Outstanding

The discipline of marketing has found a welcoming home in the art museum world. Relentlessly positive and unabashedly promotional, museum communications sometimes feel as though the clock has been turned back to the excitable 1990s. Take a recent announcement for an upcoming exhibition by Christchurch’s CoCA. For what's basically another local show (it's titled Contemporary Christchurch) the 148-word announcement has managed to squeeze in 10 superlatives to remind us how to respond:

excited
celebration
innovative
vibrancy
stimulating
creative
lively
inspiring
innovative
amazing

How incredible is that?

Te Papa North goes South

Looks like the sorry tale of Te Papa North has finally come to an end. Of course in PR speak this comes out as 'We are very committed to it. I would hope – as does the board – that we will be successful in a future budget bid.' But as the request rejected by Government was only a capital cost of $40 million (about as much it takes to run the Te Papa Mothership for little over nine months), it’s a fair bet that Te Papa North as an idea has slunk out of the building. 

Someone else who has left the building is the Project Director for Te Papa North. Te Papa told media she was only on a one year contract which sounds odd in itself for what was going to be a major Te Papa initiative over at least three or four years. 

And what about the pressing storage requirements and the dramatic threat of Wellington (and Te Papa's collections) being leveled by an earthquake? The CE of Te Papa told the media that 'there was no pressing need for additional storage in the next 2-3 years' and the talk of Wellington as earthquake central seems to have abated (which is nice). In fact, looking back at the sorry two year life cycle of Te Papa North, you have to ask whether it was ever a serious proposition in the first place. 

Anyway now that CE Rick Ellis has announced more of his plans to service the whole country via digital technology all this talk of bricks and mortar could hardly be more off brand. So let’s see how that plays out.

But let’s not talk about me ...

Art museums are always on a charm offensive but who do they really think they are? Here are nine of them tooting their horns. Your job: match the statement to the museum.

So here's a quick quiz. Who….

... is a pathfinder, an innovator and a catalyst for contemporary art and ideas

... provides a vital platform for critical thinking across media, disciplines, cultures and contexts

... is renowned for being bicultural, scholarly, innovative, and fun

... focuses primarily on contemporary visual arts by local, national and international artists and designers

... is the home of the visual arts in New Zealand

... is home to one of New Zealand's most important public art collections

... aims to explore new ideas and initiatives with insight, imagination, and intelligence

... is more than an art gallery

... is renowned today for the richness of its historic collection and its close working relationship with major New Zealand artists.

Answers here on OTNSTUFF

The ghosts in the machine

With only 13 days before university students get back to work you'd think that Unitec could at least have come up with a list of who'll be teaching this year. It was quick enough to strip its arts school's ‘core teaching team’ from 50 to 17.6 late last year but the follow-up is non-existent from the public point of view. Look up staff and it’s ‘Please check back for the latest staff information.’

Even worse is the way the institution is coasting on the reputations of ex-staffers. It's got to be galling for them (whether they saw the approaching steam roller and got out of the way by taking redundancy or attempted and failed to get one of the new jobs) to still be used by Unitec’s PR machine. Take just two of them: ex Associate Dean of Research Marcus Williams and Susan Jowsey who used to be a ‘Senior Academic Staff Member.’ They are still trumpeted on the Unitec website as king hit successes for the institution.

Who knows how students will react. As this student video demonstrates they were certainly unimpressed by losing their big-name art teachers partway through their courses. They may be equally fed up to find that the ghosts of staff past are still being served up as exemplars of the Unitec brand.

The two sides of Foxton

Foxton makes a bid for tourist pics with a double sided hole-in-the-head-stick-your-face-in photo opp feature. In a rare twist on the usual art/sport hierarchy it's the art side that faces the road.

The rumour mill

Here’s a good rumour for you. It comes complete with an A++ feels-right rating, but no publishable source, although some talk a few months ago make it ring true. 

A rich person (or persons) has signed a cheque that will pay for the construction of a new standalone National Art Gallery next to Te Papa if the Government agrees to pick up all operational and staffing costs. 

