All the news that fits

The news that Simon Denny is showing in not one but two Venice venues (the Marciana Library and the Marco Polo airport) was recently leaked to the Christchurch media. Creative NZ rallied after an initial omg response but if you’re interested in the whole Venice thing (news as well as PR) it’s not that easy to follow what's happening. Creative NZ has put up a dedicated website but it’s not big on news so doesn't really give the whole picture. And on Facebook and Twitter Creative NZ treats its outings at Venice as a continuous event. This means that on Facebook the doings of artists who have previously been at Venice are all interspersed among updates on what we might see in 2015. On Twitter there's been nothing since September.  So kind of confusing, especially if you hit the signature map image  for Secret Power on the NZ at Venice Facebook page. You don't go to the Secret Power site as you might expect, instead you get 25 images, 21 of them of Michael Parekowhai's work.
   
So here’s a roundup of the extensive media Secret Power has already attracted:

16 February Infurno magazine announces Denny's Venice and PS1MoMA shows.

17 January 2015 satirist Steve Braunias lines up Simon Denny as potential future business in his NZH column Steve Bruanias the secret diary of ...2015

21 December John Daly-Peoples does a follow up for the NBR 'Simon Denny expands his Venice Biennale project'

Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan interviews Simon Denny on 16 December

The NBR shamelessly digs into Nicky Hager’s relationship to Simon Denny’s Venice gig on 16 December in a story about Hager’s sister getting a writer’s residency in Nick Grant’s 'Hager named Waikato University’s 2015 writer in residence'

On 15 December CNZ write a press release on Denny's dual venue 2015 'Venice Biennale: Second venue secured for NZ pavilion' which is picked by Scoop

The Denny installation at the Venice airport story reported by Charlie Gates in The Press on 4 December. Along with the inevitable photograph of Nicky Hager it announces the airport installation ‘will be funded by private donors’. The following day the story is updated with a brief CNZ response as 'Kiwi art to greet Venice new arrivals'.

Kim Knight’s 23 November interview with Simon Denny in Stuff 'Biennale artist follows his love'

Kate Brettkelly-Chalmers profiles Simon Denny for Ocula

Ashton Cooper profiles Simon Denny in Blouin Artinfo on 4 November with 'Artist Simon Denny On Silicon Valley, Skeuomorphic Design, and Tech Conferences'

Henry Oliver, a Denny insider, writes 'Simon Denny; the fine art of success' that appears in the November issue of Metro and includes news of Dame Jenny Gibbs' withdrawal from the Venice Patrons

On 29 October Jenny Gibbs gives her side of her walk out from the Venice Patrons to Stuff’s Kim Knight in '"Ethics" behind patron's withdrawal of Biennale support'

Natalie Akoorie on Jenny Gibbs withdrawal from the Venice Patrons in the NZ Herald on 30 October in 'Dirty Politics author in arts funding row'

Sally Blundell profiles Simon Denny in The Listener on 9 October in 'Imagining the vastness' (behind a paywall)

The Dominion Post features Simon Denny in Diana Decker’s 29 September piece 'The power of one: The rise of Simon Denny: Tracking Simon Denny's rise in the art world'

Nicky Hager is announced as a member of the Venice team in Tom Hunt’s 19 August article in Stuff 'Hager's book empowers Venice-bound artist'

E-flux announces Denny’s selection as NZ's representative in Venice on 14 August

Scoop headlines Creative NZ’s 5 August media release announcing the venue for Simon Denny’s installation in Venice with 'Spectacular venue secured for New Zealand exhibition'

Here we go again

The panel to select the next New Zealand artist (or artists) for the Venice Biennale has been announced. Who are they and what can we expect?

Dr Dick Grant is Chair of Creative NZ and also chairs the panel. He's an enthusiastic supporter of NZ’s participation in Venice. He can be counted on for a straight up selection process, not something that has always been a feature in the past.

Alastair Carruthers is the Commissioner for the 2017 Venice Biennale and a past Chair of Creative NZ. As chair of Creative NZ he was hot on transparency and focus on artists. He values his independance and we can expect leadership from him as Commissioner. He'll be after an artist who can make a major international impact. He was on the panel that selected Simon Denny for 2015.

