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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.

Where’s Walters?

The Auckland Art Gallery was far from amused when, back in 2012, artist-based gallery Snake Pit announced its own Gordon's Walters Prize with Gordon’s Gin (first distilled 1763) as the prize. Unlike the Walters Prize itself, the Gordon’s version was a free-for-all and whoever won the prize probably finished it off that night. At the AAG the Walters was taken by Kate Newby that year so it was a good time all round.

This year of course the Walters Prize is a much more solemn affair which is maybe what prompted the re-emergence of the Gordon’s. In a blatant act of brand disloyalty, it has moved to the younger gin maker Seagers (first distilled 1856) and taken on the name The Seagers Walters Prize. As with the Walters Prize, four artists have been snatched from the herd: an OTN regular (if once is counts) Li-Ming Hu along with Jack Hadley, Aysha Green and Fu-On Chung. In fact they would have made a pretty good Walters Prize line up themselves. There is to be an announcement and an award ceremony for the Seagers Walters Prize, a case of Seagers gin, presumably handed over by Judge, Artspace's Misal Adnan Yidiz (take that AAG).
Image: Seagers Walters Prize announcement (click to enlarge)

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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.

Winners and losers

Auckland is closed today (Anniversary Day) and of course Artspace is too but behind those closed doors there's a major reno going on. The sign on the door says Artspace will be open again tomorrow and it is certainly going to be a case of more-open-than-usual. The old Nga Taonga Sound & Vision space facing East Street has now become part of Artspace itself as an expansive open area for reading / resources / offices. No more wondering if you dare go through the glass door at the back of the gallery and venture past the toilets and into that office where everyone spins around as you come through the door. OK, some fashion stores do the intimidation thing better, but not many. We're told that Adnan Yildis, Artspace's newish director, figured out how to rejig Artspace a couple of hours after he first saw it. Now, thanks to Sue Gardiner acting as über fundraiser, his idea has been realised just a year after he took up the job. The only loser in the revamp was Oscar Enberg. Having taken on the Christmas Holidays slot, he might have expected his show to be on view for longer than usual, but when we got there it had been ‘Christoed’ to protect it while the builders and painters were doing their thing. Unfortunately it is squeezed at the other end by the opening of Fiona Clarke’s THE BILL to mark the 30th anniversary of Homosexual Law Reform in NZ. No one would suggest mucking around with that important anniversary but maybe the same energies that are galvanising Artspace will find a temporary venue so Enberg’s exhibition can get its full run.

Images: Looks like art, Oscar Enberg’s installation under wraps during the Artspace re-fit.

Brilliant or nonsense, you be the judge

One set of entrails that hasn’t been considered in the Venice Binnale selection process for 2017 is Speeculation. This was the 2007 what-you-send-to-Venice-when-you’re-not-sending-anyone-to-Venice publication spearheaded by Brian Butler, then director of Artspace. NZ's continuing participation in the Biennale was seriously in doubt at the time so the book's proposition was a plug for the depth of talent available asking 'Which New Zealand artist now or in the future could be sent to the Venice Biennale and exhibit in the New Zealand pavilion?' Chosen by eight NZ-based curators, the list of 27 artists was Auckland centric (81 percent), but it did include all the five artists who got the call to go to Venice in the subsequent years: Francis Upritchard, Judy Millar, Michael Parekowhai, Bill Culbert and Simon Denny. So maybe somewhere in the rest of the Butler list is another name with a chance although of the artists who are generally considered to have applied for 2017, only Apple and Mitchell are on the list. Maybe curators can only see a decade into the future at a time. The rest of the Butler artists are: Fiona Amundsen, Eve Armstrong, Andrew Barber, Stella Brennan, Judy Darragh, Bill Hammond, Ronnie van Hout, Sean Kerr, Jae Hoon Lee, Saskia Leek, Andrew McLeod, Daniel Malone, Ani O'Neill, John Reynolds, Jim Speers, Sriwhana Spong, Yvonne Todd, Yuk King Tan and Rohan Wealleans.

Image: Bultler and his team search for clues to future choices for the Venice Biennale (thanks for pointing the way B)

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

The Artspace age

1987 was a dynamic year for the arts in New Zealand. Colin McCahon died, the stock market crashed and Jorg Immendorff lived it up in the Hyatt after a death threat. In the midst of all that Artspace opened down near the waterfront. 

