The top of their game
By Hamish Coney,
The Walters Prize is a big deal. Graham Henry would understand why
[Art]
Have you noticed the egregious trend of more prizes and awards not having any effect on the quality of the products that so readily get gongs of one sort or another?
How many garbage films have you been hoodwinked into sitting through after getting all excited about the Grand Prix award it secured at the prestigious Uzbek film festival?
How many battle-of-the-bands-quality CDs have you endured after falling for the PR spin extolling its homeboy authenticity as the essence of Aotearoa hip-hop and sweeping all before it at the recent Tui, Pukeko or Tuatara awards?
New Zealand is awash with this awards contagion.
But just as I was about to issue a blanket ban on awards, along comes a prize that actually means something and one that we all (that’s us self-obsessed types in the art world) look forward to as an almost divine combination of celebration, acclamation and, hopefully, lots of free drinks.
New Zealand’s premier art award, the Walters Prize, is modelled on the famous Turner Prize in Britain and has corporate backing from major sponsors Ernst & Young, Saatchi & Saatchi, Simpson Grierson, Montana and a number of private art patrons. There are four finalists: Stella Brennan, Philip Dadson, Peter Robinson and Francis Upritchard. The winner, who will have been chosen shortly after Idealog goes to press, takes home much more than a pat on the back: $50,000 in cash.
Held biennally, this is the third time the award has been made after photographer Yvonne Todd won in 2002 and art collective Et Al was awarded in 2004, much to the chagrin of the mainstream media who usually regard art as something to poke the borax at. The exhibition of the finalists’ work is open for all to see and judge for themselves until November 19 at the New Gallery in Auckland.
What you’ll see is four very different artists at the top of their game and some genuinely thought-provoking artwork. That most of the work is sculptural and installation-based is symptomatic of the direction of much contemporary art.
What’s important, and the reason why you should visit the exhibition, is what the work is doing and why this is happening right now. The best art today is a clear call to arms for Joe and Jolene Punter to exercise their powers of observation, acuity and judgement. In other words, when most other sources of information are really just more propaganda, art is one of the last genuinely ‘free’ forms of expression. Much of the Walters Prize finals work from Peter Robinson’s Jackson Pollock-meets-Dunkin’ Donuts sculpture to Francis Upritchard’s cracked anthropology is about authorship and authenticity—surely huge issues in 2006.
Phil Dadson’s ‘Polar Projects’, a video and sound piece set in Antarctica, articulates both environmental and artistic concerns whilst doing what art does best: being very hard to pin down.
Don’t forget to take your togs to the show. If you jump into the spa at the centre of Stella Brennan’s ‘Wet Social Sculpture’ you’ll be a part of the work.
There is every chance you may not understand or even like some or any of the work—I’m continually baffled by half of the art I see on a regular basis, much in the same way as I’m completely stumped by what goes on in most of the breakdowns in the Tri-Nations. But I still look forward to the next All Blacks test match and I can’t wait to find out who will win the supreme prize.
In much the same way that Graham Henry’s much-discussed rotation policy is all about the cutting edge of rugby thinking, the Walters Prize lets us see what is happening at the leading edge of our current art practice. For good or for ill this is what our artists are thinking about today.
The prize winner isn’t necessarily the best artwork in New Zealand or the world, in much the same way an Effie, an Axis or a Clio doesn’t make the winning ad the best, just the one that catches the eye of the genius or idiot doing the judging. Like all prizes, it’s simply subjective opinion masquerading as an objective fact. Enjoy.
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