at Te Papa last week. The l budd installation Modern arrangements had been installed as part of Nga toi. It consists of three painted stools, a magazine rack and a large Xeroxed sheet of paper gaffer taped to the wall. Or that was how the artist always installed it but in this version it looked as though the tape on the Xerox was sitting rather oddly and getting closer we could see why. Clearly Te Papa’s conservation team had had a struggle with simply taping the Xerox so they’d come up with their own version. They’d carefully attached the Xeroxed sheet of paper to the wall with archival tape and then covered it over with a fake gaffer-tape hinge.  The effect, while comically laborious, is hardly truth-to-materials, or to the artist’s intention for that matter. Why would a team of professionals consider such artifice ok when it compromises the material directness of the work?

It's possible the only reason Modern arrangements is showing at all is because the previous l budd work that occupied the same space is being ‘rested’. That work featured incandescent bulbs, already banned in many countries, and the bane of conservators’ lives as they try to source replacements and work out how many hours are left in the originals. 

But one day the lights will go out and then what’s a conservator to do?

Image: l budd  Modern arrangements and right detail

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

One day in Te Papa’s 5th floor ‘Art Studio’

Curator 1: OMG! Have you seen the AMAZING drawings that visitors are doing on the fifth floor?

Curator 2: Aren’t they incredible…like it’s WAY BEYOND DRAWING ... it’s…it’s… art drawing.

C1: Totally.  I mean there’s nothing wrong with our Goyas, like he can draw and all, but have you seen Robert of Tawa’s Self Portrait??

C3:  Humbling. Talk about mastery of the pencil.

C2: And how about Ruth of Island Bay’s awesome drawing of a hand. It was so lifelike a fly landed on it.

C1: Up yours Durer (they all laugh)

C2: Now we need to get them out there. The public are gagging for drawings they can get really excited about.

C1: And who’s the best to make that sort of magic happen? Curators. And what are we? 

C2 and C3: (as one voice) CURATORS!

C1: OK then, so let’s curate. Give the public a taste of some real creativity.

C3: We could theme them – I’ve always wanted to do that. Like, you know, portraits, landscapes, animals.... 

C2: That's inspired

C1: And let’s go all digital on it. Stick the best of the best at the top of the Te Papa Home page so everyone can see what great creative drawing is all about.

C2: Are we even allowed to do that?

They were. So that is what they did.

Inside out

It’s not often that Te Papa pauses from telling ‘our story’ to let the world beyond these shores creep in. Simon Denny has certainly thrown open a window up on the fifth floor. Te Papa’s bold purchase of a chunk of Secret Power, Denny’s contribution to the last Venice Biennale, has just been installed and it is wrapped in an antipodean version of the Marciana Library in St Mark’s Square. Drawing on his colonisation last year of the Venice airport, Denny has transformed the floor and walls of the Te Papa exhibition space. They’re covered in an enormous colour photograph of the Marciana Library complete with its famous murals, ornate mouldings and arched windows, but inverted. The idea of being upside down at the bottom of the planet is a perspective NZers understand all too well, but this time our point of view is radically modified. By shining light on the evil darkness of the spy world Denny reminds us how inextricably attached we are to the rest of the world, whichever way up we like to think we are.

Image: Simon Denny’s Secret Power installed at Te Papa

No show

OK, so it wasn’t the most original idea in the world, but Te Papa always said it was going to tell us our stories, the stories of Our Place. It then went on to spend many millions of dollars in purchasing items that would help that story telling. Most recently there’s the $1.5 million it paid for View of Mt Egmont, Taranaki, New Zealand, taken from New Plymouth, with Maoris driving off settlers’ cattle painted in 1861 by William Strutt.  All this means that when Toss Woollaston’s painting Poet by the sea (1959) came to market in the Tim and Sherrah Francis auction, it seemed a natural fit for Te Papa.

