Walt to Walters

With apologies to Dick Frizzell (and Gordon Walters).

Images: top left, Mickey Mouse Club Mousketeer’s Ears Hat designed by Roy Williams c.1955 and right, Wendy Maruyama’s Mickey Mackintosh chair 1988. Bottom, Gordon Walters Study for an Auckland Art Gallery poster 1982 (detail). (and thanks for kicking this off K)

By the numbers

2  the number of women currently showing at City Gallery Wellington

3   the number of books to be published by Te Papa Press in 2016

24  the number of policy statements setting out the principles for presenting Len Lye’s work at the Govett-Brewster

25  the number of Gordon Walters paintings currently on loan to the Auckland Art Gallery by the Chartwell Collection

29  the number of Trevor Moffitt paintings being sold as consecutive lots (one to 29) at Dunbar Sloane on 10 August

11   the number of years the Britten V1000, the star of Billy Apple’s latest exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery, held the speed record at Ruapuna Raceway

30  the number of documents online relating to the Sarjeant Gallery’s extension and its funding

36   the number of works by Gordon Walters in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery

100  the number of paintings by Gottfried Lindauer that the Auckland Art Gallery thinks are unaccounted for and possibly held in family collections

220  the amount in dollars needed to purchase Fiona Clark’s Artspace edition Book Shelf, Tikorangi

700  the cost in dollars of lighting a public sculpture (based on Neil Dawson’s Spires in Christchurch) for one year

You say rod with a circle on the end of it and I say rod with a circle on the end of it

In the land of lookalikes, how astonishing is this? In 1956 Brazilian artist Ivan Serpa was experimenting with the idea of a series of rods ending in circles. According to the Auckland Art Gallery this was the same year that Gordon Walters made his first koru studies in New Zealand. Serpa and Walters both used gouache and cut-out paper collaging and they were both intensely interested in the earlier Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943). Other examples of Serpa’s work indicate that he came to the rounded end via a more abstract path than Walters’ reimaging of the koru form. With Auckland's exhibition of recent art from South America opening soon, perhaps there will be other examples of artists living in distant and very different countries coming up with similar solutions to formal challenges.
 
Images: top to bottom, Ivan Serpa  Gouache1956, Ivan Serpa Formas 1951 and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Composition 1931

Pattern language

The Gordon-Walters-koru-is-fair-game industry probably started in earnest around 2010 (about 15 years after his death) and it's still going strong. The bizarre NZ flag competition we've just endured demonstrates that to perfection but there's still more. Last week a reader sent us an image of a painting by well-known American urban art guy Aaron Rose that incorporates the ‘Walters’ koru in the background. Rose did make a brief appearance in New Zealand back in 2012 when he curated a one-day exhibition of prints in Auckland. Maybe that’s when he spied the opportunity. And in another recent sighting, Wayne Youle’s design for a special kiwi collection for the Nespresso’s Grands Crus range. Nespresso explains, ‘ The image makes reference to an early Youle work, Simple Mathematics (2005), where the koru is in its most simple incarnation has the colour palette of Cuisenaire rods…” Gordon Walters was not available for comment.

Images: left, Nespresso Kiwi Collection and right, Aaron Rose Totem II (whisperer)
(Thanks R and thanks to you too S)

Vanishing cream

If you've followed OTN for a while you'll know its position over the use of Gordon Walters' version of the koru has gone from astonishment through resignation to whatever. As a design it has been slapped on just about everything but now that the digital is putting copyright itself under such pressure all this WTFing is starting to feel rather old school. But there are always exceptions. And you do have to laugh when you see Walters basic design revamped into a clumsy identity for a product called ‘Come Clean’. Their killer by-line? “Clear skin with a clear conscience.” Not until you've talked to the Walters Estate you won’t have.

The Walters effect

Some of the many appearances of the Gordon Walters ‘koru’ in submissions to design a new New Zealand flag.

