OPINION: Keep the cultural barbarians away from Queens Wharf

Michael Parekowhai's Lighthouse Sculpture

There has been a new development in the great saga of the Michael Parekowhai lighthouse sculpture on the Auckland waterfront. The Auckland Council hearings committee will be considering the application on behalf of Waterfront Auckland with the notification process focused on the location of the artwork rather than its merits.

This will make a dent in the NZ Herald's strident attempts to torpedo the whole project.

The Auckland paper is leading the charge for a strange breed of conservative thinkers who want sculptures and iconic buildings on the waterfront as long as they conform to a set of unstated criteria which they are unclear about but which involve a process by which every citizen has a say in what they are. This is a misguided form of democracy that wants to override all the structures and processes of council committees, advisory bodies and public art professionals. They would prefer decisions on art works to be more like X Factor or a talent show.

There is also a breed of pseudo liberals who espouse the notion of the No8 wire innovative side of New Zealanders but, when it comes to new things which challenge the accepted, they become anti-intellectual. The notion that an art work would deal with something more than merely celebrating the obvious becomes something of a threat.

No one appears to have objected to two of the more prominent pieces of sculpture outside Eden Park. One would have thought the bronze works depicting Dave Gallaher and Michael Jones would have been met by an alternative list of great All Blacks but no one called for a citizen's referendum on them. Maybe the Eden Park Trust Park Board should be put in charge of commissioning public art works.

The last time the public had a go at choosing something aesthetic was the Auckland Council‘s relatively uninspiring pohutakawa blossom logo and the current fraught debate on the New Zealand flag also has seen few innovative solutions. Maybe artists should be trusted to get it right.

These knee-jerk critics follow in the time-honoured tradition of dismissing things that are different and challenging. Like the Parisians of the late 19th century who abhorred the Eiffel Tower, which is now a defining symbol of the capital, or like the citizens of Sydney aghast at the monstrosity of the proposed Sydney Opera House with its jumbled roof forms like a pile of orange-peel.

They probably object to Michelangelo’s David for not wearing shorts or complain about the Mona Lisa being too small to see properly or get agitated by the sculptures on Waiheke for spoiling the scenery.

Parekowhai’s new work commissioned by the real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson should be celebrated, marking the beginning of a private / public partnership in developing the Auckland Waitemata waterfront as a site of internationally important sculptures, building and recreational areas.

The project will not now be funded by Auckland Council. Instead the scaled-back work will be fully funded from the $1 million gift from Barfoot & Thompson, interest of $100,000 and private donations of over $100,00.

One of the big downsides of the work not being installed will be the effect on future corporate gifts to the city. Few generous sponsors are going to decide to beautify and inspire the city of they are going to have to endure the demands of citizen consultation, nimbyism and cultural barbarism.

That Barfoot & Thompson is behind a project involving a house is seen by some as some sort of marketing ploy by the firm. However, the artist has recently exhibited another version of the state house in a landmark exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Contemporary Art. In the show “The Promised Land” he has created a two-storey state house, “The Memory Palace” containing an oversize stainless steel sculpture of Captain James Cook

That show is one of the largest ever mounted for a single artist, certainly as big as any of their major exhibitions of artists such as Andy Warhol.

The exhibition is characterised by a refined aesthetic and an engagement with the creation and role of culture in the contemporary world. As with the artist's other many works, he plays with scale and space, using humour to comment on the intersections between cultural histories and popular culture.

The work is based on an Mt Eden state house and brings together ideas about those houses and their history as well as wharf constructions, lighthouses and local innovative solutions to social issues. The fact that many people have railed against the idea of a state house being depicted or that a state house is not something to celebrate and tourists should be shielded from seeing it points out one of the underlying aspects of the work – that it highlights issues of inequality, making it clear that state houses are not the sort of dwelling to be located on prime building land.

One of the other objections at the moment seems to be that anything on the waterfront will block the view of the harbour. This despite the fact that the art work will be set back from the edge of the wharf and take up a few square metres of space. The biggest things blocking views of the harbour at this moment are The Cloud, Shed 10, the Hilton and the Ferry Building.

The work isn’t something that will be just sitting there – it is something that is to be looked at, looked around, and looked into and through – providing views of the harbour through the windows of the house. It also allows us to look to the past and future as well as providing a springboard for the imagination.