Give 'Em A Big Hand, Folks!

Oh Jenny, what HAVE you done now?
A new "thing" adorns the roof of the Christchurch Art Gallery. Quasi is a 5m-tall sculpture by local artist Ronnie van Hout, standing above the Gloucester/Montreal intersection until the end of 2017.

It's quite simply a giant hand with a face. Yeup, that's it... and we have to tolerate it for 18 months!
This sculpture was commissioned by the gallery and funded from its annual exhibitions budget. Someone in their infinite arty-farty wisdom thought Quasi would be really really culturally wonderous! And paid for it to be made! Seriously???!!!
I quote gallery director Jenny Harper from Aug.2014: "I'm utterly clear that good art really matters. I'm convinced that collections of art matter more than a single work or that of a single individual." So Jenny, what the HELL is that up on your roof then?
At the very least, it's a public eyesore!
At worst, it's a blatant abuse of public funds!
In a Press poll of approx.2300 votes, 50% said Quasi was "terrible", 30% said "awesome" and 20% had mixed feelings.
Van Hout says Quasi is a surreal gesture: "I'm not trying to tell people something. Often art does, but this is more like a surrealist artwork. A way of making art by juxtaposing things together..." he says.
A way of pocketing a big paycheck, I say.
Gallery director Jenny Harper says the sculpture will prompt varied reactions. "I think some people will be startled...affronted...they might say: 'Is this art?' I'm damn sure kids will love it." Riiiiiight!!!
And do kids pay rates to keep you employed, Jen-Jen darlink?

...meanwhile the patronising multi-coloured neon phrase along the opposite wall of the Art Gallery - Everything's Going To Be All Right - is looking decidely tongue-in-cheek these days, with a couple of the letters blown out!

Gormley Garbage

There's a time and a place for public art.
The post-earthquake recovery period is not the time.
The middle of the Avon River is not the place.
Self-indulgent art excesses have faced public flak in Christchurch before (remember "Fanfare" and "BeBop"?)! Now it seems the city is getting not one but two (TWO!) sculptures by UK sculptor Sir Antony Gormley.
The city's public art advisory group has contributed over $500K to the project. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has helped fund it, but won't say by how much. However Christie's Auction House of London lists a similar sculpture as selling in 2014 for over US$2 million!
This is how the sculpture, called "Stay", will look, standing mid-stream in the Avon in central Chch.
A Stuff.co.nz survey polled residents for their views. People queried why they didn't use a NZ artist's work. There was annoyance at both the cost, and that the money was going offshore:

+ "I think there are still so many people hurting that the money could be used towards."
+ "There are so many other things around Christchurch, to my way of thinking, that could be done, quake repairs and the roading. Some of the roads are shocking."
+ "I don't think we need a man standing in the middle of the river."
A man? Someone thought it resembled a big poo!
Gormley's sculptures are no strangers to the befouling of natural beauty. He has half a dozen dotted around the English countryside. Yet just a week ago, a life-sized cast-iron Gormley sculpture, standing on rocks at a Dorset beauty spot, toppled over into the water after a storm.
I trust that, if this irresponsible expenditure DOES go ahead (contrary to public opinion), this "pile of poo" will last a bit better than that!

Penis Patrol Pounces On Potholes

Fed up with your local council not fixing potholes?

Draw a DICK around the problem and see what happens.
This seems to be working for anonymous artist "Wanksy" who's been spray-painting penises around his town's problematic potholes. The road vigilante says the streets in Ramsbottom (yes!), Greater Manchester, UK are in an appalling state. The campaigner says he has cyclist friends who have been injured by hitting the potholes.
One pothole had been there for eight months but, once "Wanksy" penis-painted it, the hole was patched in 48 hours.
He's been called a "hero" by his Facebook fans, but a council spokesman claims his actions are stupid, and insulting to the community: "Has this person, for just one second, considered how families with young children must feel when they're confronted by these obscene symbols as they walk to school? Not only is this vandalism, but it's also counter-productive. Every penny we have to spend cleaning off this graffiti is a penny less we have to spend on actually repairing the potholes!"
Eeeeeee, by gooom...!
Still, it's one way that Penis People Power can get things done, because councils around the world otherwise seem to drag their dicks on road repairs. And, if they'd fixed the problem when it had first appeared...