History man

Twenty-three years ago, when Headlands, the last large scale New Zealand exhibition to be sent to Australia (#WTF?), was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, all hell broke loose. One of the essays in the catalogue, At the Centre, in the Margins started an at times bitter debate about the appropriation of Maori imagery by contemporary artists who did not identify as Maori. The essay had argued that by translating the koru form into a design motif and denying its Maori reference as part of the work, Gordon Walters had ripped off that particular element of Maori visual culture. This was an appropriation too far. The author of the piece Rangihiroa Panoho was roundly condemned by Walters supporters for daring to make this sort of assertion, particularly at a time when we were trying to impress the Australians on their home ground. 

Now wind the clock around a few times. Later this year the same Rangihiroa Panoho will publish his book Maori Art: History, Architecture, Landscape & Theory. The book itself has apparently been on the go since the year Headlands opened in Sydney when Panoho was offered a contract by an Australian publisher. Its by-line is 'how to look at Maori art in the twenty-first century' so still room for someone to tackle the twentieth or even the nineteenth century. 

Even stepping outside the Maori perspective this substantial book won't exactly be entering a crowded field of New Zealand art history. We have shelves full of monographs, group show catalogues, collection spruiking, and picture books, but very few ambitious histories. Gordon Brown and Hamish Keith's book Introduction to New Zealand Painting was published 56 years ago and is still widely cited and Gil Docking's effort Two hundred years of New Zealand Painting (now hilariously called 240 years of New Zealand Painting) in 1971. The nearest to a recent history would be Francis Pound's The Invention of New Zealand from 2009. So anyone with a history of NZ art in the works, let us know and we can all celebrate. But for now we have Rangihiroa's Maori Art to look forward to, it's launching in June. You can follow its emergence here. We can only hope it proves as provocative as his essay all those years ago in Headlands.

Reframing

The art auction season is gearing up to start again and Webb’s has just released its latest broadsheet to attract lots and tout the benefits of the art market. To read it you wouldn’t think it was possible to lose a dime investing in art. This of course goes against the long-held wisdom of the art world that believes (well says anyway) you should only buy art for love and not for profit. 'We'd never dream of selling” is a commonly heard statement from art collectors (until they do). Even great collections usually find themselves on the market in the end.  Take the stellar selection of work put together by the Gibbs. It's been well published, much shown and seemed set in history, until it wasn't. In that case of course the sales have been paralleled by very generous gifting to public institutions.

Can you make money out of art? Sure you can. Should you? Why the hell not?
Here are a couple of random examples from auction records:

Colin McCahon, Let be, Let be was held in private hands for 14 years and sold for a profit of $38,000 per year for each of those years.
 
Bill Hammond, Zoomorphic lounge was held for 12 years and sold for a profit of  $10,000 per year.
 
Tony Fomison Hilltop watcher  was held for 10 years and sold for a profit of  $7,500 per year.

Michael Smither’s Family in a van was held for 26 years returning about $7,500 per year.

And these are two-times-to-the-block resales. As the Les and Milly Paris auction showed, there is also a heap to be made on first-to-auction sales probably around $10,600 a year for the 37 years they owned Gordon Walter’s painting Mokoia.

So you want to make money collecting art? OK. Buy figurative paintings. Always buy the most typical and attractive-looking works of the top-ranked artists.  And remember, there are only ever a very small number of artists who sell for high prices. Forget sculpture and ignore anything unusual. Now fly my pretties.

When art collectors pose on furniture

We reluctantly add this photograph of one of OTN’s editorial staff to our series When art collectors pose on furniture. As serious readers (not you M) will know, this series was started to throw light on the ridiculous poses photographers can get collectors to adopt preying on their love of individuality, furniture and a chance to get their pic in the paper. Why any OTN reader (you again M) would think the subtle reference to English photographer Lewis Morley's iconic picture of model Christine Keeler (and based on the eighth frame of Morley’s 1963 contact sheet rather than the more famous published version) is suitable for this series is anyone’s guess. Still at OTN the readers are always right until they are wrong (looking hard at you M).

