Spring 05
Chairman's comment
We had expected that an early summer newsletter would have emblazened across the front page the opening of Bill Culbert's SkyBlues on Post Office Square. Well, they say delayed gratification is a good thing.
Unfortunately the Meridian Energy Wind Sculpture (MEWS) Tower of Light will be our only finished installation this year.
Meanwhile the outlook for the next three years is highly positive. There are progress reports in this newsletter on six works scheduled for installation over the next 12-24 months; (the fourth MEWS, SkyBlues, Water Whirler, and works for the Musuem Hotel site, the Bunny St site, and the City Gateway site). Additionally there are others in early stages of development.
The cloud in our otherwise sunny sky, and every silver lining always has a cloud, is that we are faced with escalating prices.
This is partly a reflection of the global commodities boom, which is affecting most metal prices and the cost of many other materials. It may also be due to shifting supply and demand in the field of public sculpture in New Zealand, with widening commission options and growing expectations on the part of our best artists/sculptors.
Kinetic sculptures are proving to be particularly expensive. For example, when we started on the MEWS series in 2000, we were looking at works that would cost $50,000 - $70,000. But the last two have been in the range of $90,000 - $120,000 and forward proposals are in the range of $140,000 - $200,000. So despite the growing generosity of some sponsors and donors, the Trust will continue to be ceaselessly fundraising to be able to finance its work programme.
We again thank all our members and sponsors for their patience and support.
Neil Plimmer, Chairman
A Forest Grows on Cobham Drive
The Trust is delighted to announce that it has selected Leon van den Eijkel’s Urban Forest to be the fourth of the Meridian Energy Wind Sculpture series along Cobham Drive.
Leon arrived in Wellington from The Hague in 1986 and moved to live in Auckland in 1998. He has exhibited widely in Europe, the US and in New Zealand. His work is held by many major public and private institutions ( Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, to name a few).
Leon has a major work at The Farm in Kaipara called Red Cloud Confrontation in Landscape (1996/98) and exhibited The Cloudbox in the temporary sculpture walk ‘Changing Spaces’ here in Wellington almost two years ago, Leon’s arrival in New Zealand has provided a point of contrast with what he left behind. For the past 15 years he has produced light boxes, sculptures, paintings and multimedia installations which often make use of reflective surfaces and colours in a continuing dialogue between his homeland and the Pacific.
As a child, Leon grew up in war-time Holland, and his Urban Forest nicely references a particular war-time experience. Until the age of five, Leon never saw a tree except in black and white photographs.
‘All the trees in my city had been cut down for heating so we children didn’t know what a tree was,’ he says. ‘We had only black and white images of them. So we made urban trees from all sorts of wood, strips of cloth, broken pieces of glass and iron we found in the street.’
Much of Leon’s work is inspired by the tree form, but Urban Forest is the first of his sculptures to be interactive with the wind. The trees, he says, bravely defy the harsh conditions experienced along Cobham Drive.
Its vibrant colours will make Urban Forest impossible to miss on the approach from the airport and Evans Bay roundabout.
Each of the ‘trees’ will stand on a 2.4 metre high base to prevent the rotating cubes and people coming into contact with one another. The three ‘trees’ comprise of cubes which will rotate around an internal axis. Allan Brown from Metallion is in the process of conducting tests to fine-tune and calibrate the movement of the ‘trees’ in wind. It is hoped that the cubes will move at different speeds and as well operate in low wind.
Applications for Resource and Building Consents are being processed, and installation of Urban Forest is planned for September/October 2006.
Seismic Shock for Bunny Street
The Trust has great pleasure in announcing the commissioning of a work by Louise Purvis for Bunny Street. Louise is a highly regarded sculptor and works principally in marble, granite and bronze.
The work, Seismic is a narrative of four 1.8 metre carved marble discs that will each tell of an event. The first narrative, Topographical Map Section, will reference the location and mark the exact path of a segment of fault line that runs through Wellington. The second, Seismic Shock, records the earthquake itself. The third, Disrupt, speaks to the earth moving and the disruption that takes place; while the fourth and final disc, Split tells of the results of an earthquake and the opening and movement of tectonic plates.
The discs, while large, will relate on a human scale being roughly the size of a person. They will give the sculpture an accessible and intimate quality and in their seemingly random, scattered placement, will invite people to sit and walk among them.