Hell, imagine if this was done in Christchurch at the moment: every earthquake-damaged street would be a sausage-fest of willy art!!
I'm certain that "Banksy" would approve...

Simpson And His Donkey - The REAL One

A classic painting of a famous Gallipoli character went under the hammer this week.

"Simpson and his Donkey" was painted by Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones in 1918. It depicts a medic evacuating a wounded soldier during the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of WWI.
Moore-Jones had thought the Anzac medic was John Simpson Kirkpatrick, an Englishman who (as John Simpson) enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces when war broke out. And as time went on, most of Australia thought so too...
However, the medic was actually a New Zealander, Richard (Dick) Henderson, a Waihi-born man who was a teacher in Auckland when he enlisted in 1914.

Moore-Jones' most widely-recognised art work was not painted at the battlefront, but from a photo taken by Dunedin medic, James Jackson, who identified the subject as Richard Henderson.
Moore-Jones' depiction of the soldier and his donkey was done when the artist was touring his watercolours in Dunedin in 1918, three years after the Gallipoli landings. He altered the composition of the photo to make for a more dramatic painting.
This week, the art was bought by a private buyer and will remain in New Zealand. It's value was estimated at $150-200K but sold for $257,950.
The artist Moore-Jones died in a Hamilton fire in 1922, still believing he had painted Simpson.
While not wishing to denigrate John Simpson's work at Gallipoli, it should be recognised that his heroic exploits have been seriously inflated over the years.
The "Simpson" legend stemmed from an account in a 1916 book Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War. This was a wartime propaganda effort, and its stories of Simpson, supposedly rescuing 300 men and making dashes into No Man's Land to carry wounded out on his back, are demonstrably untrue.
In fact, transporting that many men down to the beach in the three weeks that he was at Gallipoli would have been an impossibility, given the time the journey took. However, the stories in the book were widely accepted by many, including the authors of subsequent books on Simpson.
The few contemporary accounts of Simpson at Gallipoli do speak of his bravery in bringing wounded down from the heights above Anzac Cove through Shrapnel and Monash Gullies. However, his donkey service spared him the even more dangerous and arduous work of hauling seriously wounded men back from the front lines on a stretcher.
Simpson landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and was killed by machinegun fire on 19 May 1915.
There've been movies based on the Simpson legend, statues erected, and even calls for a posthumous Victoria Cross.

But the real man in the picture, NZ stretcher-bearer Richard (Dick) Henderson, served in Gallipoli and later on the Western Front. He was awarded a Military Medal for repeatedly rescuing wounded from the battlefield while under heavy fire at the Battle of the Somme. Seriously gassed at Passchendaele in Oct.1917, he spent several months convalescing in England before repatriation to NZ in Feb.1918.
Henderson did not recover from the effects of the gas. He went back to teaching, but became blind in 1934 and was obliged to stop working. He remained in poor health for the rest of his life, and died in Greenlane Hospital, Auckland, on 14 November 1958.
The real 'medic with donkey' rests in Akld's Waikumete Cemetery, Soldiers' Burial Row 11, Plot 111.
Perhaps the painting should hang as acknowledgement of all medics, stretcher-bearers, nurses and doctors in fields of conflict...

Fanfare For The Common Man?

Chaneys Corner is on Christchurch's Northern Motorway, just south of the Waimakariri Bridge.
At that point, a motorway offroad links to Main North Road and takes vehicles down Marshland Road and into the CBD. In morning traffic, it's very congested - so much so, that the council last year installed extra 'merge' precautions, and Transit NZ added more traffic-cams. The Chaney's area will also be the branch point for the new Northern Arterial Route and the Western Belfast Bypass.