In most fields this possibility would start a storm of speculation, media blitzing of Te Papa execs and lobby pressure on ministers. In the arts we tend to have a more let-sleeping-possibilities-lie approach. You know this already from the Walters Prize debacle. The allegation that hardly any of the jurors saw any of the exhibitions they had proposed didn’t even cause a ripple, let alone a statement from the Auckland Art Gallery (which makes you think it is probably true). Hard to imagine the selection of four new All Blacks being based on games none of the selectors had seen not creating a nationwide debate of WTF proportions in the media, in the pubs and in the office. Face it, families would be at war. In the arts anyone under challenge simply says 'no comment' on the reasonable assumption that tough questions will go away. 

This passivity is probably part of the reason why the arts get so little media interest. When journalists can't get a comment from anyone and are overwhelmed by boosterism, who's surprised we are relegated to the entertainment pages. And all this at a time when there are so many opportunities to move up a notch with the Auckland Art Gallery facing a fundamental shift in direction, Te Papa requiring 30 senior managers to apply for only 15 available jobs in a restructure and now the whisper of chance to see a new National Art Gallery. That's a lot to talk about.

Some of the people some of the time

Te Papa’s DIY campaign to stop the Wellington City Council cutting its sponsorship to one million dollars a year is now in full swing. So how’s it going? 

As at the end of last week they had around 2000 Post-it notes on a board in the foyer and a handful of submissions in a Perspex box. The Post-it notes reflect the reality that Te Papa is child focussed. Around one third are by kids and most of the rest by people supporting Te Papa’s activities for kids. 

Onto the social networks. Te Papa has 24 pics of the Post-its on their Flickr Stream (most sideways for some reason), their #saveourservices has one tweet which rather curiously reads, “You can’t eat money,” and don’t seem to be using Facebook. Te Papa’s PR guy has put up three posts on the Te Papa blog with some support info. He makes the point that 30% of the WCC Te Papa sponsorship comes for ratepayers with the bulk coming from rated businesses. Plus apparently 60% of Wellington visitors visit five or more times a year and 36% twice. By our calculations this means around 177,090 individual Wellingtonians attend the museum annually. 

Then there’ a general call for Wellington people to make a submission to the WCC coupled with the threat of charges to use Discovery Centres, increases in charges for StoryPlace, fewer free exhibitions and fewer new exhibitions. That should work.

Image: Post-it note power at Te Papa

Apprizing

As promised we emailed each of the Walters Prize Jurors: David Cross, Aaron Kreisler, Kate Montgomery and Gwyn Porter with the who-saw-what? question. They were pretty bold to select four exhibitions from outside New Zealand and we were keen to find out more about what point it was they were making. 

Unfortunately we’ve not even managed an acknowledgement of our email from any of them. We can only assume this is a combined effort to limit the discussion to the rather vague remarks in the media release. 

A week ago we emailed the Auckland Art Gallery (Louise Pether) and it doesn't look too promising from that direction either, although we did get a response from her on Monday agreeing to get in touch with the jury members. Since then we have heard that the Fearless Four have had a (further?) discussion about whether or not to release the who-saw-what info. Seriously, what do they think is going to happen? 

Just to put it through the wash for the final time we'll ask the Auckland Art Gallery Director Chris Saines (stats that keep the juror's names out of it are fine...'two jurors saw one of the exhibitions, one juror saw non' etc.). If all that fails we’ll fall back on information sent in by readers, dates gleaned from Facebook, Home pages and Twitter to give you a best guess which (blush) we are pretty good at. 

In yet another weird twist the Auckland Art Gallery has scheduled the opening of the Walters Prize exhibition for 3 August which falls in the middle of the Melbourne Art Fair (1 – 5 August). This surely means the dealers representing the four selected artists will risk missing out on the Walters opening. They all have stands in Melbourne. Still time to change what presumably is a marketing glitch. 

OTN goes viral

 OTN hits the Melbourne Age like a thunderbolt. Page Nine boys Jarrod Rawlins and Vasili Kaliman roped in to pose for extensive coverage of OTN's posting on Melbourne Art Fair. You heard it here first. Well, second if you live in Melbourne.

The vision thing

Te Papa has announced it is going to spend until the end of this year working on a new Vision and mission. When you read the current version it's not hard to see why.

