The memory power of rugby photographs

I was in Hamilton that day in 1981. Roger Blackley, Dean Buchanan, Helga Strewe and I were there because of the Rugby match. The Saturday when Hamilton’s Rugby Park was invaded by ‘protestors’ – the scheduled Waikato versus Springbok game. Very first game of the Springbok tour, I think. The game was cancelled. The protest threw everything amok.

Here’s an aerial view of that superb sports ground:
http://wikimapia.org/26423/Rugby-Park

That was a terrifying day. We felt on the cusp of being murdered. An ugly incident for everyone. Pro-game and anti-game. I reckon none of us present has ever forgotten it.

It is a perplexing feeling for me to recognise myself in this photograph by John Selkirk taken 29 years ago. Looking at it feels like a cross between recovered memory and auto-forensics.

The memory power of rugby photographs:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/photos/2845036/Hamiltons-Rugby-Park-1981-Springboks-tour-protest

Being there has greatly increased my knowledge of the photographic history of Rugby. I enjoy watching rugby and encountering historic photographs of the game.

New Zealanders are exceptional at rugby. We play it in a brave and innovative manner like fearless and tactical brothers. Rugby bloods our identity better than game hunting ever could.

Sonny Bill Williams is proving that by combining his astonishing physical flair with a terrific response time, he is becoming a rugby emblem. Phil Gifford has already told us that in the best way possible:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/opinion/4368799/We-are-in-safe-hands

I wish I had learnt more about the photographic history of rugby, as it would be useful in my Gallery work. I immediately recognise images from the 1956 All Black/Springbok rugby match at Eden Park. In fact, I have exhibited some of the best of these pictures. During the 1950s Show Warwick Roger delivered the most informative talk on rugby photography I have ever heard. Warwick knows so much about the 1956 match.

I came across this brilliant and amusing Ans Westra photograph from 1971 of a rugby match in Wellington. Can anyone tell me the date of this game and who is playing who? Ans is not looking at the field. You do not need to see the players to feel the spirit of rugby.

Caption:
Ans Westra
Rugby spectators at Athletic Park, Wellington 1971
Black and white photograph
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1985
1985/5/3

Venus keeps her toes out of the water

We are back and raring to go in 2009. I meant to post about this before Christmas but it was not to be.

As part of The Enchanted Garden, our exhibition designer Scott Everson and the curator of the exhibition, Mary Kisler, decided that a water feature inside the exhibition would be perfect to enhance the 'garden' theme and provide a fantastic platform for Antonio Canova's beautiful Venus Italica (c1812) (sleeping happily in her crate below).

Now as you may already have read here we already have a forest of Pohutakawa in the exhibition so adding a pond as well has meant even more unusual goings on in the gallery. As well as wringing of hands amongst the exhibition designer and prep team.

Here is some documentary photography as Venus finds herself moved from her cosy warm crate to the middle of a pond.

Our Preparator Glen with some hazardous materials as he prepares the pond frame.

Not Sure what is going on here but i imagine some sort of sealing of the frame again by our prep Glen.



Glen putting a waterproof layer on the frame as Venus shivers in the background at the thought of leaving for the cold black box behind her.





Venus longingly looking back at her crate, as she is all wrapped up and brought out into the open.




Th sides going on the pond as curator Mary Kisler oversees the installation progress



Exhibition designer Scott and Preparator Shane check their handy-work as the stones are added to the pond.


Shane starts to put the tiles around the edge of the pond.


The pond nearly finished.




All finished as Venus rises from the water with a bottom to be admired by all. A definite highlight of the exhibition(Venus and the pond, not just her bottom).


Photos by Jennifer French and John McIver

The Enchanted Garden is on show until 8 February



Credit:
Antonio Canova
Venus Italica
marble c1812
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, gift of Mr Moss Davis, 1931

2 days to go.....installing the exhibition

All the months of selecting work and researching and writing wall texts and labels are essential for an exhibition. However, it is only when works start coming into the gallery spaces and the curator puts the puzzle together that he or she knows if the concept has worked, particularly with such a varied show as The Enchanted Garden. Scott Everson, our designer, has been busy with the preparators, painting walls, (demolishing or moving them on occasion), and working out issues to do with lighting and projection.

After crates and travelling frames have been unloaded the works are put on sponge ‘softies’ randomly against any wall space available, and it is at this point that the curator can sometimes have a moment of panic! Then, gradually, as the works get grouped according to their themes, (and occasionally one gets rejected because it just can’t fit on the allocated wall) it starts to come together. The designer, preparators and curator work together as a team, patiently moving works left or right, experimenting with a particular hang until it feels just right. It’s exhausting, both physically and mentally, but extremely satisfying when it all comes together.