The sculpture will be placed at the western end of Bunny Street, 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.
The other-worldliness of the discs placed in this urban environment will make people want to reach out and touch the smooth and carved shapes. Placed in this major pedestrian thoroughfare for commuters and the 5,000 students of the campus there will be plenty of opportunity to enjoy the sculpture in this way.
Principal funding has been granted by TOWER Ltd, consolidating its position as a major supporter of public sculpture in Wellington. Other major sponsors are Victoria University and the Wellington City Council.
The Trust expects the sculpture to be installed at the end of 2006.
City Gateway update
The City Gateway sculpture, the largest project the Trust has undertaken, is progressing steadily, with an announcement of the selected piece expected “reasonably soon”, says the Convenor of the selection panel, Neil Plimmer.
The Trust has been commissioned by the Wellington City Council to select and commission a work to be placed in the Kaiwharawhara area, to be visible to traffic entering and leaving the city. The Council has committed $500,000 to the project, but costs have been rising rapidly and it is unlikely that a suitable work can be found in that price range.
The Trust has set up an expanded panel and arts advisers group to manage the selection process. It narrowed the submissions down to three finalists in July, and in recent meetings has been finalising the choice from these. The selected piece is then likely to require a number of other approvals and consents, from transport and local authorities, as well as fundraising, before it can proceed.
Neil Plimmer says that the panel and advisers have found the task challenging and have engaged in really intensive and high-quality debate about the needs of a successful project. “No doubt the artists and group collaborations that submitted have found the project challenging too, and they rose to the occasion. We are on course for a great result.”
Museum Hotel project near finalisation
The project funded by Mr Chris Parkin, to place a significant sculpture on the Cable St/Tory St corner outside the Museum Hotel, has reached the stage where an announcement of the selected work is expected before Christmas.
The Trust at midyear narrowed the options to two, and the more detailed submissions from these finalists are currently being appraised. The sculpture is expected to be installed in 2006.
Water Whirler now on a fast track
Many Wellington readers will have seen the activity on the Waterfront off the north end of Frank Kitts Park where construction of the pier designed to support Water Whirler is advancing rapidly.
Wellington Waterfront Ltd have contracted Fletcher Construction to make and install the pier and carry out surrounding site works including steps and pumps.
Much deliberation has gone into the pier design, essentially the work of Ian Athfield and Associates, and into the lighting, mainly supplied by ECC Lighting, which is being placed along the pier. It is expected that Water Whirler will look particularly outstanding at night when the jets of water are illuminated.
Water Whirler itself, meanwhile, is completed and waiting patiently in New Plymouth to be brought to Wellington for installation as soon as the pier is ready. There is confident expectation that Water Whirler can be launched during the International Festival of the Arts in February-March 2006.
The Trust feels that the occasion of Water Whirler's completion warrants an additional event besides an opening, and is advancing plans for a half day of discussion and other celebration based on Len Lye's contribution to kinetic sculpture, probably to be held after the Festival is over.
Tripod opens on Courtney Place
The City Council's artwork tribute to the screen production industry's contribution to Wellington has been installed at the eastern end of Courtney Place, in proximity to the Embassy Theatre, and was opened by the Mayor on 17 November.
Although the work is not a Wellington Sculpture Trust project, it is a significant addition to the public art in the city, and the only major piece in that part of Wellington.
The City commissioned the piece from Weta Workshop and appointed a selection panel and arts adviser to choose the work from various proposals put forward by Weta.
Wellington City Council Funding
It was announced at the AGM in June, that of the $300,000 Council Arts Budget, $50,000 will be set aside annually for the Wellington Sculpture Trust. We are very grateful to the Mayor and the Council, to now have regular funding, which will be used as projects require.
New Trustee
Following the retirement of Dame Cheryl Sotheran earlier this year, it was announced at the AGM that Helen Cull Q.C has been invited to join the board. We are very pleased to have welcomed Helen who brings to the Trust a wealth of experience.
Helen was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1997, is currently a Director of Solid Energy and NZGRA and is a member of the NZLS Ethics Committee.
She has served as Chair and member of numerous review and inquiry boards and is the author of a number of Government inquiries. Helen has also served as legal assessor for a number of tribunals including the Psychologists’ Board and Nurses Council as required. Helen is a keen collector of contemporary art.