The Poet by the sea is a knotted array of cultural aspirations. Its subject is Charles Brasch, acknowledged as the cultural big cheese of the 1950s (poet, friend, editor, collector, high-minded fan). The painter is Woollaston who at this time carried the burden of finding the soul of NZ. The collectors were Tim and Sherrah Francis who were committed to the importance of a distinctively NZ culture and history. And to cap it off, Peter Simpson’s recent book Bloomsbury South describes the story in detail (with photographs). It’s a heavy-duty painting showing real cultural dynamics at play. It could hardly be more central to the National Collection and the story of NZ art.

But as we all know, Te Papa didn’t even make an appearance at the auction and made not a single purchase. Te Papa didn’t lose out to some deep-pocketed Auckland art fanatic at the auction either; it simply decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. Something’s afoot, especially when you remember that Te Papa spent $700,000 at the Paris Family auction in 2012 and hasn’t been shy to spend big bucks. Let’s recall:

Colin McCahon, A painting for Uncle Frank, 1980, purchased in 2000 for $2 million
Colin McCahon, Walk (series C), 1973, purchased in 2004 for $2.75 million
John Webber, Poetua, 1785, purchased in 2010 for $1.97 million
Michael Parekowhai, He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: story of a New Zealand river, 2011, purchased in 2012 for $1.3 million

In the very active Te Papa rumor mill it’s claimed that the institution’s collecting policy for art is shifting. Buying back to fill out the collection is out. Buying forward to prioritise the contemporary is in.  Can this be true? The last four curatorial hires all specialise in earlier work. Smart move Te Papa. Crazy times ahead.

All this would certainly help to explain why Te Papa wasn’t at the Francis auction to pick up high quality works by both neglected and well-known artists. Our top ten of these would be:

Philip Trusstum Pale blue square $9,000
Douglas MacDairmid Portrait of Akbar Tyabi $6,250
M T Woollaston Poet by the sea (A Portrait of Charles Brasch) $80,000
Richard Killeen Rot $9,500
Ross Ritchie After Ingres $10,600
Adele Younghusband Still life with candle and vase of flowers $9,250
Charles Tole A map of the Auckland province $5,600
H Linley Richardson Self portrait $2,500
Robert Ellis City $4,000
Dennis Knight-Turner Untitled $9,000

Image: Poet by the sea (a portrait of Charles Brasch) in the Te Papa storage racks (#notgoingtohappen)

Spam

unvarnished facts, reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have arrived at overthenet.blog@gmail.com. the smart money is settling on ron mueck for the final of the christchurch art gallery’s five big sculptures project • the nz organising team are gearing up for crowd control management for lisa reihana’s opening next year at the venice biennale (#dreamon) • in more venice news, it has been floated that uk celeb chef peter gordon, partner of venice commissioner carruthers, is going to man a pop-up food stall near the nz venue • misal adnan yıldız is tipped to be off to join a project with serpentine’s huo when his term is up at artspace in may next year • wellington enjoys a mini-renaissance with rohan wealleans and andrew beck both now working out of the city • te papa is threatening to move its art exhibitions down a floor or two (#believeitwhenweseeit) •  it’s recently been confirmed that weta is definitely making a big bug show for te papa as predicted by otn in a spam five months ago • any missed details, indignant denials or additions gratefully received, and any that makes us laugh out loud richly rewarded.

To be perfectly Francis

If your faith in contemporary New Zealand art was wavering, last night would have settled your nerves. The Tim and Sherrah Francis collection on sale at Art + Object in Auckland never looked to be anything other than a benchmark for the marriage of serious money with serious art. The first signs were when two Andrew McLeod paintings sold for $36,000 each, and that's the hammer price without commissions. By lot number 48 of the first night's 122 lots, over half a million had gone under the hammer and eight lots later the tally was at $1.5 million. By the end of the evening around (#notthatgoodatadding) $5.5 million dollars worth of art had been knocked down.The big ticket item of the evening was Colin McCahon's eight part painting The Canoe Tainui which sold to a Hamilton collector for $1.35 million making McCahon the top artist at auction (#sorryaboutthatgoldie). Among the big prices were a 1956 koru drawing by Gordon Walters for $66,000, Shane Cotton's He Pukapuka Tuatahi for $252,000 and and Rita Angus's Tree Cutting Hawkes Bay at $255,000. And these prices will all be boosted by commissions. Overall seven paintings sold for over $200,000 and 12 over $100,000.

