23June2005
Centuries ago Michaelangelo Buonarroti lay on his back for months painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This wasn’t your modern day mode of painting of a ceiling. Paint tray on the floor. A mix of colours from Kapiti blue, Punakaiki brown or Rangitikei grey. Slopping them on overhead with a roller on a long pole. No. Michaelangelo lay there for months drawing the figures of angels, arch-angels, saints and even a few sinners. Whilst angels and saints mightn’t be your thing, nor sinners for that matter, you can’t help but wonder at the mastery of the artist. Today centuries later tourists queue to admire his skill.
What got me thinking of all this artistic expertise was the latest contribution that we New Zealanders have made to the Venice Biennale. This is supposedly the world’s top contemporary art show. I don’t know whether you’ve seen our entry. The exhibition’s commissioner Greg Burke says this “to try and describe what the work is about is a very difficult thing to do because it works on so many different levels. There’s so much content. What we can say is that there are so many references to world events and other things through text.” Well this sounded to me as though another latter day Michaelangelo had sprung up in our midst. Unfortunately not so. Let me describe the artwork. It consists of 5 autonomous purification units with doors naturally hanging off their hinges behind wire fences and attached to pulleys that move and start spewing out words, music, drumming, bells and computer generated sounds. And if this is all too much for you to comprehend in another room are blown up black and white postcards of our lakes with units etched across them like power pylons. Hell. Remember a year or so ago we sent a porta-loo braying like a donkey to this exhibition. This year we’ve really excelled ourselves. Five porta-loos renamed as purification units. The wire cage surrounding all this junk bears the sign “Notice. All visitors must report to the site office upon arrival.” In essence the whole work is probably not all that different to a Ministry of Works site in the Hundalees in the 1980’s. But without the bush and mountain backdrop. The notice by the way is not original. It’s obviously been pinched from a building site.
Editorial in “The Dominion” suggested that this exhibition was a joke. A joke on you and me the taxpayer as we stumped up the equivalent of fifty hip replacements, two heart bypasses and ten corneal grafts to send this load of junk to Venice. Well I’m not alone in my view. Bruce Otting of Khandallah wrote eloquently to the editor. “This sort of “attention grabbing art” might challenge the status quo. But it will be forgotten in five minutes. Unlike traditional time warp oils and other art produced by skilled artists who have perfected their techniques over years “et al” (the crowd who produced the porta-loos and the purifications units) has thrown together a heap of elephant dung, a few toilet bowls and telephone booth and calls it art.” Hear hear.
But hang on the chairman of Creative New Zealand, Peter Biggs, reports on his way to Venice to attend the opening of the exhibition thus “the flight out of Heathrow is full. Plane loads of curators, critics, collectors and the media. It’s the world cup of the contemporary art world. I get to Venice. Visit the New Zealand pavilion. On exhibit “the Fundamental Practice” (the name of our artwork) is being put together. It’s powerful and austere.” This made me think of a Maori front row – powerful and austere - thank God we didn’t send them to Venice. Biggs continues. “It’s a collection of wire fences, computers, dalek – like moving sheds, images and sound recordings exploring fundamentalism. This is seriously relevant to the world today in terms of religion, politics and culture.” Whew - … All we needed now was Winston smiling out behind the wire fence with the porta-loos in the background.
A final word from Greg Burke our commissioner in Venice. “Word on the street is New Zealand is hot.” Well it’s not Greg. It’s quite cool at the moment. Indeed very cool. Coronet Peak opened last week. The earliest opening for years. “But there’s more excitement. Opening night party sponsored by 42 below Vodka. The venue has room for 300 but 1,000 turned up. The queue stretched out into the street. The party is pumping.” You and I know that they weren’t queuing for art. The crowd couldn’t wait to get in to a porta-loo. The last word from Greg Burke. “Are we a hit in Venice? Absolutely.” And after the party well I wouldn’t mind betting everyone ended up like Michaelangelo. On their backs. Artful.
What got me thinking of all this artistic expertise was the latest contribution that we New Zealanders have made to the Venice Biennale. This is supposedly the world’s top contemporary art show. I don’t know whether you’ve seen our entry. The exhibition’s commissioner Greg Burke says this “to try and describe what the work is about is a very difficult thing to do because it works on so many different levels. There’s so much content. What we can say is that there are so many references to world events and other things through text.” Well this sounded to me as though another latter day Michaelangelo had sprung up in our midst. Unfortunately not so. Let me describe the artwork. It consists of 5 autonomous purification units with doors naturally hanging off their hinges behind wire fences and attached to pulleys that move and start spewing out words, music, drumming, bells and computer generated sounds. And if this is all too much for you to comprehend in another room are blown up black and white postcards of our lakes with units etched across them like power pylons. Hell. Remember a year or so ago we sent a porta-loo braying like a donkey to this exhibition. This year we’ve really excelled ourselves. Five porta-loos renamed as purification units. The wire cage surrounding all this junk bears the sign “Notice. All visitors must report to the site office upon arrival.” In essence the whole work is probably not all that different to a Ministry of Works site in the Hundalees in the 1980’s. But without the bush and mountain backdrop. The notice by the way is not original. It’s obviously been pinched from a building site.
Editorial in “The Dominion” suggested that this exhibition was a joke. A joke on you and me the taxpayer as we stumped up the equivalent of fifty hip replacements, two heart bypasses and ten corneal grafts to send this load of junk to Venice. Well I’m not alone in my view. Bruce Otting of Khandallah wrote eloquently to the editor. “This sort of “attention grabbing art” might challenge the status quo. But it will be forgotten in five minutes. Unlike traditional time warp oils and other art produced by skilled artists who have perfected their techniques over years “et al” (the crowd who produced the porta-loos and the purifications units) has thrown together a heap of elephant dung, a few toilet bowls and telephone booth and calls it art.” Hear hear.
But hang on the chairman of Creative New Zealand, Peter Biggs, reports on his way to Venice to attend the opening of the exhibition thus “the flight out of Heathrow is full. Plane loads of curators, critics, collectors and the media. It’s the world cup of the contemporary art world. I get to Venice. Visit the New Zealand pavilion. On exhibit “the Fundamental Practice” (the name of our artwork) is being put together. It’s powerful and austere.” This made me think of a Maori front row – powerful and austere - thank God we didn’t send them to Venice. Biggs continues. “It’s a collection of wire fences, computers, dalek – like moving sheds, images and sound recordings exploring fundamentalism. This is seriously relevant to the world today in terms of religion, politics and culture.” Whew - … All we needed now was Winston smiling out behind the wire fence with the porta-loos in the background.
A final word from Greg Burke our commissioner in Venice. “Word on the street is New Zealand is hot.” Well it’s not Greg. It’s quite cool at the moment. Indeed very cool. Coronet Peak opened last week. The earliest opening for years. “But there’s more excitement. Opening night party sponsored by 42 below Vodka. The venue has room for 300 but 1,000 turned up. The queue stretched out into the street. The party is pumping.” You and I know that they weren’t queuing for art. The crowd couldn’t wait to get in to a porta-loo. The last word from Greg Burke. “Are we a hit in Venice? Absolutely.” And after the party well I wouldn’t mind betting everyone ended up like Michaelangelo. On their backs. Artful.
posted by Lundon at 3:11 PM
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