So I question the mental state of the Christchurch City Council's Public Art Advisory Group that approved the installation of a huge public art piece RIGHT ON THAT JUNCTION!!!
Fanfare is a large-scale work by Chch artist Neil Dawson (he of Chalice fame). Fanfare is 20m in diameter (!!), 25 tonnes and is covered by 360 separate 1m-round wind-powered 'pinwheels' (all independently attached and lit up for special occasions on the calendar). So, methinx lots of colour, lots of spin, lots of dazzle...and a helluva lot of motorist distraction!!!
Fanfare was originally commissioned by Sydney, Australia, for its 2005 New Year celebrations. It was raised from a barge at midnight and suspended from its Harbour Bridge for three weeks. Then in 2007, Sydney (seemingly in a generous gesture!) gifted it to Christchurch and cleverly cleared its books of it.

What we may see, southbound from the Waimak.Bridge

Now this monster bauble is being installed beside the northern entrance to the city. Total asset cost: $3.3 million. Total installation cost: $350,000 - nearly completely raised now, from donations. Thank God this crippled city's ratepayers didn't have to pay for this!
But the question remains: what about driver distraction? There'll be those who'll want to pull onto the road shoulder to take photos, or drive slower to gawk. There may even be reflections of light, dazzling motorists' eyes.
I'm sure Fanfare will look very pretty...but at a time when poor driving and motorist distraction (resulting in road accidents and deaths) is high in the public's priorities, this all points to an appallingly bad decision about its location.

PS: "Fanfare for the Common Man" is a musical work by US composer Aaron Copland, used in many forms around the globe.

Art Comes Alive!

A friend has sent me links to a graffiti/light show in Melbourne.
He was rather proud of this particular work, given that his son was a vital part of the creative team.
It was at Melbourne's largest cultural festival, White Night Melbourne, held on Sat.21 February 2015. Attended by over half a million people and running 7pm – 7am, the festival took over Melbourne's CBD for a one-night-only artistic extravaganza.
This particular piece was called Sofles – Graffiti Mapped. Many months in the planning, Sofles – Graffiti Mapped linked graffiti, street art and technology through a combination of 3D video mapping, traditional street art and graffiti techniques, and motion design.
Over five stories high, it was artist Sofles' biggest work to date. Add to that Grant Osborne's incredibly-detailed motion design and a musical score by NZ music producer Opiuo, and it was one truly innovative work of art.
If you're impressed, make sure you attend next year's White Night Melbourne festival!
Here's the actual creation of the artwork...
And now, ladies and gentlemen...the entire light show!

Video Shot/Cut - Selina Miles.
Mural - Sofles.
Motion Design - Grant Osborne.
Soundtrack - Opiuo.
Creative Director – Shaun Hossack.

Stand Tall, Christchurch!

Giraffes are roaming through Christchurch and beyond.

This one's in Kaiapoi

"Christchurch Stand Tall" is a mass-appeal public art project organised by UK organisation, Wild in Art.
More than fifty 2.5m fibreglass giraffes have been painted and decorated by local artists and planted in parks, streets and open spaces. Christchurch schools have decorated another 50 baby giraffes, and the detail that has been put into the decorating is quite

Such detail!

impressive!
Wild in Art has produced several other public displays around the world. Liverpool (UK) had penguins, Sydney had rhinos and Bristol hosted Gromits - from Wallace and Gromit.
The multi-coloured giraffes will be on display over summer and then auctioned off, with proceeds going to charities.

Art? Or Fart?

My eye was caught by an opinion piece in last Thursday's Press, by Jenny Harper, director of Christchurch Art Gallery.
Art - and the collecting of it - matters to Christchurch as the city rebuilds, she writes. Sounds interesting, methinx, as I settle in to what I expected would be an article covering the Gallery's behind-the-scenes work since it's earthquake closure.
Well, it was...and it wasn't.
More than anything, it was a justification for some grandiose purchases in the name of 'good art'.
Harper: "I'm utterly clear that good art really matters. I'm convinced that collections of art matter more than a single work or that of a single individual."