Aaron Kreisler is the Head of the Ilam Art School in Christchurch with a curatorial background, especially at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. He submitted a proposal to a previous panel so he’s familiar with the process, and the importance of curation to the project.

Dr Caroline Vercoe is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Auckland. She specialises in contemporary Pacific artists, particularly those based in New Zealand.

Dayle Mace is a long-time Patron of the Venice Biennale. She's served on every art-related board you can think of from Te Papa to the Auckland Art Gallery patrons and the Auckland Art Fair. She’s an effective arm-twister, especially in Auckland, and an excited supporter of artists. She was on the panel that selected Simon Denny for 2015.

Heather Galbraith was the Venice Commissioner for 2015. She has long been an insider in NZ’s presence in Venice including as curator for Francis Upritchard in 2009. In her day job she is Associate Professor at Massey University's art school in Wellington. She was on the panel that selected Simon Denny for 2015.

Judy Millar is the only artist on the panel. She represented NZ at the Venice Biennale herself in 2009 so she certainly has seen the game from both sides. She is also known for her opinionated writing and thinking around current art issues and brings an international perspective as she is based in both Auckland and Berlin. She was on the panel that selected Simon Denny for 2015.

Leigh Melville is a partner in the Auckland auction house Art + Object. She was chair of the Patrons group in 2015 and is back for more in 2017. Her input will be significant as the Patrons are responsible for coming up with a big chunk of the funding for NZ at Venice and they have had enough experience now to be clear about what works.

Michael Prentice is Managing Director of Designworks in Christchurch. He has had a long involvement with the performing arts including founding then Trust Board for Black Grace. He is on the panel as an Arts Council member.

Rose Evans is a conservator with a long history in the NZ Museum business. She is on the panel as an Arts Council member.

Charlotte Huddleston is Director of ST PAUL St Gallery in Auckland

Patron padrone

Even in its wildest dreams the politicos couldn’t have imagined that their plea for philanthropists to take over arts funding would result in packs of patrons roaming the streets of Venice acting as supporters of team Culbert and team George.

New Zealand has exhibited at the Venice Biennale since 2001 and each outing has been backed by a group of patrons as well as Creative NZ. This year turns out that John and Jo Gow (Connells Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island and also NZ at Venice patrons ) and dealer Rebecca Hamid of RH Gallery in Nelson have launched a competitive patronage package. This one is funding Darryn George to show in the curated exhibition Personal Structures exhibition at the Palazzo Bembo in Venice. It seems to have much the same trappings as the NZ at Venice one for Bill Culbert (editioned George prints for sale at $2,500, $5,000 and $5,000+, tours in Venice etc) but of course with Culbert as the official NZ representative his comes with Venice gold, the almost-impossible-to-get Vernissage tickets. 

 

So how much is this new group trying to raise? You’d have to guess you'd say - a lot. Showing at Venice is not cheap even at the edges. The PalazzoBembo where George has been invited to show (Judy Millar was there at the last Biennale and Scott Eady will join George in this one) offers its spaces at $2,200 per square meter. When you add making the work (a ‘fabricated room’ to fit within the existing space along with ‘a high tech lighting system’) freight, airfares, accommodation etc George's budget must be in the region of $150,000. That’s a lot of money to suck out of a well that the Culbert patrons must have thought was theirs for the drinking. How this will all be negotiated with George’s other dealers is anybody’s guess. Look out for more of these patron/dealer/artist mixes as biennales, art fairs and artist projects expand in scale and ambition and the costs escalate.

Play time

Something that isn’t often mentioned about New Zealand’s Venice Biennale efforts is the disinterest of the Auckland Art Gallery. This looks like it's about to change.

There has never been an AAG curator involved in any of the Venice outings so far but given that five of our eight Venice artists have been based in Auckland you'd think that the AAG might have exhibited their work when it finished up in Italy. Not a chance. Indeed in the case of et al (even Te Papa refused to show it even though it had exhibited and purchased Venice installations by Stevenson, Upritchard, Millar and Parekowhai and will probably do the same for Culbert) the installation was only in the end exhibited in Auckland thanks to Artspace although in fairness the AAG did finally purchase the work.