Essentially a vision statement is big picture and describes an organisation's hopes for its future, usually with a big dollop of inspiration to motivate the troops. The mission is then the roadmap to get there. From a quick scan, museums are not big on visions. If they articulate a vision (and many do not), they tend to opt for statements about doing what they're doing but in a bigger building (Tate Modern) or going short and general (MCA Sydney 'Engaging with contemporary art and ideas') or long and general (National Gallery of Australia in Canberra 'the cultural enrichment of all Australians through access to their national art gallery, the quality of the national collection, the exceptional displays, exhibitions and programs, and the professionalism of Gallery staff).

Te Papa's current vision is obese, even by NGA standards. You can see why the new CEO and Chair are taking a knife to it.

Te Papa’s current vision is to be:
•   relevant to all New Zealanders through stories of our collections and scholarship, and through these engage with communities throughout New Zealand

•   a source of experiences for audiences to grow their understanding and respect for mātauranga Māori, and the different cultures of New Zealand

•   a means of access to the best collections from around the world

•   creative, collaborative, and outward looking

•   fun, challenging, and always enriching

An effective vision is supposed to show how an organisation's future will look different from its past and it needs to start with a realistic understanding of where it is now. Working that out it probably what's going to take the time. There are big questions for Te Papa to deal with. Take its incarnation as a mega-scale, very pricey children's museum (is that what we signed up for?), its inward focus (who'd know the rest of the world exists?), its ongoing struggle with art and its fundamental sustainability.

If you want to tell whether Te Papa's new Mission and Vision statements will create a positive difference, you only have to ask a couple of questions.
• Are they easy to understand and remember?
• Do they make sense to people outside the organisation?
• Are there sensible ways to find out whether they are on track?
When the new version hits the streets we’ll apply these three simple tests and see how they go.

One day in the marketing Department

A: Just landed another cool job!

B: What for?

A: Some sort of scholarship thing we give to artists

B: E-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t. Let’s do a TV spot

A: Only got a couple of K for the whole campaign

B: OK…a newspaper ad…small newspaper ad

A: We’ll need an idea, a graphic idea

B: How about a planet far out in space exploding into millions of glowing fragments the shape of butterflies?

A: We can only afford black and white

B: OK, thousands of black and white butterflies

A: Behave yourself, it’s a small ad at the bottom of the page

B: Um… I’ve got it… one butterfly, one black and white butterfly

A: And I’m, not so sure about the planet thing

B: How can I do creative work when my hands are tied like this?

A: That’s brilliant!

B: It is?

A: Absolutely.

Size matters

One element that brings a lot of humour to the art museum business is the marketing department. As the years have gone by these departments have drifted away from the core of museum activities to the point where their knowledge of the business often registers somewhere between scant and whatever. As a result public communication by museums often teeters on the hilarious. We saw a great example the other day on one of the billboards celebrating the new Auckland Art Gallery.

First up were the works on display. The exhibition illustrated seems to be some sort of Colin McCahon survey with the feature work being McCahon’s Victory over death 2 that is in the collection of the Australian National Gallery. You can imagine the ANG’s chagrin at this large scale reproduction when you consider they do not reproduce the painting on their website with the explanation: “Unable to display image due to Copyright Restrictions”.

Given the Auckland Art Gallery has one of the greatest collections of works by McCahon, it's hard to understand why it wouldn’t feature one of its own works, perhaps even one that hasn’t been seen for a while. Through the door on the billboard’s virtual gallery we can also see a slice of a Jump painting but hang on, what’s that large red abstract? It’s a Rothko, painting du jour for anyone wanting to plug a generic modern-art hole. This one is Light Red Over Black 1957 and is in the collection of the Tate in Britain.

On the left hand wall are two more ‘McCahon’ paintings, Clouds 3 and another that looks like it was either made by a drunk monkey or has been so distorted that any McCahonishness has long gone. And what about the scale? These two works are famously on paper and weigh in at 1.1 x .75 meters. Based on the Rothko they are shown here at nearly twice that size and shadowed as though they are stretched canvases. And then all the work in these new galleries is hung weirdly close to the floor with not a barrier in sight – definitely not the real museum world of international loans.