That was where we saw Choice the 1990 exhibition of contemporary Maori art curated by George Hubbard that introduced us to Michael Parekowhai. His sculpture The Indefinite Article got its first public outing there. Choice only attracted 555 visitors but its 18-day run turned out to be as influential as any exhibition shown in Auckland. We were also at a dinner held in conjunction with Julian Dashper’s Big Bang Theory in 1993, still back in the days when anyone who wanted to was able to sit at the drums and give them a bash. 

Later in its new digs in K-Road we will never forget Francis Upritchard nailing it by ‘filling’ the main space with a single grey haired sloth, its gloved hands decked with Karl Fritsch rings. 

That too was where we saw Parekowhai’s Ten Guitars played, et al.’s effortless reconfiguring of their Venice installation, Peter Robinson’s rambunctious Ack, Fiona Connor’s version of the Artspace staircase and director Emma Bugden lifting and lowering Alicia Frankovich.

And so much more. Thanks Artspace we couldn’t have done it without you.

Image: Watching Alicia’s up and downs (photo nicked from the Starkwhite blog)

Pining for Totora

If you’re an arts organisation, well any organisation really, what you need for long term planning is assured funding either from profits or taxes. Creative New Zealand has been working on a revamp of its multiyear funding of arts organizations for some time. It has dumped its old Recurrent Funding Programmes and come up with two new ways of slicing the same old cake. It’s a wood theme, Totara offering funding for two to five years and Kahikatea (Pine) for six months to two years. Good news for Team Totora who (you guessed it) are mostly involved in the performing arts. 

No organisation was given the to-die-for five year funding but three years, as any party in Government will tell you, is better than nothing. And in ‘category visual arts’ that’s what Artspace finally scored as did Objectspace, The Physics Room and the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust. You can check out who got what here including the slimmer pickings for the Pine people.

Game on!

August has arrived and Artspace faces its moment of truth. Will Creative New Zealand continue to fund it? An announcement has been promised for next month.

Yes, this is Masterchef CNZ style. Remember the cliffhanger at the end of the last series in December 2010? Artspace and some others were still in the game but the judges weren't happy. They called for a challenge (more info to be served up), asked the competitors to leave the room and went into a huddle.

Now they've had since May to make the big call. Who will leave the game and who will go on. The Artspace contestants are confident their presentation skills will win the day - they've even hired a new chef - but then their competitors probably feel safe too.

Left in the game are Arts Access Aotearoa, Artspace, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Circa Theatre, Downstage Theatre, Footnote Dance, Fortune Theatre, Southern Sinfonia and Vector Wellington Orchestra.

The clock is ticking, the judges are just about to come back with their decision. Who's going to make it into the next round?

Now it’s personal

10 reasons Creative New Zealand should fund Artspace

Choice (group show) 1990

Big Bang Theory (Julian Dashper) 1993

Action Replay (group show) 1998

Ten Guitars (Michael Parekowhai) 1999

Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed (Francis Upritchard) 2005

Ack (Peter Robinson) 2006

You are here (group show)2008

the fundamental practice - reorder, regroup, restore (et al) 2007

Sculpting in Time (Roman Signer) 2008

A plane for behaviour (Alicia Frankovich) 2009

And this from memory, our personal preferences, and the hit and miss experience of occasional Wellington visitors to Auckland.

The current CNZ funding for Artspace is $320,000 and that funding remains for 2011.

You can find a list of the nine other limping impalas who have been asked to ‘provide further information’ to CNZ before they are reconsidered for Art Leadership Investment funding here. We have included their currently approved funding for 2011 to give you an idea where the visual arts stand.

Images: Top to bottom, left to right, Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed (Francis Upritchard) 2005, the fundamental practice - reorder, regroup, restore (et al) 2007, You are here (Fiona Connor’s work), A plane for behaviour (Alicia Frankovitch) 2009

And then there was one

Creative New Zealand is going through some important changes. As we have mentioned before, the cake will stay the same but more and thinner slices are needed to cover new ground. To do this CNZ renamed the programme Arts Leadership Investment and asked who wanted to play. Thirty-nine existing CNZ clients wanted to stay in that funding relationship with CNZ and so ‘expressed interest.’ We now learn that just 22 of the 39 got in under the bar.