Image: collector Jim Barr with Gordon Walters painting Waiata 1977

Bit of a flutter

The PM has promised a new flag by the end of next year .... at least he's promised us a process to get there anyway. Front runner looks to be the silver fern but a range of Gordon Walters' rip-offs have also been thrown in the ring. The chief Walters-like product has been served up by Michael Smythe who promotes what he calls my "Walters’ Koru flag". This is probably not the approach you'd take if Gordon Walters were still alive but you can check out Smythe's ‘Walters’ flag in various colour palettes here. The Taucetione blog is rather more restrained with its Walters’ kinship claims suggesting that its koru flag is “inspired” by the paintings. Pattern Recognition on the other hand goes head-on design-wise by reducing the famous Walters koru to “highlights”. Still, the Walters Prize goes to S Grundwell who has converted the Walters koru design into something that looks like a bunch of glove puppets shaking hands. Maybe the fern is not so bad after all.

Images: top to bottom, Smythe, Taucetione, Pattern Recognition and S Grundwell. More than you need to know about the New Zealand flag and possible changes to it here.

Rinse and repeat

Over the last year or so there's been a run of exhibitions internationally that recreate …um…other exhibitions. The most spectacular so far was the replay of Harald Szeemann's 1969 exhibition When attitudes become form. Squeezed into the Venetian palazzo of the Prada Foundation during the Biennale last year it took the art world by storm. In its wake has been the here-it-is-again version of MoMA's The photographic object 1970 at Hauser & Wirth as well as Other primary structures revisited at the Jewish Museum.

So here's a question - are there any exhibitions in NZ's own history that could do with another outing? You bet there are, and here’s a few to get started with:

Colin McCahon’s Wellington exhibition in 1948. Mounted by Lower Hutt’s head librarian Ron O’Reilly, it nailed McCahon’s efforts to turn the NZ landscape into Bible Land. Many of the works are now in public collections so this would be very doable. We're looking at you City Gallery seeing as how you're in the Library building that hosted the original.

Fifteen New Zealand painters 1952. This was the first exhibition of contemporary art to show outside New Zealand. The dealer Helen Hitchings secured the Irving Gallery in London to show artists like Rita Angus, Louise Henderson, Doris Lusk, Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston.

Object and image 1954. While this legendary exhibition by the New Zealand Fellowship of Artists might not look so flash today, it's been talked up so much over the intervening years that it would be great to be able to make up our own minds. Colin McCahon had recently taken up a job at the Auckland City Art Gallery and made the famous poster painting (now owned by the Waikato Museum) that hung in the show.

Gordon Walters's first Koru exhibition at New Vision Gallery in 1966. Only 12 paintings, four drawings and two gouaches to pull together for this one. Mind you the values have increased somewhat since then when Painting number one went for £40.40 (with inflation about $3,000 today).

NZ Maori culture 1966. Fifty paintings and ten sculptures chosen by Buck Nin to represent contemporary Maori art and exhibited in the Canterbury Museum. The exhibition went on to tour overseas and throughout New Zealand. If not the first, it was certainly one of the very early attempts to present contemporary Maori artists.

The active eye 1975. Luit Bieringa introduced New Zealand to photography as an art form in this pivotal 104 image exhibition. The show toured 12 venues in NZ famously losing two controversial Fiona Clark photographs along the way. Word is that the entire show is still packed away in the original crates.

Mothers 1981 toured by The Women’s Gallery in Wellington. Political and opinionated, this exhibition was an extraordinary effort organized by women working on a government work scheme and came complete with a 42 page full colour catalogue.

Choice! 1990 was put together by the very independent curator George Hubbard. The exhibition served up Maori artists as …you’ve got it… artists. It was Michael Parekowhai’s first outing and although it only ran for 18 days and was seen by 555 people according to the attendance book it has become something of a legend.