This lack of involvement verges on the bizarre when you take into account the strong private support for Venice from Aucklanders. The patrons group for Venice almost replicates the AAG’s own key support group. So it seems that apart from the many artists, patronage has been Auckland’s great contribution to the Venice projects with Jenny Gibbs, Dayle Mace and Leigh Melville all key players.
 
Now there are signs that the Auckland Art Gallery with its new director Rhana Devenport is going to change all that. Word is that the projects of two AAG curators are going through to proposal stage and, more dramatically, that the director herself has submitted not one but two expressions of interest that have also been accepted to proposal stage. This is a big change in commitment and strategy. It could herald a shift from Te Papa’s domination of the event at home and, who knows, the possibility of someone from the AAG curating the next artist to represent us in Venice.

Secret squirrel: the adventure continues

It has been over half a year since Michael Parekowhai was announced as the New Zealand representative at the Venice Biennale. In those months the venue has been secured, the idea for the work developed and the production set in play. And yet if you check out the CNZ Venice website you’d think that nothing has happened at all. 

If any lesson should have been learned over the fiasco with et al and the 2005 Biennale, it is that better and wider communications would have meant more intelligent and informed support when the politicians went AWOL (and they only climbed the fence because they didn’t know what was going on either). 

There is something odd we have noted before about the approach visual arts institutions take to communications and marketing. They seem to live back in the days of The Big Surprise. Keep everything under wraps (often literally as well as figuratively) and then do the precisely timed “Reveal.” Trouble is, this model only works when you have a big budget to keep the media engine revved. If you don’t, the arts never make it as a big media story unless, of course, the story to be told is a negative one and then, boy does it turn out to have legs. (again, check out Venice Biennale 2005 for a textbook demo). 

The Big Reveal Strategy is based on the old miscalculation that if we think it is interesting, the media will too. Count up the column space the media gave to the Big Announcement in February about the artist selected to represent NZ at Venice to gauge the level of media excitement. We have done it on your behalf and their flame does not burn bright. The CNZ at Venice Website peters out after the Parekowhai announcement and a couple of refs to places he has exhibited this year.

The answer is to build a community of interest. There are enough people who think the arts are a waste of space and money without ignoring the few that are your supporters. Share the story early with people who already have some connection with it in the reasonable expectation that they will talk about it and create further interest and excitement. After all, there is a selected group of people ‘in the know’ already. We reckon there must be at least a couple of hundred of them, probably more. The people who have been told exactly what Michael Parekowhai intends presenting at Venice and where it will be shown. We’re thinking of the large number of potential patrons (and we assume any of their friends who were interested) who were briefed on the work a month or so ago. We’re not talking state secrets here, rather carefully controlled information in the interests (it seems) of fund-raising. As for anyone else with an interest in how NZ is representing us through art, they are kept in the dark. Seems odd when they have made the biggest investment by stumping up to pay the salaries at CNZ and the costs of undertaking the Venice project with everyone else.

So time to spill the beans, open the doors of the what’s-going-to-happen-at-Venice clubroom and let the rest of the public who are interested in art in. You might be surprised what good company they can be.

A decision tree

Bringing balance to Venice in 2013

Four women and three men have represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale

Choose a male artist

The surnames of four of the artists representing New Zealand at Venice start with a letter from the second half of the alphabet and the surnames of three from the first half

Choose an artist whose surname starts with a letter from the first half of the alphabet

Four Elam graduates and three Ilam graduates have represented New Zealand at Venice

Choose an Ilam graduate

Four of the artists representing New Zealand at Venice have been under fifty years old and three over fifty

Choose an artist over fifty

New Zealand’s representation at Venice has followed the pattern: pair of artists/ single artist/ single artist/ pair of artists/ single artist/

Choose a single artist

Four of the artists at Venice were living in New Zealand and three were living abroad

Choose an artist living abroad

All the artists representing New Zealand at Venice have exhibited sculptural installations

Repeat

Eat my dust

June 2005 et al. exhibits at the Venice Biennale.
“Is it worth being here? Without a shadow of a doubt.” Peter Biggs, Chairman of Creative NZ reporting from Venice. (read report here)

5 months

November 2005 CNZ commissions an $80,000 evaluation report from Sydney-based company SGS,on New Zealand’s participation in the Venice Biennale. (get report here)

7 months

May 2006 SGS’s Report is released and enthusiastically recommends continued New Zealand presence at Venice.