So while the city has rumbled, tumbled and started to claw its way back to its New Reality, the Gallery's been spending money, quietly gathering goodies for our cultural advancement.
You'll recall the curiosity called Chapman's Homer - a well-hung bronze bull astride a grand piano, first seen in mid-demolition site, and later the subject of a public fundraising campaign, to buy it...for our own artistic good.
It's "a brilliant reminder" says Harper "of a community-wide effort to represent the time the earthquake changed our lives forever." How a bull on a piano represents EQ devastation is beyond me! Perhaps a bull in a china shop...?
Now the Gallery's steamrolling a $5m endowement fund to buy itself lots more goodies...er, for our own good. Harper spins it thus:
"We've decided to ban the words donate and give. This is a partnership; it's mutual; it's about loyalty; it's about building our legacy; it's about art." Of course...!
And brace yourself, Christchurch, for five mega-costly art purchases

Bebop? Or be ripped off?!!

coming your way:
No.1 was the slab o' steak on the keyboards.
No.2 is described as "a marvellous and playful work" by NZ contemporary artist Bill Culbert called Bebop.
Take a good hard look at the pic: spin this any way you like...it's just some neon tube lights dangling among old kitchen chairs! Remove the rose-tinted artyfarty specs, Jen - this is op-shop junk tarted up as culture! Yet you raised over $80K just for this???
Harper assures us that Bebop will "become part of our legend: valued, loved, responded to and enjoyed for many years." Riiigghhtt...
Well, please don't buy his piece called Strait. His own publicity describes it as just a line of Anchor milk bottles with a bolt of fluorescent light through them. I'll make it for you myself this weekend! And even DONATE it!! Opps, sorry... PARTNERSHIP it!!
She says "...it's important to maintain the cultural heartbeat of the city and to represent this time. This too is part of our rebuild." Granted. No argument.
Harper: "We're here because good art matters." Terrific.
Then please will you purchase some actual GOOD ART???!!!

Biggest Stripper In Town

Mural fever swept through Christchurch in the last few months.

The drawing board...

Major international artists enlivened blank city walls with gigantic faces, scenes and self-expression. This was combined with the Museum's "Rise" exhibition, a celebration of street art featuring the legendary likes of Banksy (UK) and Roa (Belgium).
The impact on the CBD was stunning, and helped rejuvenate the heart of Earthquake City.
Not to be left out, central city strip club Calendar Girls is getting a
3-storey-high mural on its wall...of a naked woman. But not just a standardised female form. Oh no. In keeping with the activities within, the naked woman is on her back, legs curled in foetal position, exposing her butt!

Hurr-UMPH! Er...cough-cough!
Of COURSE it's ART! Cough!

Judging from the recent newspaper pix of the initial sketch-up, I suspect the purists may have their Bible bookmarks knocked a little out of kilter!
Already, Facebook comments cover the entire (colourful) spectrum:
+ "It's not distasteful at all. No tits and fanny staring you in the face so its not as bad as some people make out."
+ "Grossss! I don't mind nude art but am pretty sure you can't consider anything on the side of a strip club 'art'. This is so disgusting, distasteful and creepy."
+ "It's art, not a live show. The Masters have been painting the human form since the dawn of time. For someone to see it as 'vulgar' is really down to their boundaries and their mind."
+ "The pose is provocative and indicative of the trade they ply. I'm pretty sure it's going to be offensive. They need to remember the whole world is not their customers."
+ "What it's linked to will be the issue, not the mural itself. We don't allow tobacco advertising, so why allow advertising of strip-tease companies where there's always an option for 'extras' of a prostitutional nature. That being said, it'll be a good bit of colour, but what it is is an advertisement for the red light district. Is this the new image of Chch that we want?" The burning question...
Meanwhile, Calendar Girls is likely to be purchased by the Crown for the Chch Central Development Unit and eventually demolished.

The finished product

UPDATE: July 2016 - the demolition is nearly complete.

