Column: City a tad drab with dearth of public art (mention)

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/opinion/columns/1392985/City-a-tad-drab-with-dearth-of-public-art

7 February 2009

By RICHARD WALKER

There's something wonderfully surreal about the public arts programme in Hamilton.

We have a plan which won an award but was never funded, and now we've dropped plans to fund it anyway. Thanks for the accolades, let's not bother with the substance. Artistically speaking, this is post-modernism at its best.

Art historian Ann McEwan drew Waikato Times readers' attention to the situation last week in response to the council's decision to sideline the spending. She expressed it elegantly: "If they haven't got the money to do it then why waste money getting it in the first place?"

It's not the only thing cut as the council tries to limit rates rises and fair enough at a time when a lot of people will be suffering from the recession. In passing, you have to admire the councillors' fortitude. Away from the visionary stuff, they have had to pick through some extraordinary detail as they go through the Long Term Council Community Plan. For instance, one of the options for consideration was the indexing of the Waikato Times. They dropped that one. It was, after all, going to cost them $172,500 over 10 years.

As far as the arts go, I'm not particularly bothered by the loss of $1.9 million to upgrade the Waikato Museum entrance, though God knows it needs it. And, shame on me, I'm not unduly concerned by the similar decision not to restore Beale Cottage.

But ditching public art annoys me. The arts programme doesn't seem to have involved a great deal of money anyway about $100,000 a year for the next 10 years. I don't know what we may have got for that, but if it produced anything like what Wellington has on its waterfront, or New Plymouth for that matter, I would have been keen.

Both those cities have produced remarkable results with public art and thoughtful urban design.

I was in New Plymouth for an hour last year; it was raining, the mountain was invisible, the sea was lively, and there was an understated little walkway from the city through to the breakwater, alongside a stream that ducks swam in and which, because of the way it was constructed, got me thinking about the invisible mountain, from the flanks of which the stream was probably flowing. Just a quiet spot, yet highly evocative. We emerged from that to see the Len Lye wand sculpture, looking rather giddy in the wind.

Wellington, similarly, has a Lye kinetic sculpture. It hovers over the harbour at Wellington's waterfront, though I don't find it particularly compelling.

Hamilton had a Len Lye once too, but it didn't last long. For those who forget, it was in the casino lobby and it had to be taken down when it got vandalised.

There is an equally offensive case of vandalism in Hamilton, this time from officialdom. Some bright spark, an art student or lecturer, transformed the all too solid wall that rises like a rampart from Anglesea St and has Wintec perched at its top. They took the sublimely simple step of, as far as I could tell, dripping paint down its surface, so there were plumb lines of blue, if I remember rightly running virtually top to bottom. Just enough of them to make a new sense of the entire surface, as if to say, this wasn't just a forbidding wall, it was a blank canvas. If you really wanted to push it, you could say it also evoked the similar Ralph Hotere "barcode" mural at the nearby Founders Theatre.

Anyway, enough with the amateur art criticism; the point is it was a welcome touch of cheeky fun and I would have thought technically quite difficult to achieve. So of course the powers that be got rid of it by water blasting, I've been told.

Last time I looked the arty types had struck back with more paint, but the new version is less elegant.

We have, however, seen two impressive sculptures go up in recent years: the hinuera pillars by Hamilton Gardens and the council-funded upright waka at the Rototuna roundabout where Borman Rd meets Resolution Dr. Three if you count Riff Raff on Victoria St. The Rototuna waka are impressive, a huddle of seven totemic figures, with just one maverick facing outwards. Interpret that how you will: perhaps the odd one out is on lookout or perhaps it's a misfit. Whatever, it's a nicely unsettling element. The setting seems bizarrely isolated for such an impressive sight but I suppose it could be seen as close to one of the city's gateways. And the statues also become a tribute to the car, since that's the only way you get close to them at 50kmh. It would be a shame if because of that no one took in the detail, with the hulls looking as if they've been woven from wood.

But the most visible such structures the city has are the floodlights at Seddon Park and Waikato Stadium. Coming over the rise from Gordonton, if you scan the sprawl, they rise up like periscopes. Now that's telling the people. What counts? Sport.

There's something of a theme there, since the multi-sport stadium unexpectedly got the go-ahead in the long-term plan. It would be miserable to argue against that, given indoor sports enthusiasts will finally have decent facility for club nights and there will be an economic spinoff for the city from hosting tournaments that include teams from other places.

But what about those of us who are uninvolved? The point of public art for me is it can be done with much simpler, cheaper installations than the Rototuna one. It's what's so good about Wellington, that you never know when you're going to turn a corner and come across something that startles you or makes you smile.

It's like they play a game called Let's Imagine the same game played by the Wintec artists. It's a good game that we can all benefit from. I'd like to see them play it around Garden Place and down by the river, but also anywhere else they want to.

In Hamilton, I'd suggest a funding compromise: cut back the amount but continue with the public arts programme.

These sculptures don't have to be expensive. They are enduring. They are there every day of the year, for the pleasure of us all. They could be fun.

Though it pains me to say it, without them Hamilton is ever so slightly dull.