“This evaluation has provided both qualitative and quantitative evidence highlighting that the Venice investment is a worthwhile one.”

“New Zealand will return to the Venice Art Biennale in 2009 as part of a wider international market development strategy” CNZ Chief Executive Elizabeth Kerr (read full statement here)

5 months

October 2006 CNZ calls for nominations for the Tripofalifetime Tour. Selected representatives of the art world will be paid to visit art event hots spots in Europe and report back.

7 months

June 2007 The tripofalifetime tour visits Venice, Basel, Munster and Kasel.

2 months

August 2007 Tripofaliftimers tour members submit their reports to CNZ marked “Confidential”. “our International Market Development Strategy for the Visual Arts.… is to be finalised and presented to the Council of Creative New Zealand for approval at their December 2007 meeting” (CNZ email 26 July 2007)

4 months

December 2007 A discussion about “a strategy on International participation” including the Venice is “on the agenda” for the December meeting of CNZ’s Arts Council. (CNZ email 27 Nov ember 2007)

“Creative New Zealand is planning to release the “overarching Europe delegation report following the Council's December 2007 meeting” (CNZ email 27 November 2007) plus an “up-date regarding the visual arts international strategy” (CNZ email 28 November 2007)

1 month

January 2008 It is planned for CNZ’s new “International team” to be “up and running”.

However CNZ is “not expecting to present a final strategy to the Arts Council until the new International team is up and running.” (CNZ email 27 November 2007)

10 months

November 2008 Or sometime after the election. Our pick for a final decision.

If it’s broke, fix it

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee needs to call a moratorium on pulling down Christchurch’s heritage buildings and get to Venice, and he needs to get to Venice quick. This is the Brownlee who said about Christchurch’s heritage buildings, "While they are part of our past history, they have no place in our future history. As I've said repeatedly, heritage is both forward and back and from this point on, we decide what the heritage of this city will be."

When he gets to Venice, and he might as well bring the team of people who are giving the ok to demolish heritage buildings in Christchurch, he’s going to find a whole city (a city that has had many earthquakes of its own in the past) that he and his mates would put under the bulldozer.

Brownlee could go round cracking Venetians up by telling them that their buildings were a grave risk to personal safety and that the old stuff he saw around him has no place in Venice’s ‘future history.’

The team could spend a year or so red-stickering practically every architectural structure in Venice and then, go back to Christchurch and see the risks around our own heritage buildings in a completely different light. Things do fall down in Venice – the 98.6 metre Campanile in St. Mark’s Square dropped to the ground in 1902 and the Venetians did what any city proud of its heritage would do. They put the damn thing up again.

Image: Venice (click on image to widen cracks and increase leans)

Go away

We get a good response from any posts about the preparations for Venice and CNZ’s plans. But information is hard to come by. CNZ are sparing with their releases and there’s not exactly active follow-up by the media although Art News is doing a great job. To try and get things moving we asked CNZ the following questions:

1 Is Bic Runga going to Venice to support the art shows?
2 Are Moana and the Moa Hunters going to Venice?
3 What is the "reading room" all about? What sort of furniture is being displayed? and how was it transported to Venice?
4 Where will the opening will be held ie Francis's venue or Judy's or both?
5 What sort of events will be held alongside the Venice exhibitions?
6 How many CNZ staff and associates will be traveling to Venice including Board members?
7 How is the private fund raising going?
8 Can we have a copy of the CNZ Budget for Venice, is that possible?

CNZ’s response?

1 No answer
2 No answer
3 No answer
4 “there will be separate openings at each of the venues, but on the same night and timed to follow one after the other”
5 No answer
6 No answer
7 “Excellent”
8 Maybe after Easter

The answer to question 7 kinda sums up CNZ’s attitude to its interested public. Trite. a second more official version of the CNZ reply is here on OTN Stuff.

We will box on. Any help appreciated.

Image: Greta Garbo, patron Saint of What-Is-It-About-Leave-Me-Alone-You-Don’t-Understand?