The purpose of these billboards and their virtual gallery depictions is to pump up expectations for new spaces and exciting new displays of art. As it's turned out what they offer is a WTF moment for anyone who takes visual art and the Auckland Art Gallery seriously.

Trivial pursuits

“This exhibition has been curated by one of Europe’s finest and most respected art institutions, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.”

Te Papa media release for the European Masters exhibition

Images: From the Te Papa Flickr file “Another Masterpiece!” a Te Papa paint-by-numbers promotion of the European Masters exhibition at an Auckland Food Fair.

Creamed

"The last major exhibition of European Masterpieces in New Zealand was the highly successful America & Europe: The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection shown here in 1980. Now 30 years on Te Papa...."

Catalogue introduction to the exhibition European Masters: 19th–20th century art from the Städel Museum by the Chief Executive and Kaihautū of Te Papa.

1985 Claude Monet: Painter of Light, Auckland Art Gallery

1988 Edvard Munch: Death and Desire, Auckland Art Gallery

1989 The Reader’s Digest Collection: Manet to Picasso, Auckland Art Gallery

1989 Picasso: Artist Before Nature, Auckland Art Gallery

1993 Rembrandt to Renoir: 300 Years of European Masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Auckland Art Gallery

1996 Masterpieces of the Guggenheim, Dunedin Public Art Gallery

1998 Exhibition of the Century: Modern Masters from the Stedelijk Museum, City Gallery, Wellington

2006 Works from the Collection of Julian and Josie Robertson,  Auckland Art Gallery

Gold rush

Is the art market avoiding the recession? To read reports of the recent International Art Centre auction in Auckland you'd think so. The star of the show was Dame Kiri Te Kanawa who off-loaded a C F Goldie (Forty winks) from her collection for a record $573,000.

Promoting art through its celeb owners has always done well for the auction world. As we’ve mentioned before the modern story starts in 1996 when Jackie Onassis’s estate rang up over $34.5 million with objects fetching up to 80 times their estimated value. The fever increased with the Andy Warhol estate (1988 - $32 million), the Duke and Duchess of Windsor estate (1997 - $30 million) and the YSL estate (2009 - $622 million).

Back in NZ ICA spokesperson Richard Thomson told reporters that, “one highly encouraging aspect of the sale in the bidding for Dame Kiri's Goldie was that there were so many genuine buyers in the $400,000 range.” So maybe we can put around $178,000 of the final price down to Te Kanawa's X factor.

Kiri fever and the presence of a I’ve-got-$400,000-burning-a-hole-in-my-pocket crowd didn’t appear to set the rest of the auction alight. The nine ‘highlights’ listed by the auction house only averaged around $16,500 each, and a painting by Ralph Hotere struggled to get to half its estimated value of $100,000. If that’s not a sign of recession it's certainly a sign of a substance that is very close to it. The IAC’s reassurance that Goldies are, “prized, they are gold,” would have rung true for nervous investors in a recession. What else do you hoard when times get tough?

Behind closed doors

Back in the mid seventies the Auckland Art Gallery allowed David Mealing to conduct a free-for-all jumble sale in its galleries and went along with Gray Nicol's project which involved lying for 24 hours under a very, very heavy block of stone suspended only inches from his face. Ok, they insisted he sign a release form, but they didn’t walk away from the project. Hard to imagine support like that today with our art institutions being so risk adverse and concerned to promote only positive attention. So what’s an artist to do who wants to stir stuff up?

Tao Wells was able to realise his stroppy project, The Beneficiary’s Office, thanks to some well-placed CNZ funding and the opportunistic quick-footedness of  Letting Space. To set the scene Wells informed the local newspaper, "We should never be forced to take a job. If you're forced to take a job it's a punishment. If a job's a punishment then society must be a prison." This well targeted declaration sure got people talking. After all everyone has an opinion on the ethics of work, payment and contribution. 

