Gallery Needed For Touring Art

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30914, 22 November 1965, Page 16

Gallery Needed For Touring Art

The increasing number of touring art exhibitions made it more necessary to have in Christchurch a gallery able to organise their display professionally and efficiently, said Professor H. J. Simpson, professor of fine arts at the University of Canterbury, on Saturday.

Opening the contemporary Italian sculpture exhibition. Professor Simpson said it had cost £4OOO to bring to New Zealand and had involved the co-operation of many organisations.

He praised the co-operation

of the Canterbury Society of Arts and its 20/20 Vision members in mounting “an outstanding display” but said that a city the size of Christchurch should not have to rely on “symbolic” co-opera-tion.

“These exhibitions should be handled by an art gallery with the proper persons and facilities to plan and arrange these exhibitions quietly and efficiently,” he said. “The Canterbury Society of Arts should not be expected to go on doing this sort of thing, but then the city gallery is not developed to the point of doing it either.

“We are on the verge of getting a town hall. I do hope that the architectural design competition will allow the provision of two or three small galleries with the town hall

and that these will continue this sort of work.” Mr T. J. Taylor, the university lecturer in sculpture who had led the 20/20 Vision group in mounting the exhibition, said the value of touring exhibitions was lessened if they were handled indifferently and without some sensitivity and care.

“This show will point out to the society that there is a great deal of untapped vigour among the younger group,” he said.

Mr Taylor said there was an amazing variety of Italian sculpture displayed, but that variety did not suppress its

nativeness. He later told “The Press” that some of the work could probably be purchased. Before the speeches the visitors were directed past a huge Italian flag, photo-mural of a street scene and a dignified

bronze cardinal by Manzu into the exhibition. If they went to talk, they could not help starting with the exhibition. The gallery had been transformed—disguised into a neutrality—and the works were strikingly displayed. The works of iron, bronze and lead were set on concrete

block pedestals close to eye level, set off spaciously by the walls lined with white foam plastic or by bright vertical drapes. A stone reclining fig-

ure lay on pebbles on the floor. Concrete blocks bordered paths which led around the 29 exhibits.

After the speeches there was an Italian supper, with olives, sliced salami, cheese, rye bread and Italian wines. The exhibition is sponsored by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council.