Some grist for the rumour mill

After the selection of Simon Denny for the last Venice Biennale we tried to get a list of the curator/artist teams that had put in proposals to be considered. Two years later the Ombudsman finally told us that as Creative NZ had confidentiality agreements with all concerned, this information could not be released. So there you go. If you want to keep your selection processes secret all you need to do is put a gag on the participants. For now, it’s back to rumours, guesses and stabs in the dark. We’ll come up with a list of who we think has applied (you’re welcome to put in your 10 cents worth) shortly after 16 September when proposals have to be with Creative NZ. By that time Creative NZ will have announced who's on the selection panel. In the meantime, after scanning the proposal form, what will they be looking for?

A new work made specifically for Venice. As in the past, the work shown at Venice will have been made for Venice. “The artist(s) will be responsible for the preparation of new work within the nominated timeframe.” That is “suitable for the Venice Biennale context.” Nothing new there, apart from the work.

Agreement to the et al. clause. Creative NZ never recovered from et al’s refusal to talk to the media in 2005 and since then specifically requires the artist to “participate in publicity and promotion activities, which includes media interviews, media launches”.

Funding opportunities. The last Biennale made it clear that Creative NZ expects significant funding via the artist’s dealers. The last Venice outing saw Denny’s dealers make significant contributions to the production of the work, the publication, administrative support and entertainment in Venice. It's also hard to imagine a successful proposal that did not bring with it (probably via the curator) major institutional backing. The usual suspects include Auckland Art Gallery, City Gallery Wellington, Christchurch Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Te Papa. Untapped so far but definitely a possibility is the tertiary sector via one the art school universities

Looking at the pool of likely contestants it's interesting to ponder on how these requirements will impact on the panel’s final decision when they are applied to specific artists.

Image: Rumour mill, operating model

All the news that fits

When we started OTN we decided that if we ever heard important art news that was being selectively shared by 20 or so people around a Wellington or Auckland dinner table, we'd  share it with you. That’s how you've got to hear advance word about events like the Walters Prize and the artists selected for Venice. For a couple of weeks now we have been waiting for CNZ to share Venice news with you, but as of Monday they're still marshaling their thoughts, so here you go.

First up, Michael Parekowhai’s Venice installation has been requested by the Quai Branly Museum in Paris for a standalone exhibition later this year after the Biennale closes. This will be the second time Parekowhai has been exhibited in this award-winning museum; a large photographic mural was installed for the opening. Most of the credit for this outing of On first looking into Chapman’s Homer in Europe can be laid at the door of Venice Commissioner Jenny Harper, no shrinking violet when it comes to fronting for NZ abroad. 

Next up, the word on the street is that Te Papa has purchased the carved piano Story of a New Zealand river that was the centrepiece of the Venice installation. The museum apparently initiated the purchase process when the piano was black and took in its stride the transformation into red. The consensus rumour is that Te Papa are to pay over $NZ one million for the work.

Also on the boil is yet another ‘expose’ by Metro magazine feeding its obsession (and yes, we do get the irony) with Creative New Zealand's bureaucracy. While their current issue questions CNZ paying over the odds for a PR flack, freelancer Josie McNaught has been wearing out the phones cobbling together a story of new revelations. Apparently she is material that may reveal that dealer galleries make arrangements with public museums, negotiations over purchases can often take months and Michael Lett is too big for his boots rofl. 

As to where the Parekowhai Venice work will be shown on its return to New Zealand, we’d put our money on Christchurch. Auckland has never offered our Venice Biennale artists space and with Harper as Commissioner along with Christchurch’s tough year, it's hard to imagine the only other contender, Te Papa, not allowing them the pleasure.

Old school

Last week Hamish Keith tweeted, “My Listener column on Bill Culbert choice for Venice Biennial will not make me popular but I think it has to be said.” If only. Instead the selection has been swallowed whole without so much as a burp. 

Exactly when was it that we decided to change why we send artists to the Venice Biennale? Who was it that decided we stop supporting and internationally spring-boarding artists in mid or early career as we have done so far, and instead artistically ‘knight’ an artist at the end of his working life? 

