Old white men, gotta love ‘em

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

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

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

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

Image: art cartoon by American painter Ad Reinhardt

Potty

You'd think that there are some things so iconic, so distinctive, so rich in historical flavour that a national or  city museum would just have to get their hands on them, wouldn't you? Milan Mrkusich’s house in Remuera  would have to be one of them, Colin McCahon’s library should have been another, and that easel Rita Angus always used. How could you pass up a draft of Wystan Curnow’s essay High culture in a small province, or Theo Schoon's notes and sketches on South Island cave drawings? Some of these have been protected while others have already slipped into private hands. What’s are the odds on anyone discussing with the Mrkusich family the long-term future of the house Mrkusich designed and lived in for so many decades? Low. 

This rant comes to you courtesy of us seeing one of these icons when we were in Auckland last week. The people we were with mentioned they had recently purchased something very cool at an Art + Object auction. Then they showed it to us. And, we kid you not, it was Len Castle’s Pottery notes sub-titled Len Castle's Mixtures. We're talking about the recipes he used to glaze his ceramics and drawings for constructing kilns. We're  no experts, so have no idea how much of his working life it covers, but even as a sample it is a truly wonderful thing. 

How is it even possible that this little notebook with its handwritten and hand-drawn contents is not part of an Auckland institution’s collection? The same couple also picked up (and at an very reasonable price) some of Castle’s library of books on ceramics as well as (maybe best of all) a couple of boxes of stones and mineral samples that had offered Castle inspiration and information. OK, the institutions can’t collect everything. But Len Castle’s Pottery notes? Surely some mistake.

Wystan's world

The critic's part Wystan Curnow art writings 1971-2013 is an elegant book containing a selection of Curnow’s writings edited by Christina Barton and Robert Leonard. As Leonard says in his introduction, the great thing Curnow did was to leave New Zealand, and then come back. While Curnow could have gone on to have a successful academic career in the US, in 1970 he bought a ticket home.

The first thing to say is that this is a very good read. That's probably because Curnow has always had a firm grip on his position in regard to culture and is happy to put it in plain albeit stylish and sometimes playful language. You may not agree with everything Curnow says (why would you) but you could never accuse him of obscurity. The second point is that Curnow has a particular talent for sussing out where the interesting stuff is happening and going with it. His writing probably made some of it interesting in the first place. And it's good to have so much material so readily available. Curnow is also a diligent observer of our culture and very generous with giving over important dates, times and events.

Some of the pieces will be familiar to some readers but there are a lot of fresh connections to make now that it's all together. A nicely edited selection of photographs tells its own story - men in suits and with pipes look out at the world, people scramble across the moonscape of the Mount Eden Crater, the now vanished tiled floors of the Auckland Art Gallery take a formalist turn, and Colin McCahon holds the centre. The selection of writing feels pretty representative and the editors are relaxed about letting Curnow show his obdurate side when it works for him. He has always had a very personal take on what’s what so you get some odd artists corralled together and many, many important people and events missed out or skated over. Most notably this version of Curnow hasn't engaged with many women artists. Only three of the 22 chapters focused on single artists are devoted to them so let's note them: et al., Julia Morison, Linda Buis in partnership with Peter Roche and Jacqueline Fraser coupled with Gordon Walters. Obviously there are women included in some of the other chapters, but still.

What Wystan Curnow nails is a style of art reporting we don't see much. Even though he peers at things through a global lens Curnow is always fully engaged with the work in front of him. It's the local he cares for and like a concerned parent he urges it on to greater heights. An essay like High culture in a small province is still provocative reading and its updating at the end of this book demonstrates that Curnow hasn't let his guard down.

Now what’s needed is an annotated edition of Wystan Curnow’s travel diaries from his years in the United States. No pressure.

Image: The critic’s part: Wystan Curnow art writings 1971-2013, published by Adam Art Gallery | IMA | VUP with funding via Creative NZ. Edited by Christina Barton and Robert Leonard.