Signature style

The I’ll-never-wash-my-hand-again syndrome is common enough in the world of popular music and entertainment. Once touched by greatness (ok celebrity) you’ve got an association you want to remember. That’s why people collect signatures (preferably not on their arms with black felt tip pen) although you do have to wonder what these associations are worth. Someone on Trade Me is testing the water at the moment with a ‘Philip Clairmont, Signed, Nostalgic Object, Icon’.

The icon offering is a copy of the album Soon Over Babaluma recorded by the German band Can in 1974. We know it was owned by Clairmont because he hand printed his name on the sleeve presumably to make sure it came back if borrowed. It ended up with Clairmont’s friend the artist Allen Maddox and was in turn passed on to the Trade Me seller. 

So, there you go, two associations for the price of one.

And what do you pay for a record that was once owned by Philip Clairmont and presumably touched by Allen Maddox? Bidding starts at $500. OTY.

Image: top, the associated Can album and bottom, the crucial Clairmont name on the reverse of the sleeve. (thanks for the heads up P)

Head shot

This is the picture that immediately preceded the one on OTN Studio.  As you can see we took another pic turning Phil’s I-am-shy comedy into a portrait of him as Jackson Pollock.

New images just published on OTN (in and out) of the studio:
Ronnie van Hout making Duch character and mouse character in 1999
Mr. Lindsay Fowler and Toss Woollaston in Riwaka, 1981
Julian Dashper's studio, 2011 
Neil Dawson working on Globe for Magiciens de la Terre, March 1989 
Portraits of Greg Burke, Justin Paton and Ronnie van Hout

Old school

A couple of years ago, almost to the day, Te Papa stripped out its contemporary art galleries and filled them with Brian Brake photographs. At the time we predicted that this would herald an end to those half-hearted guarantees by Te Papa that they would always having contemporary art on view. How did we do with that prediction? 

Regrettably, just great. For 100 days from 20 October the contemporary art space has now been given over to the gold-frame show Angels and aristocrats. This leaves the most recent piece of art in the fifth floor galleries to be one dated 1978 which is one year older than this year's winner of the Walters Prize. It’s The scarred couch, the Auckland experience by Phil Clairmont rather thrillingly described by Te Papa “like a wounded beast, the massive body of the couch convulses…” – c’mon guys, it’s a piece of furniture 

OK, there is Shane Cotton's painting Whakakitenga kit e kenehi hanging in the entry foyer to the fifth floor that is only 14 years old, but as to sculpture or installations or large scale photography, or video or performance? Nada. There you go then. Not a single work on display from the first 12 years of the 21st century.

So here's the question. Do we really need a shiny new silver National Art Gallery for Te Papa to programme? Based on their inability to maintain a sustained interest in contemporary art the answer to that would have to be… um… no.

Image: modern art at Te Papa