Stumping up with over $600,000 (44 percent of the entire CNZ international budget) to give a one-off honour to an artist at the end of his career (Bill Culbert will be 78 when representing us at Venice) can hardly be described as either a medium or long-term investment in our contemporary culture. Wasn't that what Venice was supposed to be about? When you consider that the Laureates Awards are only $50,000 each and the Icons are just given a gong and a pin for the honour of it, this is a huge call.

While on one hand CNZ constantly tells us they are investing in the future of New Zealand art, Commissioner Jenny Harper claims that "Venice is a wonderful platform for us both to celebrate his [Culbert's] individual achievements and to continue to present the richness of this country’s visual arts practice." In reality Culbert is to all intents and purposes an 'English' artist who hasn’t lived in the country for over 50 years and didn’t start regularly exhibiting in New Zealand until he was 65. This surely undercuts his ability to present that richness.

And if we're talking about celebrating the individual achievements of our senior artists there's a long queue of worthy candidates starting with Apple (Billy) and heading right through the alphabet to Webb (Boyd). Then if we step back from the seniors (sorry about that Boyd), there is a whole raft of established artists who would benefit long-term from such a huge investment. 2013 is the final year that the Government has committed to supporting Venice so there is more than a good chance we can wave attending post 2013 Biennales goodbye. It's a failure of nerve that artists like Shane Cotton, Brett Graham, Gavin Hipkins and Fiona Pardington to name just a few are now unlikely now to be given this opportunity. Any one of them would certainly better deliver on CNZ’s requirement that Venice participation ensures “New Zealand’s distinctive voice is heard overseas.”

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Creative NZ has announced that its Venice Biennale committee is set to pick who's to go to Venice in 2015 but who's on that committee? So far we only know the names of the CNZ operative and the Commissioner who's head of school at Massey Heather Galbraith (as an aside one assumes this probably rules out any Massey staff getting the nod). The word is that the artist will be chosen before the current Venice Biennale ends on 24 November.

There's certainly some interesting scene-setting for their choice. Across a couple of dimensions past selections have added up to a perfect balance: an equal number of women and men selected over the years and an equal number born in the North Island and in the South Island. The selections even stack up quite well in bicultural terms with three of the eight having Maori affiliations. Beyond that though the choices have been considerably narrower. 

Our Venice representative studied at Elam (5 to 3), lived overseas or in Auckland (5 to 3), was a sculptor (7 of 8 - even the one painter Judy Millar was most likely to have had her Venice installation read as sculpture). Interestingly 5 of them have also gone on to be a finalist or win the Auckland Art Gallery’s Walters Prize (5 to 3). In fact looking at it the other way round, the only Walters Prize winners not to have done Venice are, Yvonne Todd and Kate Newby. Whoops we left out Dan Arps (thanks for the reminder R) and sorry Dan.
 
So how do the leading contenders shape up?

The elephant in the room remains painter Shane Cotton. A NZ artist who has received major recognition (exhibitions, publications, overseas representation) but can’t tick even one of the majority boxes including (unbelievably) winning or even being nominated for the Walters Prize. That's especially weird when you think that 24 artists have been selected for the Prize to date. 

As a photographer Fiona Pardington doesn’t do much better box-wise although she picks up one for studying at Elam. 

Simon Denny on the other hand ticks the lot and coupled with his recent rave review by Roberta Smith in the New York Times must be a front-runner. If he got the nod he'd be the youngest ever by a couple of years and 47 years younger than this year’s Bill Culbert (ironically 47 is also the average age of all the past Venice representatives). So it looks like a slam dunk for Denny. 

But then it did last time too.

Mind the gap

How do we tell if an artist is regarded as important to our culture? There are a number of rules of thumb to work with: appearing on the cover of Art New Zealand, winning the Walters prize, representing us at the Venice Biennale, having a major survey show at a public museum, getting serious CNZ grants and being well represented in the National Collection held by Te Papa.

Using these as a benchmark, you’d have to wonder what’s gone wrong with et al as they tick all these boxes save one. To date there is only one significant et al. work (Object: Misguided) in Te Papa’s collection. It was purchased ten years ago before et al won the Walters Prize or went to Venice and it has never been on display. It is included in Te Papa’s online catalogue, but is not illustrated unlike most other significant works.

