Snips and snails

So like many bloggers when in a writing funk I can again only offer tidbits. I have been musing on how art develops as an artist ages and matures but I don’t know enough about it to write yet and I’m still working on items about street art gentrification and madness and art but no one piece is coming together. I’d like to write about the weirdest email I got today acknowledging receipt of a job application which caused me to wonder if I’d actually want to work in that place.

Anyhow The Montana book award shortlists were announced yesterday and many have commented on the amount of visual arts books. Of course there is the spat about only 4 fiction titles being shortlisted and other items and the anti-Wellington sentiment creeping in again. The best comment I’ve read read on that topic so far is on Beattie’s Book blog where an anonymous commenter replies to “what’s Wellington got to do with it?” with “Wellington shot bambi’s mother”. And while there is talk of some Wellington cabal I really don’t think regionalism is the problem here. On a brighter note one of the better books I’ve read lately, Waimarino County, was shortlisted in biography section. Author Martin Edmond muses on this here.

Speaking of books, the illustrated version of Denis Glover’s Magpies has been reprinted. Illustrator Dick Frizzell says “It sank a bit when it was released actually. I threatened to reprint it myself and eventually the publishers came to the party so it was reprinted and it just kind of hung around by the skin of its teeth until it reached some sort of tipping point in the public consciousness…Although I have never called it a children’s book, a lot of parents have told me their kids wanted it read again and again until the book fell to bits. I just don’t know what the kids would be actually hearing.” Its now on MY shopping list.

I also read this interesting interview with John Updike, which begins. 

NEH Chairman Bruce Cole: I think I may have told you that in my former life I was an art historian. While there are many Ph.D. art historians, the people I most enjoyed reading were the poets and the critics who brought great language to their description of art and were able to express the meaning of the art.

John Updike: I think it’s a field where to be an amateur is not necessarily a disgrace. Some of the best have been, in a sense, amateurs-Baudelaire and Henry James, to name two.

I guess this spiked my interest because I read recently how Rita Angus hated non-artists (Fairburn and Fred Page were the examples) acting as art critics and felt they were out of their ‘zone’. She said, in turn she would not think of critiquing their music or poetry. This is something that is very common in New Zealand but there are a fair amount of people who are critics, artists and writers. It would make a good debate I think.

 

Towards Aotearoa

Ok - just what is it with artists and Waikanae? The list just keeps growing. I have been reading “Towards Aotearoa” tonight by David Eggleton and came across reference to Gordon Walters “Waikanae” and so went and found this in the Te Papa Collection.

“This black and white photograph by Gordon Walters was made in the early 1940s at Waikanae. Walters was living and working in Wellington and had met Theo Schoon…The photograph was one of a series taken by Walters and Schoon on field trips to Waikanae in 1943 and 1944. The title, with its reference to ‘organic form’ and tonal values (’black on grey’) reveals how nature could be transformed through the camera lens into almost abstract patterns”

Another example of this period by Walters is held by the Auckland Art Gallery

I guess I could add Walters and Schoon to my imaginary Waikanae exhibition then.

Eggleton’s book is an interesting look at 20th Century NZ art and I found it a refreshing change of view from Keith’s “The Big Picture”. some comparison can be found here by the way. Art News New Zealand said that “Eggleton’s ambitious jig-saw has too many missing pieces“, but I think thats just the nature of a work like this. In some places the writing is a little florid for my tastes but maybe thats the poet in author showing. Lets just say its a book I’d like to own whatever its faults.

It did remind me of a well NZ known “look-a-likie”. Part I:-

Bridesmaids (1930) Frances Hodgkins

and I would bring you Part II which is Rita Angus’ portrait of Fay and Jane Birkenshaw. BUT for some reason on searching the Te Papa website (where it is held) there is no record of it. I can understand not having the image up because bad people like me may come and copy it (smack hand) but I couldn’t find any record of it at all. A Chocolate Fish to whoever can find a reference to this painting on the Te Papa website (because I AM a bit tired right now).

Gore - Centre of the Universe

More on artists/writers residences (and residencies). I just read on Beatties Book Blog that the University of Waikato have bought late writer Michael King’s house at Whangamata on the Coromandel Peninsula, for its staff and students as a retreat to research and write. “Bookman Beattie is certain Michael would have been delighted with this decision. And of course this brings to two the number of university involvements with the late Michael King, with the University of Auckland having earlier become involved with the Michael King Writers’ Centre“

This is great stuff but I do wonder about all the fellowships and residencies and how available they really are. My concern is for women who tend to still be the main child carers. Lots of female writers fit their work in around domestic duties and although maybe be eligible or even offered such an opportunity, it could mean uprooting a family, the husband/partner finding a new job in a new town, kids at new schools and all the associated ’stuff’. “But men have the same issues” you cry. Well ok but then, maybe they ‘go on ahead’ and the family joins later OR in some cases, thefamily stays behind. I have a bias of course but I do wonder about how many women have missed these opportunities because of ‘the pram in the hallway’. Maybe other women are more organised than me :-). Is this why women artists are under-represented or is it something more sinister?

