AUCKLAND LETTER Sculpture At Centenary

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32378, 18 August 1970, Page 12

AUCKLAND LETTER Sculpture At Centenary

(From HAMISH KEITH) Next year, Auckland will celebrate a century of city status. Most Aucklanders now believe that the visual arts are among the characteristic features of their city and, appropriately enough, painting and sculpture are to be included in the celebrations.

The City Art Gallery has announced plans for a Pacific cities exhibition. Public galleries in Tokyo, Manila, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sydney and other cities around the Pacific have been invited to participate, and so far 10 galleries have agreed to send paintings and sculptures collected since 1950.

Later in the year, the New Zealand Society of Sculptors and Painters will organise, with financial backing from the Auckland City Council, airlines and industry, a symposium for young sculptors from Pacific countries.

Five sculptors will be brought to Auckland on an expenses-paid basis, and they will work here for five weeks with studios and materials supplied. The Auckland City Council will provide city sites for the work of the visiting sculptors and for works by

New Zealanders participating in the symposium. Although no details have been worked out yet, it is intended that a number of the works exhibited will remain as permanent additions to Auckland’s public sculpture. Sculptors will be invited from the West Coast of the United States, Mexico, South America and Japan. So far only one sculptor, Mexico’s Helen Escobedo, has been formally invited and has accepted. As well as being established as one of Mexico’s major sculptors, with a growing international reputation, Miss Escobedo is the director of the Museum and Art Gallery at the National University. While the work produced and exhibited will provide the major area of public interest, the most significant feature of the symposium will be the personal contacts made by New Zealand sculptors with their contemporaries around the Pacific. Like the exhibition, it may become a regular event, perhaps being held in each of the participating countries. The fact that Auckland has chosen to celebrate its city centenary by looking outwards is a healthy sign for the future of the visual arts here. It at least makes a change from the cultural introspection that marked the national celebrations 30 years ago.