Kaiapoi's Got Mail!

Abandoned letterboxes in various Canterbury "Red Zones" have recently become prized property, as several artists wanted to turn them into artworks.
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) allowed two groups to collect the boxes: the Avon-Otakaro Network, and Kaiapoi's Rubble Rousers.
The Rubble Rousers have recently erected a 5m-high totem made of letterboxes collected in Kaiapoi's earthquake-blitzed Golden Grove area.
Artist Mark Larsen made copies of the road signs from the streets where the letterboxes came from. They, and the letterboxes, were secured to a pole and the whole creation was coloured red with black numbers. The red stands for the Red Zone, black for the region's blackest day...and of course red and black are Canterbury's sporting colours.
The sculpture is prominently located on an empty lot at the corner of Williams and Charles Sts., where it will stay until that land is redeveloped. It's ultimately planned to form part of a new sculpture park for Kaiapoi, along the River Bank Walkway.
Meanwhile the Avon-Otakaro Network is still gathering letterboxes for its project to build about ten sculptures.

Art Or Excrement?

It seems upper-crust Brits still delight in bagging those Down Under.
A leading British art critic has savaged the Royal Academy's new Australia exhibition - the largest exhibition of Australian art ever assembled abroad - which opened last weekend in London.

Has the Sydney Sun set on Ozzie art?

The Sunday Times' Waldemar Januszczak described indigenous art by some of Australia's best artists as liquid diarrhoea, and opined that its native art work "amounts to a market in decorative rugs" and "tourist tat". Frederick McCubbin's famous The Pioneer was called "poverty porn", and Fred Williams' desert landscape as "thick cowpats of minimalism".
Januszczak saved his most scathing attack for John Olsen's Sydney Sun, bought by Australia's National Gallery for A$500,000 in 2000. According to him, it "successfully evokes the sensation of standing under a cascade of diarrhoea."
Olsen, for his part, was extremely magnanimous in his response to the criticism: "You can call it diarrhoea or energy - it just depends on what you ate last night." Olsen went on to say the exhibition shows Ockers have their own way of looking at things: "We don't give a damn about what (the Brits) say we are. Such a review is endeavouring to put the colonials in their place. Ha-bloody-ha. I'd say it was extremely foolish."
Just for the record, Ozzie critics are equally scathing about the exhibition, calling it a "clumsy embarrassment"...

Christchurch Art Scene All Bull

The bull is back!
The bronze sculpture of a bull standing on a grand piano was taken to

Incredibull...

Christchurch's heart, when it was displayed on an empty site last year.
People wandered around the bulls - set outside in a cleared lot surrounded by Christchurch's buildings being demolished - and all seemed to have smiles on their faces. Then, to go up to the 2nd floor of the Ng Gallery in the only remaining building on the other side of the road, with the room swelling with sound and that amazing piano, and look down on the bulls amongst the devastation, it was impressive!
Now the bull has returned, to support a fundraising campaign by the Christchurch Art Gallery Trust, to buy the sculpture and put it on permanent display.
Michael Parekowhai's On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer will be on display outside the Arts Centre for the next month. The public fundraising campaign aims to raise $200,000 towards the purchase, and donations are coming in from around the world.
Three bull sculptures were commissioned for the 54th La Biennale di Venezia (Venice) in 2011. When they were displayed atop grand pianos on Madras St., Christchurch in July 2012, about 50,000 people visited them.
Arts Centre director Andre Lovatt says the bull is a great way to attract people back to the city.