With this show, there are also a range of objects from private collectors, artists’ projects and the decorative arts collection at the Auckland Museum. All of these go in last, except for a delicate embroidered quilt, which has to be suspended high on a wall. Only then can the botanical prints that sit either side be laid out. Finally, there’s the knitted tea cosy, Meissen porcelain, the Maria Loboda vase of floral curses, dvds sculptures etc.

Two days to go, but now we know we’ve got a show!

The Enchanted Garden - opens 13 December 2008


image credit:

Peter Siddell
Tombstone Angel
1975
acrylic on hardboard
Auckland Art Gallery, bequest of Miss L D Gilmour 1990

Putting down roots in the gallery

Part of the upcoming exhibition - The Enchanted Garden, involves an artists project by Monique Redmond.

I was fortunate enough to hear from the curator, Mary Kisler, about Redmond's ambition for this project; to create a Pohutukawa Forest in the gallery. As i like to show some of the more unusual behind-the-scenes happenings at the gallery, the arrival of a forest of trees into the gallery seemed to fit.

Above is Monique Redmond who i like to think is checking out the height of the latest delivery of Pohutakawa trees with in trepidation.

How many preps does it take to make a forest?!

Looks like a rare sighting of the red headed prep lost amongst the forest. Apparently quite tame though.

......that's all I can reveal but if you want more, the exhibition opens on Saturday 13th December, come and see if they have flowered especially for the opening weekend. Fingers crossed!

The Enchanted Garden - Pulling it all together

While in many contemporary exhibitions, it is not usual practice to write extended labels for individual art works, for a large scale summer show that ranges across a wide theme they are an integral part of the experience.

I am an inveterate hoarder of magazine articles, second hand books, extracts off the web, etc so when I started to plan The Enchanted Garden exhibition I already had a lot of material to hand. However, without the assistance of the Gallery’s librarians, who are always happy to source material, it would not have been possible to cover the range of themes that I have. Even after writing 130 extended labels (some loans don’t have them) there is still so much more that could be said.

It is when you write the wall texts that the exhibition really comes together. Sometimes wall texts are really obvious and simple, but on other occasions narrowing down what you need to say, and tying different aspects of a show together, can get very challenging. Then everything has to be edited carefully for any errors or oversights – a daunting task that requires the assistance of willing readers.

While it is the registrar’s job to assist by liaising with artists and dealers when bringing works into the gallery, our designer has also been busy working out how to best display the range of works. Spaces change between exhibitions and for this show we have opened up the atrium, so the centre of the gallery is flooded with light.

Luckily most of the walls have remained in the positions created for the previous show (2008 Walters Prize), but the spaces are starting to look very different as new colours go on the walls. In this way we can tie particular works and themes together.

One of the preparators has constructed a circular table that is also an interactive for children, and a Temple of Vesta has been constructed as one of the four activities that we are offering to booked tours for people with visual impairment, to give added meaning to two prints which show the Temple in its natural surroundings. Much to do…

Click here to read more posts on The Enchanted Garden
Click here to visit The Enchanted Garden on the Auckland Art Gallery website

The Enchanted Garden - Stepping up the pace.

While paper conservators beaver away in the lab treating any prints that might be foxed, and painting conservators clean and treat any works that need attention before being put on display, the curator steps up the pace, finalising any public loans.

For The Enchanted Garden we are borrowing from several dealer galleries, so loan letters have to go out, contracts drawn up and any requirements on the part of the artist or dealer recorded carefully prior to the works being delivered.

We’re also borrowing decorative art objects from Auckland Museum, and our conservators have photographed the works and written condition reports. This happens with every loan work, both into and out of the Gallery, as it is important to have a record of any blemishes, damages etc especially when dealing with fragile porcelain or historic paintings.

As part of this process, the logistics of transporting and displaying individual items are carefully worked through. Two of the paintings in our collection are also getting new frames, so the curator’s job is to select the mouldings and liase with the framer. Meanwhile, research into selected works is taking place, and regular meetings with the designer, education and public programmers all have to fit into the mix.

To read more posts on The Enchanted Garden click here.


Image Credits (top to bottom):

Alberta Pulicino
View of Floriana from La Madonna del Tocha
Post 1749
oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki


Conservators at work
Photo by John McIver

Selecting works for The Enchanted Garden

Perhaps the hardest thing when commencing preparation for an exhibition is selecting works for the show. After building up a possible list off the database, the curator spends a number of days in the Gallery’s art stores. That is when the fun starts, as far as I am concerned, because while any work that has been exhibited is mounted in a cardboard matt with a backing board, there are often loose prints or drawings or watercolours, each housed in folded acid free tissue to protect the work.

