Autumn News 2005
Chairman's comment
Last year was heads down; this year and hopefully next it will be heads up. We are expecting an explosion of fine sculpture in the city, starting with the stunning Tower of Light in the Meridian Energy Wind Sculpture series.
All of our planned 2004 installations were delayed for complex reasons but as we report in this issue all are now more-or-less on track. We expect Tower of Light to be followed later this year by SkyBlues and Water Whirler; in 2006 we will with luck and hard work see a fourth wind sculpture on Cobham Drive, new works on Bunny St and on the Museum Hotel corner at Cable and Tory Streets, and the City Gateway piece on the motorway route into Wellington.
Work is underway on subsequent Meridian Energy wind sculptures in 2007. In all we have eight major projects on our books to a value of approximately $2 million.
Such a programme is only possible with an immense amount of support from the City Council, business sponsors and private donors. The Trust is highly appreciative of this support and is committed in return to delivering high quality sculpture to the city. But this takes time as well as money, and if our recent experience tells us anything the best public art cannot be rushed.
While no new sculptures were installed in 2004, a major feature of the year was the symposium on public art held last September. It opened many issues for the Trust, some considered elsewhere in this newsletter, including the potential for temporary public sculpture, the merits of collaborations between artists and architects and others especially for new development sites, and the importance of understanding the interests of many audiences and stakeholders when selecting and placing art on a public area.
A decision by the Wellington City Council to allocate funding for its public arts policy is another reason why this year has started so strongly. An amount of $300,000 a year commencing next financial year has been approved which of course covers a spectrum of public arts activity. It includes a provision for the Trust's first ever regular source of income and the possibility of other amounts being available for special projects.
And so we look to an exciting time for public sculpture over the next few years. Our warmest thanks go to all of our supporters for making this possible.
Neil Pimmer
New project for Bunny St – Pipitea Campus
The Trust is advancing a new project for a major sculpture to be placed on the western segment of Bunny St, within the Victoria University of Wellington's Pipitea Campus, and between the Law Faculty in the Old Government Building and the Faculty of Commerce and Administration in Rutherford House.
Principal funding has been granted by TOWER Ltd, consolidating its position as a major supporter of public sculpture in Wellington. TOWER was the major sponsor of Kaiwhakatere The Navigator on Bowen St and the still-to-be-installed SkyBlues on Post Office Square.
Other major sponsors are Victoria University of Wellington and the Wellington City Council.
The project has reached the stage where a brief for the site has been prepared and distributed to a selected list of six artists all with a high reputation in New Zealand art circles. Their design concepts are under active review and it is expected that between one and three will be invited to participate in the next stage.
The Trust decided on the site after an extensive review of options. It was interested in a location further north than the existing works – this part of the city is undergoing extensive redevelopment, and the selected piece will probably mark the northernmost point of a city sculpture walk. The Bunny Street site is a major pedestrian throughway for commutors walking between the Railway Station and the area of Parliament/Molesworth Street/Bowen Street. As an integral part of the Victoria University campus the site is home to 5,000 students and numerous staff.
SkyBlues is coming
The major work SkyBlues by Bill Culbert, to be installed on Post Office Square, is now well underway at the premises of the Christchurch firm Signtech.
The last round of delays late last year related to design issues in respect of the seven poles that support the blue neon that the sculpture features. It has been a major engineering challenge to retain the slim and tapered shapes of the steel poles as envisaged by the artist, while ensuring that their vibration in winds is small enough to leave the neon undamaged.
Fabrication commenced in early February. Bill Culbert made an extended visit to the site in March to engage in key stages of construction. The finished work is currently scheduled for installation in August 2005.
City Gateway Sculpture
In June last year the Mayor Kerry Prendergast announced that the Council had allocated $500,000 for a “landmark sculpture or artwork marking the gateway into central Wellington”.
The Council's objectives are clear that it wants the work to be contemporary and enduring, and to “enhance Wellington's sense of place”.
The Council has signed an agreement with the Trust to manage the selection process and commission the selected work.
It is intended that the work should be installed in the general area of Kaiwharawhara, between the points (coming south into the city) where state highways one and two merge and the Aotea off-ramp where the motorway diverges.
This is the most ambitious project the Trust has undertaken. In the period since the announcement the Trust has established a special assessment panel for the project, including a mix of trustees and other prominent Wellingtonians with relevant skills. The panel is being assisted by an arts advisory group and Council staff.
After extensive consultations a brief for the project was widely publicised and expressions of interest invited. The brief identified a number of likely sites within the overall range of the project, but did not restrict proposers to these. The panel has indicated flexibility on whether the work could be a single piece or a series of pieces or other approaches. It is keen to encourage creative responses to the project.
The invitation attracted over 30 submissions from a diverse range of senior sculptors and artists, and also from collaborations of artists with landscape architects, engineers, architects and others. Ten of these, including one from overseas, have been invited to the second stage of preparing more specific design concepts.
It is intended that a final selection will be made this year and installation take place in 2006.
Water Whirler
Steady progress has been made with the Millennium project to create and instal the kinetic sculpture Water Whirler designed by the late Len Lye.
The work, commissioned by the Trust, is now complete after several years of intensive design activity and prototype testing by the Len Lye Foundation and Technix Group Ltd in New Plymouth.
Water Whirler will be installed in Wellington later this year as soon as the special pier or plinth, which will support the work, is completed. Design work on this by Athfield Architects on behalf of Wellington Waterfront Ltd and by the Foundation is nearly complete, which should allow Wellington Waterfront, the providers of the site, to call for tenders for its construction.
The pier is to extend into Wellington Harbour off the north end of Frank Kitts Park, in a line of sight aligned with Hunter Street.
The Trust has been assured that there is at least one other Millenium project in New Zealand that is still to be completed.
New Zealand Screen IndustryTribute
The Mayor Kerry Prendergast has unveiled a model of a sculpture designed as a tribute to the screen production industry.
The work is a six-metre high piece based on a film camera tripod, designed and to be created by Weta Workshop. It is being made of many bronze and timber pieces fixed to a stainless-steel base. Its finished appearance will resemble a tripod made of many recycled mechanical parts.
It will be installed later this year on a site at the eastern (Embassy Theatre) end of Courtney Place, on the southern side.The work was commissioned by the Wellington City Council after the successful completion of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the announcement of the filming of King Kong. It is funded by the Council ($300,000) and Weta Workshop ($90,000).