'Strikingly Ordinary' An Understatement

Most of us have, at some stage, raised our eyebrows at what the
hi-brow call 'art'.
But this week I find myself agreeing with the judge of the National Contemporary Art Award: Jon Bywater described a photo which won the $15,000 first prize as "strikingly ordinary…" (though I suspect he meant that in a more complimentary manner than I do!).
Auckland artist Dieneke Jansen's photo, entitled Morrison Drive, Hobsonville, 23 November 2012 was taken at the former Hobsonville air force base. It's of some overgrown debris in an empty section, in front of some unremarkable state houses.
And it's just that: strikingly ordinary. It's a shot anyone could've taken, but very few would've wasted the time. So why it was chosen as the winner, from 37 finalists, is anyone's guess: short of better quality entries perhaps?
To underline that thought, a merit award went to Zac Langdon-Pole for an old curtain he stretched over a frame and called Disguised as its Physical Self. However you look at it, this is not art.
Considered one of New Zealand's premier art events, the National Contemporary Art Award is renowned for its controversial winners. Last year's was a bus shelter, temporarily erected outside the venue, which attracted the homeless, graffiti and litter.
Again, this is not art. Forget the "striking": it's simply "ordinary".

Hong Kong's Lame Duck

Duck Fever gripped Hong Kong this month, with the arrival of a 16.5m.tall artwork, conceived by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.
Tens of thousands of visitors flocked to see a giant bright yellow inflatable rubber duck, bobbing on Victoria Harbour. But those who came for a view last Wednesday only saw something resembling a floating fried egg!
Organisers say the duck was deflated on Tuesday evening as part of scheduled maintenance work but struck a few problems - they don't know when the duck will be re-inflated.
Hong Kong has taken the bright yellow inflatable bird to its heart since it was towed into the harbour on 2nd May to cheering crowds. Stalls and shops throughout the city are selling replicas and restaurants have created special duck dishes. But this week, visitors resorted to having their pictures taken with smaller rubber ducks on show nearby.
Since 2007, the duck has travelled to 13 different cities in nine countries ranging from Brazil to Australia in a global journey. The artist hopes the duck, which is due to leave Hong Kong on 9th June, will act as a catalyst for connecting people to public art.
But...is a giant floating duck really ART, or merely the artist reliving his childhood bath-time experiences on a gigantic scale?

Gaga's Steak Sandwich Stolen Idea?

Meat on show!

Goin' Gaga!

Think back to 2010...
That was the year pop diva Lady Gaga shocked the fashion and music worlds, by turning up at the MTV Music Awards, dressed like a dog's dinner!
Remember the 'raw meat' outfit, complete with meat hat and meat purse, that she wore to collect her eight awards?
It's a dress that certainly took some guts to wear...but, although everyone thought it was unique, this blog has discovered what may well have been the original meat dress!
Could Gaga's meat sandwich designer Franc Fernandez have actually stolen the idea... 
from 1955???
She explained the purpose of the meat ensemble: "It's certainly no disrespect to anyone who's vegan or vegetarian. It has many interpretations but, for me, if we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones. And I'm not a piece of meat." Whatever.
She sure looked like a steak sandwich that night...and in a 'borrowed' concept too!

Geene Courtney, Sausage Queen
sponsored by the Zion Meat Co.
during US National Hot Dog Week, 1955.

Who Trashed This Tagging?

Once temporary home to hundreds of stock, now a dump for used spray cans...
As an entity, the Canterbury Sale Yards has been around since 1874, but its building's stood vacant for over 25 years. Now sporting weeds, no roof or windows, its blank walls are canvasses for myriad 'street artists'.
You'll find the Sale Yards on Chch's Deanes Avenue, across the road from South Hagley Park and just up from Moorhouse Avenue. I've visited there several times to look at the graffiti...before I continue, I'll put on record that I'm not in favour of graffiti on public walls. To me it's multi-coloured vandalism with limited and base vocabulary...however, a good point about the Sale Yards graffiti was that all the tagging was confined to the internal walls where it was not hurting anyone. Indeed, it possibly helped reduce tagging around the local area. Though most was just coloured scribblings, there're some very good works of 'street art'. This all provided a vibrant backdrop for many photo/art students and some wedding photographers too.
I write in the past tense because last Sept/October, a community group "tidied up" the ruin. These do-goody-good wowsers took it upon themselves to roller insipid beige paint over almost all of the work, and thoughtlessly erased two pieces of special significance to the taggers: a memorial to a teenage girl, and a 7ft. tall face.
The roller work's happened at least twice! I'd be very interested to hear the reasoning behind the community group's vandalism. Under whose authority was it done? The building owner's? The council's? Did The Lord move in mysterious ways?
Unless there's sound justification, this was nothing but social bullying under a thin holier-than-thou pretense of 'tidying up the neighbourhood'. Ironically, it's also provided a clean slate for new tagging!
Whilst I don't defend tagging, I say: leave the Sale Yards alone until it's bulldozed.
As a taggers' easel, it's not hurting anyone!