These have never been matted, or therefore exhibited, and simply lie quietly in their box hoping their turn will come. Some, of course, may never see the light of day – perhaps they were acquired long in the past – we have lots of prints and drawings of sheep, for example, because early donors were homesick for the Scottish Highlands– or because over time the work has degraded and cannot be treated, so that it become unexhibitable.

For every one of those, however, there will be a hundred or so works which catch the eye, and what should be a short task stretches because it is impossible to resist the temptation to go through each box in its entirety. In this way, curators really get to know their collection.







When I first started working at the gallery in 1998, I used the contents of the boxes to get ideas for possible exhibitions, building lists of themes, such as Politics, Death, Theatre, etc. We didn’t have the great database and website we have now, but I still go back to these lists just to check that there isn’t some work that has slipped off the radar. These are added to my exhibition list, which I then print out with small images and locations.

Then the hard work really starts, because each one has to be examined, the vertically challenged often requiring helpers who can pull out heavy painting racks, and assist with carrying some of the heavier solander boxes. Sculptures are trickier, because they are usually packed in crates, but as we have fewer they tend to be familiar.

The works have to fit the brief, and all be approved by the Gallery Conservators before final approval, and inevitably certain works get eliminated during the process.

This is the second of my series of posts on the planning process for my upcoming exhibition The Enchanted Garden. To read the first post, click here.

image credits from the top:

The old print room

Conservator at work

Joseph Moran Granny Smith gouache
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki gift of Mrs K M Marsh, 1976

Harold Knight White Clematis oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki purchased 1912

Johann Ladenspelder, after Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve after 1504 engraving
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, gift of Wallace Alexander, 1940

The journey from conception to show – curating The Enchanted Garden.

Giusto Utens Medici Villa at Pratolino, 1599
Museo Firenze com'era, Florence

A common question that curators are asked is ‘How do you think up exhibitions?’ The question, inevitably, can’t be answered simply. Sometimes a show is curated to answer a particular need, to explore a particular artist’s history of working, or to honour a patron who has sponsored particular works, or perhaps to give an overview of a particular art historical period. When a curator is ferreting through storage, works are constantly being revealed that suggest a particular theme, or point to a need to explore a particular artist or period. And then there are the times when just for the pure joy of it, you decide you’re going to see just how many works you can put together on a theme because it has triggered a memory of a pleasurable incident. And that is precisely how The Enchanted Garden, which is going to show upstairs in the New Gallery from 13th December 2008 until the 15th March 2009 came about.


From late 1991 to July 1992, I lived in Florence, having received a scholarship from the Italian Government to carry out research for my Master’s Degree, which I was doing through the Italian Department at the University of Auckland.

Stefano Della Bella. The tree house at Pratolino c. 1652
Etching
Mackelvie Trust Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki,
bequest of Dr Walter Auburn, 1982

I often visited public gardens in the weekend, partly to escape the stony environment of the city. Once spring arrived, more gardens opened, one of which was Pratolino. Like so many villas in the countryside around Florence, Pratolino had once belonged to the Medici family. The Museo di Firenze com’era (The Museum of Florence as it was) holds a remarkable set of lunettes painted by the topographical artist, Giusto Utens, who was commissioned to paint all the Medici villas, as they appeared at the end of the 16th century. These show the gardens and villas in their entirety from a bird’s eye view. Pratolino’s original formal gardens have all but disappeared, as a Capability Brown style of garden was introduced when they became all the rage in the eighteenth century. The only sculpture left is Giambologna's Giant of the Appenines Luckily however, they are also recorded in Stefano Della Bella’s set of etchings carried out fifty years or so after Utens, providing a close up, as it were, of the parterres, walks, grottoes and sculptures that used to be there .
Stefano Della Bella
Giambologna's Giant statue of the Appenines c. 1652 Pratolino

etching,

Mackelvie Trust Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki,

bequest of Dr Walter Auburn, 1982

When I came to view these prints in storage at the Gallery in 1999, I immediately saw the possibility of curating a show on the theme of gardens. So why, you ask, has it taken that long? In fact it had been considered for our programme three years ago, but for a number of reasons had to be postponed until now, and during that time has moved from a space in the Main Gallery to the upper floor of the New Gallery. Over the next few weeks I will elaborate on the processes that go into putting together an exhibition, covering such topics at the selection of collection, sourcing loans; layout and design, research and writing, public programmes, and installation.