CNZ grant

The new Chair of Creative New Zealand is Dr Richard Grant an ex diplomat who most recently ran the Asia New Zealand Foundation. On your behalf we spent a couple of hours last night trying to find out his connection to the arts by Googling and making a few calls.

What we found out about the new Chair of CNZ:

He has a “strong understanding of Crown governance”

He had a “distinguished diplomatic career”

He has been a member of the Arts Council for eight months

He thinks “Creative New Zealand does important work in developing New Zealand's cultural strengths”

He is a strong advocate of strengthening our ties with Asia

We found nothing about any involvement in art of any form except for this sentence at the end of the official media release. “He has a strong interest in arts and culture.”

Exciting times for the arts.

And his favourite opera? Gotta be Starlight Express

"He's a strange one, isn't he? I just find it all a bit ... bleak ….There is too much gloomy art in New Zealand. There is not enough light and frivolity."
 

Minister of Culture and Heritage Hon. Chris Finlayson commenting on Colin McCahon’s Muriwai Canvas and Necessary Protectionin the Parliamentary collection. (According to the NZH Mr Finlayson's own favourites hang in his office and include one of Piera McArthur’s series on Bishop Pompallier)  More here if you want to punish yourself further.

Image: Finlayson and McArthur Pompallier painting

Give us a sign

In Russia the exhibition End of fun by Jake and Dinos Chapman is being investigated for a possible prosecution under the country’s extremism laws. The offensive content is in the form of tiny figures in Nazi uniforms. In the last two months our RSS feed tagged to ‘swastika’ has captured over 100 stories from around the world featuring the outrage, indignation and prosecutions caused by swastikas being displayed, used as Christmas decorations, sprayed on gravestones and Obama posters etc.

Meanwhile in Germany the New Zealand exhibition Contact could feature a painting by Peter Robinson with a swastika and the words ‘Pakeha has rights too’ and raise not a peep. What does an exhibition have to do to get a little attention? We can’t find any reviews of the show, and certainly nothing on the Min of Culture and Heritage’s site or even the NZ at Frankfurt sub site. Maybe some sort of record has been broken here.

A clash of symbols

We’ve mentioned before how hard it is to find out what’s being included in the big art exhibition supporting NZ’s participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair, but a Twitpic in the stream from Frankfurt let in a chink of light.  It shows a Peter Robinson triptych that features (among other elements) a version of the swastika. 

Although the swastika Robinson has chosen is the reverse of the Nazi one and shown on its side, its standing in as a symbol of Nazism and the far right is self-evident. Not surprisingly Germany has specific laws prohibiting the use or display of the swastika even when done satirically or in opposition to Nazism although this prohibition is usually limited to the specific swastika design used during the Nazi era. 

Robinson in his use of the symbol is of course addressing the continuing and disruptive power of the far right internationally as well as in New Zealand and pointing out how far we are from reaching some level of real equality.

Still, you’d have to say including this work in an exhibition in Germany is certainly a stand-up provocative act of curation. After all the curators will be aware of the conflict that surrounded Jenny Harper hanging a similar Robinson swastika work in her Victoria University office back in 1998. Presumably, having taken the work into Germany, the curators, CNZ and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage are all prepared to stand behind it should there be any similar objections from a public somewhat more sensitive to these issues than we are. 

Image: Top, Peter Robinson’s work being readied for exhibition in Frankfurt. Bottom, the modification of a swastika to a less offensive form the Olympic stadium built in Berlin in 1936

LATER: You can now see a few images from the opening here on Barbara Walzer's photostream and more installation images on the St Paul’s Facebook page. 

spam

unvarnished facts, reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have landed in overthenet’s email:the new building for an art gallery next to te papa has been given the green light with a retiring te papa board member to be actively engaged in the project • tony de latour has had his name pegged to one of the glittering arts prizes • simon denny has been dropped from the exhibition showcasing the 'best of aotearoa’s young, mid-career and senior artists' funded by the nz ministry of culture as part of the frankfurt book fair • the labour weekend walters prize dinner is creating engagement conflicts for some of its patrons • another auckland dealer gallery is about to join the move west. any missed details, indignant denials or additions gratefully received, and any that makes us laugh out loud will be rewarded with a rare limited edition otn painting horse badge.