True to form, Te Papa didn't even bother to show up. This meant of course that it missed out on the opportunity to buy many significant works including Tosswill Woollason's The Poet which obviously belongs in the national collections. Still, the Auckland Art Gallery was there showing that it at least is still an art museum serious about its collections.

By the numbers

2  the number of women currently showing at City Gallery Wellington

3   the number of books to be published by Te Papa Press in 2016

24  the number of policy statements setting out the principles for presenting Len Lye’s work at the Govett-Brewster

25  the number of Gordon Walters paintings currently on loan to the Auckland Art Gallery by the Chartwell Collection

29  the number of Trevor Moffitt paintings being sold as consecutive lots (one to 29) at Dunbar Sloane on 10 August

11   the number of years the Britten V1000, the star of Billy Apple’s latest exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery, held the speed record at Ruapuna Raceway

30  the number of documents online relating to the Sarjeant Gallery’s extension and its funding

36   the number of works by Gordon Walters in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery

100  the number of paintings by Gottfried Lindauer that the Auckland Art Gallery thinks are unaccounted for and possibly held in family collections

220  the amount in dollars needed to purchase Fiona Clark’s Artspace edition Book Shelf, Tikorangi

700  the cost in dollars of lighting a public sculpture (based on Neil Dawson’s Spires in Christchurch) for one year

The art of art chart art

As part of our admiration for the certainty of Art Charts, we’ve previously posted the famous one by Alfred Barr that fronted the catalogue for MoMA’s groundbreaking exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art in 1936. Many years later the idea showed it had legs when it was provocatively updated. The ‘torpedo’ chart was also a Barr special demonstrating his unwavering faith that the art of the Americas owned the future and that the end of Europe as path-finders was nigh. We also found in MoMA’s archives online Barr’s original sketch for his Abstract art mind-map. All this gives us the opportunity to list two of our favourite art charts that have come our way, a link to others and thank again the people who sent them in.

The art chart thing
Jobs at Te Papa
Touch, don't touch?
How to be an artist
List of past art charts

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

If it’s broke, fix it

For around 15 years now the Colin McCahon online catalogue has had pretensions to being to a catalogue raisonné of the artist's work setting out to ‘catalogue McCahon's complete works’. An alternative attempt to research and publish a print catalogue was superceded by the current digital project with the understanding that professional cataloguing standards would be followed. Initially the site was to include commissioned essays and commentary on McCahon’s work but that never happened and eventually essays from a survey catalogue were dumped to bulk things up. For years the information in the Colin McCahon online catalogue has been scrappy at best. In 2010 an attempt was made to put it into some sort of order and improve the quality of the records but it was short lived and inconsistent.

Does this even matter? Given that the catalogue is hosted by New Zealand's national art institution, provides the document of record on McCahon and is the primary source of authentication for both institutions and the market, yes it does. Recently, when we were writing about McCahon’s waterfall mural held in the University of Otago, we looked up some details in the catalogue and also checked out how it was developing.

And it has to be said, it is not developing well at all. In this one entry we found -

•  The title of the painting is wrong. Whoops! It’s Waterfall Theme (and variations) not Waterfall theme & variations

•  The date is incomplete. It’s May–August 1966 not 1966.

•  The number of hardboard panels the painting is made up of is not noted.

•  The dedication to Mary de Beer which can be seen in an inscription on the work is not noted nor is the fact that the de Beer's and Charles Brasch funded the work for the university.

•  The inscription ‘As there is a constant flow of light and because of perceiving, the power of light with uninterrupted force, we are born into a new land’ is not noted.

•  The illustration of the work, as you can see above, is so poor it's barely worth publishing. There are no detail images available.

Pedantic? Sure and probably only of interest to a small number of people, but if this Online Catalogue is to be the primary record of McCahon's work it really is time to take it seriously after so many years of neglect.

