Arts administration problems ‘urgent’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33521, 30 April 1974, Page 10

Arts administration problems ‘urgent’

The problem of arts administration in New Zealand must be solved urgently, the president of the Music Federation (Mr A. Hilton) said in his address to the federation’s annual meeting in Wellington at the week-end. “This country has had to pay dearly, financiallv and artistically, for the lack of professional administrators,” he said. “I am convinced that the many failings in the arts, the many financial disasters, the loss of artists overseas, can be put at the foot of administration without skill.”

Mr Hilton said that during the last year the arts had come under public debate in an unprecedented way. “If one clear point has emerged it is that there is no unanimity of thought on the organisation of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. There are as many approaches as there are arts organisations and people connected with or interested in the arts.” Arts administration called for all the normal skills of management and control, coupled with an exceptional capacity to deal with sensitive and emotional personalities, and with dynamic and changing concepts and structures. Mr Hilton said U.N.E.S.C.O. had offered to send an expert to New Zealand later this year to hold seminars and training programmes. Greatly increased funds from the Government were not the solution for the arts if there were no skilled men and women to administer them, he said.

Concern throughout the

arts community was being felt about the Arts Council Bill now before a Parliamentary Select Committee. “1 feel, and think we should all feel, optimistic about this, provided we have the right people to put it

into effect,” he said. “A good j bill can be disastrous it the wrong man is there to ad-1 minister it, but even a bad bill can be made into a success story if the right; person is there." _|