There is a precedent for this blindspot. Colin McCahon was not included in the collection of the National Art Gallery until he was 50 and had to wait until he was 59 before a major work was purchased. Since then the National Collection has been playing an expensive game of catch-up buying works that could have been purchased for peanuts if the curators had shown better judgement. [Disclosure: we have personally benefited from this process.]

Auckland Art Gallery gets the significance of et al. It has four major installations representing most phases of the et al. group’s work along with seven other works and a good representation via the Chartwell Collection. And it was smart about McCahon too.

Te Papa seems to have a special problem with et al. Think about it. et al. is the only New Zealand representative at Venice not to have the Venice work shown in New Zealand by the organizing gallery (Te Papa’s contemporary curator at the time, Natasha Conland, curated the Venice show). This year we have Acting CEO Michelle Hippolite being ‘delighted to have supported the staging of New Zealand at the Venice Biennale 2009 and to be able to present Judy Millar and Francis Upritchard’s installations during the New Zealand International Arts Festival'. That support has also been expressed through the purchase of the Venice works of Fraser, Stevenson, Upritchard and Millar. No Peter Robinson purchase and, you guessed it, no etal.

et al.’s work is also missing from the major publication documenting Te Papa’s collection (the only Walters Prize winner not to be included, we assume because the registration department is still unable to supply a picture of the installation ten years after it entered the collection).

While et al. might not be easy for the general public to take, fear of public criticism is no reason to ignore work that has been acknowledged as important in every other art forum we have. Key members of the collective are approaching the age of sixty. Te Papa needs to take action and start building its et al. holdings as part of its mission to tell the stories of New Zealand.

Image: Object: Misguided 1999

.

Sydney sider
Having been hammered to death from 2007 to 2009 the artist resale royalty popped up again in the Sunday Star Times. Weirdly artist Grahame Sydney came out against it calling its supporters "Greedy. Immensely greedy." He went on to say that a sale was a sale and that as such it was "A firm, final contract between two parties - the implicit agreement being 'I will give you this thing I have made in return for this amount of money I have asked for, or we have mutually agreed is fair'. At that point, as with any sale, I relinquish my ownership rights to it.” Presumably he exempts copyright payments, the other artist royalty system, from this hard line position.

Art chart  A couple of years ago we looked at the male/female ratio in dealer galleries. Has the situation changed at all since then? Well yes it has. It’s not mega but there has been a small increase overall in the representation of women: just one percent up to a still pretty bleak 34 percent overall. In dealer galleries run by women the percentage increase was 10 percent (to 52 percent) with galleries run by men dropping their representation of women by 5 percent. If you want to look at the representative list of galleries we based these figures on you can see it here.

Gold 
The golden trumpet for stretching description beyond recognition goes this month to New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd for: "The Govett-Brewster is a cornerstone of contemporary art globally.” You may smile now.

By the numbers: Venice edition

0  the number of artists who have used the Marco Polo airport as a venue

1    the number of times we didn’t go because et al. annoyed the PM

2         the number of venues being used by Simon Denny

7         the number of times NZ has been represented

41       the number of NZ at Venice patrons

44       the percentage of NZ Venice participants who have been female

45       the average age of artists representing NZ

33       the age of this year’s participant Simon Denny

56       the number of art biennales that have been held in Venice

75       the percentage of women who had to show as part of a two-hander

80       the percentage of men who had solo shows at Venice

88       the number of countries that participate at Venice

197     the days the Venice Biennale will run in 2015

Miniatures
If you haven’t seen the tiny furniture by set designer John Parker on OTN’s site, it's beyond cute. And for all miniature fanatics this great behind-the-scenes clip of tiny LA being constructed for the movie Earthquake.

Cut to the chase

What is it about the Walters Prize and the Venice Biennale? Every Venice Biennale that New Zealand has participated in has featured a winner or finalist (and one of them had one of each) of the Walters Prize. OK, Peter Robinson was a Walters’ catch-up, but the list below is a beautiful thing, synchronicity-wise.