Headlands 1992 curated by Robert Leonard split the art world and spread Chicken Little syndrome in the institutions (only the National Art Gallery didn’t cancel on the proposed tour to the Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery and Dunedin Public Art Gallery). OK it’s probably too big to do the whole thing again but how about a sampling or just the Primitive section that caused all the fuss. When Headlands finally showed for a meagre eight weeks (after six weeks of installation) at the Museum of New Zealand it declined to show the film component so maybe that could be resuscitated too.

Parade 1998 was Te Papa’s opening exhibition of contemporary New Zealand art. Now that could be fun to see again just to remember how radical it was and why we all hated it so much. Don’t forget the thumbs up and thumbs down signs next to works so that the audience could have its say.

Walters prized

While Auckland and Wellington were sleeping the Walter’s estate has deposited paintings, works on paper and personal archives with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery on long-term loan. So for art historians and anyone else interested in Gordon Walter’s work a chance to visit Dunedin. You can read the full story here in the Otago Daily Times
Image: Gordon Walters in his Christchurch studio 1978 via OTNSTUDIO

Side bar

We once promised we wouldn’t post any more versions of Gordon Walters’s paintings on OTN. But just when we thought we were out they pulled us back in. This time Walters has been tipped on his side to do the donkey work for the cover of a limited edition cassette tape by American musician Keith Fullerton Whitman. In fact it's more than that. The Walters painting has been ripped apart and pushed around like a piece of low-end clip art. The painting this mess is based on is in the Auckland Art Gallery’s collection. Let's hope someone there will chase them up and tick them off.
(thanks for pointing the way S)

The Gordon Walters tattoo

How could it not happen and how could we not share it with you this Saturday.  
via instagram (Thanks C)

Walters world

This ‘Walters’ carpet is yours if you purchase the Wellington apartment currently on sale here.

Other posts on Gorden Walters his paintings and his imitators dedicated to reader p monkey:
Fuss and bother
Hotel borrowings
Walters in Wellington
Inappropriation
Portrait
Copycat
Branded
Koru madness
Plate and chair

Walters squared

Seeing it's Walters week on OTN how about this next step in the Gordon Walters koru design redux as seen in Wellington.

Data roaming

Here’s an odd journey taken by the work of one of NZ's artists. The Pulitzer Hotel in Rome has been applauded for its savvy interiors by design magazines all over the world and the photographs certainly show how bold patterns have been used to break up spaces and lend visual punch to the public spaces.

But wait a minute. That supersize work over there behind the white couch looks familiar. Could it really be a koru painting by Gordon Walters? Well, no. For a start we reckon it's around 2.5 x 2 meters, far larger than anything Walters did (his large paintings usually being around 1.5 x 1.2 meters). And then even more tellingly it looks pretty much the same as Auckland Art Gallery’s Walters' painting from 1981 Maheno albeit slightly modified at the top. So a photo-print, possibly on canvas. Thanks internet.

If you still have any doubts check out the Hotel Pulitzer in Rome’s site where a recent “70s-style design reinterpreted with a modern twist” refurbishment by Spanish interior designer Rosa-Violan is noted. “A common thread throughout the hotel is the artwork. All works have been produced by Rosa-Violan …. Usually framed in burnished brass, the simplistic style has a largely geometric and abstract flavour following in the footsteps of the Gio Ponti school and the Futurist art of post-war Italy.” Make that post-war New Zealand too.

WTF AAG? OTY OK

Images: The lobby of the Hotel Pulitzer in Rome with the ‘Walters' painting behind the couch. (Thanks for the heads-up H)

The best art is business art

A new series featuring business people standing in front of art works. Contributions welcome and, if off the top shelf, rewarded
BNZ Chief Executive Andrew Thorburn with Gordon Walters’ 1981 painting Onepu

The Greening of Walters

That growling sound you can hear is Gordon Walters rolling in his grave. (Thanks A)

copycat

There have been many rip-offs of Gordon Walter's version of the koru but haven't seen one quite as brazen as this Auckland example for a while. (Thanks Y)