$60,000 art event

Press, 13 June 1981, Page 11

$60,000 art event

Christchurch will be host to the biggest international art event to be beld in New Zealand, later this year. Called-ANZART, the project is the idea of Mr lan Hunter, the former acting director of the. National Art Gallery in .Wellington. Mr Hunter is a visiting lecturer in art theory at the School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury.

The $60,000 project will bring 30 leading Australian and New Zealand artists to Christchurch, plus about seven European artists of international standing. About 100 students from art schools throughout New Zealand will also attend.

ANZART, which will run from August 17 to 30, will focus on experimental art forms and new media. The programme will include exhibitions, films, performances, music, workshops, seminars, and lectures. It will be held at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, the. Arts Centre, the Canterbury

Society of Arts Gallery, and at other venues which have yet to be organised. It is hoped that a radio station may run during- the project.

Mr Hunter said that the project stemmed from a report he did a year ago which recommended a closer arts relationship between Australia and New Zealand. “The most exciting art developments anywhere have come about in New Zealand in the last 10 years, but Australians know almost nothing about them or about New Zealand societ.v,” he said. “People imagine they are close, but they have drifted apart in the last 10 years. You only have to look at the recent economic negotiations.” He emphasised that ANZART was a joint project aimed at allowing Australian and New Zealand artists to work alongside each other and to educate young artists. It was also important for the Australian artists to meet New Zealand people, and it was hoped to find hosts for up'to 15 artists during their stay in Christchurch. Christchurch had been chosen to be host to the project because the South Island “always seems to miss

out” and it needed an opportunity for cultural input from the outside. That also extended to North Island artists coming to the South Island. Mr Hunter said Christchurch had also been chosen because it was a hospitable •city and Australian artists would be welcomed. ANZART would include sculptural and experimental installations, video, performance, experimental film, and audio arts. Experimental and new media art had been chosen because they were very important areas in which artists had been working mainly on their own. It would provide a venue for work which might not be seen otherwise. A follow-up project, with about eight artists, would go to the National Art Gallery in Wellington after ANZART had finished. ,

Mr Hunter said the project should be the first of a series of joint projects in the 1980 s. The next would probably be held in 1983. He had recommended that it look at Australian and New Zealand painting, works on paper and •photography. A painting exhibition

would cost a lot more to stage than the experimental and new media art project, which had been designed as a ‘ cost effective exercise.” He said finance for the project would come from the Australian Arts Council, the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, the Australia New Zealand Foundation and commercial organisations. The Students’ Arts Council would help with finance for visiting students and extra funds would be raised to bring the European artists to New Zealand. About $6OOO would have to be raised locally for the New Zealand artists.

Mr Hunter, who recently spent two weeks in Australia, said the response from both New Zealand and Australian artists had been “great.” The news media in Australia had been very interested in the project and the Australian Film Commission was thinking of making a film about it.

“There was a very special relationship between Australia and New Zealand but it needs to be looked at again. This is seen as a way of restoring that relationship” Mr Hunter said.