Wizard to be put in crate and exhibited

Press, 1 March 1984, Page 9

Wizard to be put in crate and exhibited

The Wizard will be put in a crate and flown to Auckland today, before attempting to be admitted into Australia as a living work of art. v He will be exhibited at the Auckland City Art Gallery for a short time, but the freighting of his physical form to Australia is still up in the air in spite of top-level negotiations between the Minister of Immigration, Mr Malcolm, and his counterpart in Canberra, Mr Stewart West.

Urging the Australian bureaucrats to accept the Wizard as a work of art rather than as a mere human being (the Wizard does not have a passport), Mr Malcolm said. “The project on which I am working is, of course, bizarre, but is at the same time quite serious and has real tourist potential for New Zealand.” Mr West replied that treating the Wizard as a chattel rather than a person could cause “some real administration problems” for his people. The only possibility for the Wizard to be classified in this way would be under Item 99.05, which covers

“collections, or collector’s pieces, or pieces of zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archaeological, palaeontological, ethnographic, or numismatic interest.” However, it was doubtful if any of these applied to the Wizard. He would probably have to be classified under “other live animals.”

“I am unable to comment on how an arch-wizard would be valued, but I am

concerned that if he is regarded in New Zealand as a work of art and in Australia as a mere live animal, there arises the distinct possibility that the export value would be less than the nor- • mal value, which may give rise to ‘dumping’ complaints,” said Mr West. - As a chattel, the Wizard would also have no comeback were he beaten up or otherwise done ill by in Australia.

The Wizard badly wants to get to the Adelaide Festival, having been invited there, but unfortunately, all his documents and other earthly trivia are in the name of lan BrackenburyChannell, whose body he once used. The Wizard admits that it might be difficult to convince some hard-nosed Australian customs man that he is not a human but a work of art.

“It is conceivable that the Australian Immigration Department will attempt to demonstrate that I am not a work of art,” he said. “The fact is that apart from the shape of the organism, I have no need of the human body at all.”