On the dark side Wells has had his own unemployment benefit suspended and probably his future chances of getting it back. As a rule the state does not like to be poked in the eye. So this is definitely a project where the artist has some skin in the game. And if the welfare bureaucracy hoped that Wells was a one-column-wonder it will be disappointed. When we went to visit the office of the Wells Group (TW’s own brand) we were not admitted because the artist was deep into an interview with TV3. One thing Tao Wells clearly understands is the power of television exposure. As one of the Wells Group said, as he escorted us to the lift, “He’s doing PR, the core business.”

Images: The entrance to the Wells Group offices on level 3 of the BNZ building at 50 Manners Street in Wellington

By the numbers

This year’s Power 100 has just been published by Art Review and not too surprisingly it is topped by global art dealer Larry Gagosian (5th place last year and 2nd the year before).
The first woman to appear on the list is Bice Curiger, Venice Biennale curator and Parkett mag editor, coming in at number 6. In fact there are 10 women in the top 25. The first artist, Ai Weiwei, is at number 13 but let's not forget that in 2008 Damien Hirst topped the list and he was 53rd this year, so it's a fickle business. Of the top ten, three are dealers, three are public art museum directors, three are collectors and just one is a curator (now that tells you something.) Only three of this year's top ten have been in the top ten for the last three years and they are dealer Gagosian, museum director Serota and collector Pinault. Blessed symmetry.
Image: Larry Gagosian captured by OTN paparazzi last year in Berlin

Booster Awards

Anyone in marketing knows that a fantastic way to seize the initiative is to start with extravagant claims for your product or service. That way you frame up expectations and neutralise any critics who always sound mealy mouthed in the face of your relentless optimism. To show how this mode has crashed into the marketing of art related products we are presenting the very best of art boosterisms on an irregular basis here on OTN.

So, here we go:

“Ambitious, phenomenal, groundbreaking. It looks at the power of contemporary art, conversations that reach beyond history, across cultures.”
Paula Savage talks up the City Gallery’s exhibition roundabout in the NZ Listener 25 September 2010

"This is something new for Wanganui and is the beginning of a renaissance era in contemporary public art for the city and the waterfront."
Mayor Michael Laws puts it out for public sculpture in a media release 16 September 2010

“Housed in one of the country's finest heritage buildings, the Museum's three floors tell the story of New Zealand.”
Auckland Museum website

“Catherine de Zegher believes Australia is on the verge of taking a central stage in outlining a new world view for the future.”
Co-curator 2012 Sydney Biennale in a Biennale press release

"Viewing these awe-inspiring art works on a guided walk in this environment is an experience to be treasured."
Promotion on their website for Connells Bay sculpture park on Waiheke Island

OTNPH badges for examples of top line art Boostering from OTN readers. 

That was then

"Whether this exhibition achieves its purpose or not, it will give considerable evidence of the vitality of contemporary painting in the Pacific."

Peter Tomory introducing the eighty paintings in the exhibition Paintings from the Pacific in 1961

"roundabout, an exhibition of epic proportions featuring over a hundred works by artists from around the world, including work from India, China, South Korea, Thailand, Bhutan, Australia, Tibet and Japan."

City Gallery describing an upcoming exhibition

Oh Ye of little faith

An email survey organised by the people at SCAPE will send a chill into the heart of any artist who receives it. Looks like it is managed by an outfit called Shannon’s Way whose web page features a lot of photos looking down at people. Their “bottom line” is “behaviour change”. You get the picture. The other picture you will get if you take the survey is that SCAPE is gearing up to Te Paparise. 

Take question 30 We are thinking of holding other relevant activities around SCAPE, what do you think would make it more exciting? Amongst the possible answers are: a SCAPE-branded photo booth where I can take photos with my friends/families; Activities that kids can actively participate in; Artwork tour challenge similar to ‘Amazing Race’ format (i.e. clues that I can de-code as I race from one artwork to another); People’s Choice Awards (voting on my favourite artwork) and Personalised tours of SCAPE and the city led by a celebrity. 

And question 31 Which of the following messages do you like most or you can relate to the most? ESCAPE to SCAPE – it’s art. it’s fun. it’s free; ESCAPE to SCAPE – kids, take the oldies; ESCAPE to SCAPE – you only need an hour; ESCAPE to SCAPE – you’ll be surprised.

At least any artist who signs up for SCAPE knows exactly what they’re in for.