And the winners are:

Performing Arts

7 x Theatre

4 x Music

3 x Dance

2 x Festivals

1 x Pacific

2 x Maori

Visual Arts

1 x Contemporary art (the Physics Room)

1 x Craft (Objectspace)

... plus the NZ Book Council in a world of its own

As so often happens in cases like this, an oh-my-god-you-were-just-so-close-to-winning list was also published. Those 10 organisations were asked to ‘provide further information before a decision is made on whether they will be confirmed’. That's the list that Auckland's Artspace is on. 

Organisations like Artspace and Downstage (another of the tentative ten) will have reports requested by CNZ going back for years filling CNZ's cupboards and filing cabinets. Being asked yet again for ‘further information’ must be pretty galling. What information could there possibly be about these long term clients that CNZ doesn't already know?

The fate of the ten limping impalas is likely to rest on CNZ's evaluation of public response - how many people really care one way or the other whether or not the axe falls? As far as we can see, the only thing that will save Artspace is enough people standing up and convincing CNZ that killing it would be more trouble than it’s worth.

Outta space

The Dowse (it must be about time to drop the New Dowse thing) has had its ups and downs. It has certainly looked up more recently since the appointment of Cam McCracken as director and his reinvention of the art programme. Now we hear there is more good news for the Dowse as McCracken appoints his colleague from Te Tui days, Emma Bugden, as the Dowse’s new senior curator. Bugden, who is the current director of Artspace will leave to work at the Dowse around March next year. The great drift South has begun. You have been warned.

Image: Emma Bugden (foreground) lifting artist Alicia Frankovich during her Artspace performance

Meanwhile, across town…

The Auckland Art Fair was its now traditional smooth-running self with reportedly lots of sales right through the price range. It is still a mystery why dealers, who spend most of their time running discreet personal businesses, fall into step so publicly to present art as commodity. The descriptor we most often heard for the atmosphere of the Fair from dealers? "Collegial." It’s the same internationally where art fairs have also achieved what years ago would have seemed impossible - convincing the high, the low and the medium to muck in together.

Across town in Artspace a very different take on art was in play in a performance by Alicia Frankovich. We were greeted at the door of the main gallery space by Artspace director Emma Bugden. After a brief pause she opened the door to let us in. To get to the door she had been pulling Frankovich up to the ceiling of the gallery with an abseil harness and ropes hooked over the rafters. As our group moved into the gallery she went back into the gallery lowering the artist to the floor. As more people assembled in the foyer, Bugden had to raise Frankovich in order to get to the door, welcome new spectators and let them in. For most of the performance there were about 70 people watching.

For us, along with Frankovich’s ongoing examination of stamina and the body in architectural space, it was a smart look at the relationship of artists and institutions. The director was ready and willing to lift the artist above her and by proxy lift above her weight. A kind of mutually respectful partnership. In a word. Uplifting.
Images: Emma Bugden in the service of art.

Winning post

People who put their money on Emma Bugden as odds-on favourite for Artspace Director should proceed to the window to collect their winnings.

Stepping up

While we’re on our Artspace jag, we saw something you don’t often see in our public art museums: the director up a ladder. It happened around half-way through Artspace’s 21st birthday celebrations on Saturday night. It was crowded, it was hot and it was Artspace director Brian Butler himself who climbed up to open the high windows onto the main gallery space and let in some fresh air. When you think about it, that’s what he’s been doing since he arrived.
Image: Butler prepares

And they’re racing…

Artspace in Auckland has been up and running for 21 years and in that time has had six directors with an even male /female split. The entries for the next Artspace director’s race are little more loaded. Word is that the applicants are Emma, Heather, Natasha (say what?), Laura, Sophie, and a couple of guys who were early scratchings (no one even seemed to know their names). For what it’s worth, we picked up a strong Artspace is a “local shop for local people” chill in the air, and that the odds-on favourite was Emma. The selection will be made by the neatly gender-balanced group of William, Murray, Greg, Jonathan, Finn, Lisa, Elizabeth, Judy, Sue and Melanie.
A note from Heather Galbraith today to say "my hat was never in this ring. I have more than enough to keep me occupied with Francis' project for Venice ..."

Good eh?

When we promised almost a year ago (16 March 07) we wouldn't mention the Artspace sign again, we hadn't reckoned on this, photographed today.
Thanks R, that's worth a cap.