NZ’s representation at the Venice Biennale:
2001 Jacqueline Fraser (Walters Prize finalist 2004)
2001 Peter Robinson (Walters Prize finalist 2006 and winner 2008)
2003 Michael Stevenson (Walters Prize finalist 2002)
2005 Et al. (Walters Prize winner 2004)
2007 NZ did not attend
2009 Francis Upritchard (Walters Prize Winner 2006)

Yvonne Todd is the only Walters Prize winner not to have had a spot in Venice. Maybe she was bumped for the Trip of a Lifetime tour (just kidding).

The Walters Prize seeks out the artists who have created the best exhibitions since the last prize, so it is not surprising that it is also the obvious Venice choices that get the nod. Here’s an idea. Maybe it’s time to save energy and money and drop one of the selection processes (let’s go for the cumbersome CNZ affair involving eight selectors) and make the winner of the Walters Prize (four selectors) the Venice choice as well.

Terry and the pirates

If you’re looking for a project manager with excellent technical savvy and a long history of work in art galleries and museums, you can’t go far past Terry Urbahn. Terry, who is also a practising artist, was the project manager to sort out the last two New Zealand forays to Venice after the initial expensive, and not very comfortable, effort with an Australian outfit.

It’s easy to understand why the Australians were keen to get him for their own Venice efforts next year. And they did. Terry will now take the experience and skills he developed via CNZ funding and use it to help make the Australian presence at Venice trouble free. CNZ have advertised for a Production and Technical Manager for the next Venice Biennale and we assume they have in mind someone with as good or better skills and experience than Terry Urbahn. Let’s see who that someone is. It’s a big ask when their only other person with multiple Venice experience, Undine Marshland, has left.

You do have to wonder why CNZ did not tie Urbahn up for the 2009 tour when they had the chance. Our Venice Risk-o-metre is reading High.
Image: The Over The Net Risk-o-meter

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)

Cash offer

We can all agree on one thing, the NZ at Venice Patrons know how to raise money. They can usually anything up to $400,000 to the $650,000 that the Government puts into Venice via Creative NZ. While there are a few very generous patrons most of the 63 listed last year stumped up with $5,000. It’s a sweet deal. Patrons usually get a free signed limited edition print donated by the artist, a copy of the catalogue, a couple of free tickets to the hard-to-get-into Biennale opening days, access to other elite Venice events as well as glam lunches put on by the dealers and others trying to leverage their good favour. You can join up here.

Potential patrons are traditionally wooed at functions held around the country with drinks and nibbles in a palatial residence and the artist and curator in tow to sweet talk the crowd. There not being so many rich people in Dunedin the usual thing has been to hold functions in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland but this year in preparation for Venice 2015 word is that Wellington will be given the swerve. You can see the logic when you look at the patron list. It’s pretty much an Auckland club with a few heavy hitters from Christchurch. Wellington’s contribution has tended to be in the less sexy area of administration and intangibles of influence on the Government's $600,000 although this year both the commissioner (Heather Galbraith) and the curator (Robert Leonard) are based in Wellington. In earlier times patronage used to include a wide range of support for a project along with the financial but for Venice you get the feeling cash is clearly king.

But wait…there’s more

Our announcement the other day that Judy Millar was off to Venice prompted a flurry of emails. How many people knew all this stuff? We did a rough count and figure at least 100 people were in the know including CNZ staff and councils, the losers of the proposal competition, dealers, the selection panel and we threw in a couple of others who might have been listening at the door (to be realistic we have only added one family member and one best friend who has been sworn to secrecy per person). The things is, times have changed and organisations like CNZ are not changing with them. The idea that this sort of information can be restricted to a small group of institutional people for weeks on end is not a happening thing in our world of email, blogging and mobile communications. If we can hear about the Venice result in Berlin, it’s not a big secret.

The solution for CNZ is to open up its processes, stop using the Official Information Act like a blunt instrument, and think of themselves as partners in the culture rather than parents. For example, is there any reason why the meeting of the panel to decide on the artist for Venice couldn’t be open to the public? It sounds outrageous in today’s climate, but why? Knowing how the people who represent us think is important to us all, and we do pay most of their salaries.

In the meantime, we understand that CNZ is trying to get funds to send a second artist to Venice. Why this is a problem is anybody’s guess, as most of the Venice funding goes on the venue and its staffing, not the artists. So fingers crossed for Francis and good on you Judy.
Image: a set of Ginzu steak knives