Image: Colin McCahon Online Catalogue illustration of McCahon’s 7.3 x 3.31 metre mural Waterfall Theme (and variations)

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.

Twins

When Michael Parekowhai decided to paint red the carved piano He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu just days before it was to head off to the Venice Biennale, the paint job was a radical gesture. And even more radical given that the piano was black when it had been purchased by Te Papa. Now that's a vote of confidence in an artist. Now an OTN reader has just sent us a pic that shows that there’s not one but two red pianos in Te Papa’s collection. One is the carved version by Parekowhai while the other is a baby grand (literally). It was made in the UK in the fifties by O & M Kleeman under the brand Kleeware. Unlike the Steinway modified by Parekowhai, this tiny grand is just 3cm high designed, as it was, to furnish a doll’s house.

Images: left, Kleeware and right, Michael Parekowhai’s He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: story of a New Zealand river, both collection Te Papa Tongarewa. Thanks A

Denny exhibition brings out the cloak and dagger in Te Papa

We're approaching what's becoming a bi-annual tradition as Te Papa gears up to show off its latest Venice Biennale booty. Apart from the first outing, only one artist has failed to sell their Venice work to Te Papa and that was the super controversial outing by et al. in 2005. This year Simon Denny skirted controversy with Te Papa purchasing a very particular segment of the installation (they could always borrow some of the David Darchicourt material they excluded from the purchase via MoMA – ha, ha, just kidding). 

Denny's presentation at Venice put the Five Eyes spy network centre-stage reaching the dismal conclusion that the spy masters are just run of the mill corporate managers, albeit with chilling powers. So who's surprised that around 18 months ago, knowing that at least part of Denny's Secret Power was Te Papa bound, that someone hatched the bright idea to make a spy exhibition. The only reason we know this is thanks to the blog No right turn who used the Official Information Act to get documents out of Te Papa (you can read it here and also get access to the documents) outlining the show. The proposed timing is interesting too with Te Papa pushing for before Denny’s 2016 showing on their fifth floor. The original idea for the spy show actually came out of the Department of PM and Cabinet (Intelligence Coordination Group) working with Te Papa International Strategy Adviser. Hopefully not a standard source of exhibition ideas, but who was going to turn down a 'significant collection of scientific spying equipment, top secret documents, images (eg. political cartoons) and objects [to] tell the story of the secret world of NZ’s spies and their mission'?

As it turns out, Te Papa could. This proposal was in play months before the new CE Rick Ellis took over and it would be nice to think he was one to kick it into the gutter. Still, just think what might have been. This could have been an exhibition that overshadowed even Air New Zealand's brilliant PR capture of Te Papa. And lost too the opportunity to work with NZ’s top spies who were to 'provide the collection, expert advice, curatorial guidance (and co-curators); initiate and manage loans; manage political sensitivities etc’.

Presumably the crazy kids on the Te Papa staff (their names have been redacted from the documents) that dreamt up this wacky idea are still in the building pining over their lost opportunity to showcase the NZ intelligence community before Simon Denny sent them global. Secret Power indeed.

Head home

Word from Australia is that a new head of art has been appointed at Te Papa. The new hire is New Zealander Charlotte Davy who has been with the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney on and off for about 14 years, most recently as Head of Exhibitions. Again it is a rehire of a former staff member, Davy was Te Papa’s Collections manager from 2001 to 2003. Her predecessor as Head of Art, Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, was an historian and curator whereas Davy is firmly on the management side. She rose through the ranks as a registrar and collection manager but also has considerable experience with managing and producing exhibitions.

This background could fit in neatly with Te Papa’s current crush on developing touring exhibitions that could generate cash. The Economist reckons there are about 3,500 museums in China alone and that 100 new ones are built there each year. If Te Papa does become an exhibition maker and broker for content-hungry Asia, it will certainly need someone with a high level of skill in negotiation, process and policy. And that 'someone' would also need solid networks in North America and Europe to access content. 