King was associated with the visual arts in several ways too. The catalogue for the John Money Collection “Splendours of Civilisation” (Eastern Southland Art Gallery, Gore) and Moko with Marti Friedlander are two books that come to mind (without thinking very hard).

I dashed madly through the Money collection at the ESAG a couple of years back. It was disjointed (to me) but impressive. It is odd to find such notable art in an ‘out of the way’ place like Gore. “Nic-named the ‘Goreggenheim’ by Saatchi & Saatchi boss Kevin Roberts, this regional public art museum features permanent exhibitions of national and international note” The Ralph Hotere collection there is meant to be one of the best in the country.

Hotere, Walter Logeman

Speaking of art in Southland I wonder if the reason Gopas’ Trawlers, felt so familiar to me is that a 1955 watercolour of his, also named “Trawlers”, is held at the Anderson Park Art Gallery in Invercargill. Maybe its was similar to the 1959 oil?

There has been a lot in the news here lately about ‘affordable housing’ and people not being able to get into first homes. Well I have a good idea. I am happy to never own my own home (well not quite) if they bring in this scheme. “The French government is proposing interest-free loans (up to $10,000) to less wealthy people toward the purchase of art. The idea is designed to entice private individuals who might otherwise think they’re not rich enough to start buying art…Apparently similar programs have been introduced in Britain and The Netherlands”. Hmmm - where should I start???? Perhaps a McCahon before the Americans snap them all up :-)

Anyway off junk shopping tomorrow, always in hope that I’ll find a Frank Carpay vase in the 50c bin or a lost Goldie amongst the broken picture frames

Crown Lynn vase by F Carpay

Art writing

I have been a little un-generous about art writing here at times. I have been trying to understand it which I guess is part of the issue and of course being a bit ingenuous. Some people will be getting a laugh from my writing anyway!

So I see Hamish Keith NOT celebrating the 10th birthday of Te Papa in the latest Listener. He made some very good points about the architecture dictating to the collection etc. At least they have managed to expand the art space a bit. He also said not many people took the opportunity of the anniversary to say what was wrong with ‘our place’. Funny, I read quite a bit of criticism at the time. It was tempered with “but the kids love it” kind of comments, but it was out there, mainly in blog-land (I refuse to use the other blog word). I do agree that a separate art museum would be good - in Auckland? NO! But that’s just because I find it difficult enough to get in to Wellington to see anything let alone having to get to Auckland. There is some merit in placing some larger national institutions where the majority of the population is but its quality not quantity right? I am not implying that Auckland isn’t quality (or am I?) but that you can’t base these decisions simply on numbers. In print, Keith sounds tired though - or his opinions do anyway (to me).

Which brings me to some items I’ve been reading over at Beattie’s blog where Gordon McLauchlan called for cultural organisations to move to Auckland and committees to be more representative according to population base. The debate in the comments is great. Then today I read that McLauchlan has been (in some people’s opinion) censured for his views and I responded only to find it may all have been a joke. I need to stay away from this stuff. I don’t understand the nuances and I find game playing at this level rather unbecoming.

The other art piece in the Listener was discussion by Abby Cunnane of the Adam Portraiture Award . I found this item a better bit of art writing than what’s been included in previous weeks. I guess this is a good reason to have a variety of writers doing the Art column. The Listener is not the only thing I read, I am just pleased to see arts writing back there (but where are the poems?) .

The Blue Girl - Irene Ferguson

I also picked up the Autum 2008 edition of Art News. It provoked a funny conversation with a librarian. The cover is Spleen, 2007 by Richard Orjis. The librarian said “that was me last night when my compost bin exploded, but I didn’t think to take a photo and call it ART”. I guess this is a typical reaction to this type of conceptual stuff? There was lots to read including some more on the One Day Sculpture series. What I did think was amusing were the reviews of the books “The Big Picture” and “Towards Aotearoa“. In every review I have read of these books, someone complains that XXXX was left out. Well of course some one will be left out - thats the nature of the beast even in NZ’s comparatively short art history. I do agree that you just have to take the Hamish Keith book and DVD as a “highly personal take” on New Zealand art.

Recently the Domisnion Post has had lots of arts coverage because of the Arts Festival and I have enjoyed Mark Amery’s writing - particularly what he wrote about the Tom Kreisler exhibition, Opposites Attract. I confess I usually read the papers in cafes or the library so I don’t see the arts section every week although I try to. I also usually avoid the Sunday papers but read through the Sunday Star Times this weekend over a long black. Normally their ‘Sunday’ lift out irritates me - I mean ’shoe of the week’ - really. But they had a good piece about the Arts Festival by Matt Suddain. It was ‘light’ but well written and I loved these quotes.

“An entry in the big red comments book ‘I felt the show had ritual content, that you were altering the cosmos as you moved’ on the next page someone had put ‘weird but interesting’“

and

“Shen wei had something to tell us, but he could only whisper it to us in a secret language“

I think both comments could apply to art in general.