Staff spotlight: Scott Everson

As exhibitions designer and coordinator, Scott is part of the Collections team responsible for handling the artworks and physically delivering the exhibitions at the Gallery.

He works closely with curators, conservators, technicians and artists to develop the display and look of the gallery spaces, as well as overseeing their installation… which can involve anything from deciding where to hang a painting, to figuring out how to secure 70 live goldfish into the passenger seats of a chartered plane!

 

 

What’s the best part of your job?

The variety that comes from working with art and artists is always really exciting and inspirational. I think it's a real privilege to be part of what we do at the Gallery. Dealing with such interesting and culturally significant items while collaborating with talented people never really gets old.

 

What are the challenges?

Beside the regular practical and technical ones, working with content that many people, not just the artist, are so passionate about is a pretty delicate exercise at times. Concepts and practicality or ideal aesthetics don't always align, so establishing that level of mutual trust required to come up with a compromise that responds to everyone's needs can take a lot of work, particularly when you're working off plans and drawings rather than with the actual piece in a finished gallery space.

 

How do you want people to react when they walk into a space you’ve designed?

It really depends on the type of show and artwork we're displaying. Often the best exhibition design is one that only a few people might notice. Generally if we've got it right I'd hope visitors’ reactions and feelings will be driven by or at least align with the art on display and what the artists or curators originally wanted to communicate or provoke. Hopefully the exhibition design just helps this along a bit, enhancing the experience.

 

Out of all the shows you’ve worked on, which one(s) stand out as being your favourite?

I definitely could never pick one, that’s kind of like having to pick an all time favourite song and I'd probably come up with a different answer each day of the week. There are some like Yinka Shonibare MBE or For Keeps at the old NEW Gallery that still stand out because I'm such a fan of the elegant and slickly produced art that was in them.

 

With shows like the Julian & Josie Robertson Promised Gift and Degas to Dalí it's really humbling and memorable to be involved with such historically impressive and valuable pieces, while others like the Walters Prize or some of our large scale commissions are cool just because of the professional relationships and processes it took to deliver them.

 

We've just opened Who Shot Rock & Roll so of course that sticks out. I've always spent a lot of time going to live gigs so there's a lot of stuff in there that interests me. Gail Buckland (curator) and Roger Taberner (coordinating curator) were great to work with, giving me a lot of freedom to have some fun with the design and layout.

 

What are your interests outside of work?

I've got three old American cars that keep me entertained and poor when I'm not watching friends’ bands at some local dive bar. Actually, the only roadworthy car we've got at the moment is a ‘77 Chevy Camaro with a bit of drag racing history; it makes grocery shopping and running errands fun. Although they're gathering dust right now, I've also got a ‘51 Chevrolet I've been restoring and customising for way too long and a ‘51 Mercury Coupe which is more pile of rusty metal than vehicle at the moment.

 

Messing around with them in the garage is a good distraction if I'm getting too tied up in an exhibition, but for me there's also a real similarity with the kind of form versus function problem-solving and satisfaction I get from working on shows at the Gallery.

Josie Robertson

Late this afternoon we learned that Josephine "Josie" Robertson, wife of Julian, died in New York on Tuesday. Josie was only 67 but she had been battling breast cancer for a number of years and it finally took its toll. She was a truly energetic and passionate woman who provided much of the drive and inspiration behind the couple's global philanthropic and business interests. At the beginning of their life's partnership art was very much her interest but one that Julian quickly came to share. He often tells the story that he was virtually dragged into his first major art museum experience, while on their honeymoon in Paris 38 years ago. Josie insisted they make a visit to the Jeu de Paume and a lifelong love of the post-impressionists was born.

Josie had taken art as her major when she studied at the University of Texas, from where she graduated in 1965. Although art history was not taught at the time she became a regular visitor to art museums. Once she and Julian began to form their collection, she told Gallery curator Mary Kisler in 2008, "it really started to work for itself, leading the way". She and Julian would talk about it a lot, and it became a wonderful common interest for them. She said at the time that her favourite work was Picasso's Femme à la résille, a striking study of his mistress Dora Maar, painted in 1938 and included in the Robertsons promised gift to Auckland.

The Auckland Art Gallery is greatly indebted to the Robertsons for the stunning generosity of their gift of 15 European masterworks, including some truly exceptional works by Picasso, Cezanne and Matisse, which they announced in May 2009. It remains a signal gift on any standard, unprecedented in this part of the world, and Josie was very much its co-author. She and Julian shared an abiding love of the arts and particularly of late 19th and early 20th century painting, and she had a discerning eye honed through their long experience as collectors. Josie loved their collection - their children, as she and Julian would both refer to their paintings - as she loved life. Her loss will be very deeply felt by her husband Julian and by their family and friends.

The Gallery has lost one of its most remarkable, generous and far-sighted benefactors. Her name and Julian's are to be honoured in perpetuity when the Auckland Art Gallery dedicates the level one Kitchener Wing the "Julian and Josie Robertson Galleries" when our developed building opens in mid 2011.

Chris Saines
Director
Wednesday 9 June 2010