Heading up Te Papa’s art division isn’t very taxing at present. There are no big NZ exhibitions on the slate (the last was Rita Angus in 2008) and no touring shows planned, this year anyway. A Head of Art hard into management (sounds weird but there it is) could fit better with Te Papa than a curatorial heavyweight.

Te Papa is not an easy place to be an advocate of the visual arts. Even Jonathan Mane-Wheoki who had a credibility overload never really managed to get much traction; a scrappy new gallery space cobbled out of the old library (the second time the art section has been shoved into space designed for books) and ongoing over-promoted thematic rearrangements of the permanent collection thinly disguised as curatorial exhibitions. Looking at her past achievements Charlotte Davy is unlikely to find much to interest her in that sort of curatorial housekeeping so all eyes on what projects she picks up.

Entrails

At OTN we’ve always been great fans of reading the entrails. Back a ways a haruspex used to interpret the divine will by inspecting the entrails of a sacrificial animal. So here for you all to interpret are some Te Papa's entrails as revealed in the media recently. 

•   Te Papa will take no international touring art exhibitions in 2016. This will be the first year without such an exhibition since the museum opened.

•   There will be no temporary exhibitions for the next five years unless they are from the permanent collection.

•   Te Papa is to collaborate with Weta Workshop to create experience based touring exhibitions to hire out to the global ‘museum’ market. Chief executive Rick Ellis has said that these touring plans will ‘help shape the museum for another stellar year in 2016’.

•   Rick Ellis also believes that the 1.56 million visitors this year were ‘driven to the museum by the "destination exhibitions" Tyrannosaurs, Air New Zealand and Gallipoli’

•   Te Papa has made it clear that it recognises ‘the importance of the Chinese market.’

•   To build links with Australia, Ellis had assigned ‘senior leaders to each state’ (‘Art, I’m giving you Western Australia…the bottom bit’).

What can it all mean for art at Te Papa? Prize for the best answer.

LATER: Meanwhile back in the rest of the world. 'Whatever the motivation, modern and, especially, contemporary art has become so big a draw that few museums can afford to do without it.' – Calvin Tomkins in the New Yorker

Image: bronze instructional liver from Etruria (You can find instructions on how to interpret your own entrails (sic) here)

Melvin (Pat) Day 1923-2016

This weekend Melvin Day died at the age of 92. Pat (as he was known to everyone) was a well-known artist and art historian, of course, but we remember him best as the director of the National Art Gallery (now Te Papa) from 1968 to 1978. It was over this decade that he helped drag the institution into the twentieth century. Although most of us quite rightly see Luit Bieringa as the true hero of contemporary art and the National collection, it was Pat who made the initial and perhaps the most difficult break with the past by committing the institutions to purchases of work made by his contemporaries - Rita Angus, Colin McCahon, Ralph Hotere, Gordon Walters, Pat Hanly.  Day also brought a younger generations of aritsts into the collection including Gretchen Albrecht, Chris Booth, Tony Fomison, Vivian Lynn, Ian Scott and Philip Trusttum. It's hard to remember how conservative the National Art Gallery was at that time. The NZ Academy of Fine Arts still held sway well into the 1970s. As a result Day rarely got the credit he deserved, caught between an impatient new art world that never felt he was doing enough, and the holders of the status quo that were convinced he was doing entirely too much. Looking through the acquisitions of Pat's decade it's revealing to see how a flurry of purchases would be followed by a quiet year or two as the forces of reaction pushed back until he regained momentum and got back into it again.

On a more personal note, Pat was a staunch and valued support for a very young and woefully unprepared new director of the Dowse Art Gallery in 1976. For Jim at that time he was the very best company and a generous mentor who knew that the politicking around art institutions could be intense and surprisingly personal. There was nothing quite like getting a call from Pat on a Friday afternoon suggesting a drink to wash away that week's bruising from rogue city councillors and antagonistic visitors. And an invitation to Seatoun to share a meal with Pat and his wife Oroya was always treat. They were both smart, very funny, opinionated and full of not always repeatable stories about who was doing what, but always grounded in a passion for art and history.

Image: a 1948 Self portrait by Melvin Day