Reflecting On Christchurch Demolition

With so many empty walls exposed by human or natural destruction, the Christchurch CBD is a veritable blank canvas for many artists.
The "Gap Filler" Artists' Collective has livened many a demolition site with short-term art. Now, another Christchurch artist - Mike Hewson - has been driven up the wall...
He's created a reflection of the old Government Life building on Gloucester Street. If you stand at the corner of Gloucester Street and Oxford Terrace, right by the traffic lights there, his work on the building wall in front neatly lines up as a reflection of the Govt Life building behind...even though it is painted on a surface that's not flat!
Hewson had an art studio in the Govt Life building for many years, but was never able to see that side of the building before the EQs, so for him it's a new perspective. Thanx for your creative juices, Mike!
Both buildings will be demolished in the next six months or so.

We Are Not Amused

Kate Middleton, now-Duchess of Cambridge, ain't looking too great these days.
Well, at least, not in her new portrait!
The painting by Paul Emsley was unveiled at the UK's National Portrait Gallery last week and...er...well...they may not necessarily know much about art, but most of The Great Unwashed know they don't like the way the Duchess is portrayed. "She looks like the head bouncer in a security firm," one commenter posted on The Daily Telegraph's website. Someone on The Guardian's website posted: "It's really tragically awful."
The gallery commissioned Paul Emsley to produce the the head-and-shoulders portrait. The biggest complaint is that it puts about 20yrs, and possibly 20 pounds, on the duchess, who's 31 and as slender as they come (despite being pregnant). It's somewhat hazy, as if it's a photograph that's heavily airbrushed to disguise the subject's age wrinkles.
David Lee, former editor of Art Review magazine: "It is perfectly adequate for the boardroom of a supermarket but entirely inadequate for a national collection."
Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for The Times of London, said it's the boring type of royal painting "we've been churning out for the last few hundred years in Britain."
In The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins said: "If Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, had a portrait painted of himself in a similar idiom, we'd all be crowing about the pitiful taste of foreign despots."
So the general feeling? It's no Mona Lisa. On the other hand, it provided a fine opportunity for the public to engage in one of its favourite activities: ridiculing anything connected to the Royals.
So...what do YOU think? The Duchess herself called it "absolutely brilliant"..and I guess her opinion is all that really matters.

Kate's portrait and artist Paul Emsley (with beard)

If It Ain't ART, Then What IS It?

An exercise machine with a penis - Jason Beca does it again. Ruffling feathers, that is!
The self-taught Kapiti artist's latest creation has now been removed from an exhibition at Porirua's Pataka Museum.
His piece, called Sex-a-size, is an abdominal machine with a wooden phallus attached. It was displayed with no warning that the exhibition was R18. Complainants were not so much offended by the exhibit, but more unimpressed with the lack of warning. Even the museum's GM Darcy Nicholas agrees: "I've been part of the arts scene for a long time, and every now and then, someone does something funny that you can laugh about. But this piece, I think, was far too graphic." He's had the sex-ercise machine removed. "It's not fair on the other artists for people to be distracted by a large wooden penis, which totally takes away from the quality of the other work."
Beca claims the gallery wanted a 'show-stopper', which is why he brought it in. But this is not the first time his work's been in the controversial news files: his Alice in Wonderful Land (a solid timber chair decorated by large laminated fake $100 bills, a video camera and two armrest monitors) was well discussed over connotations of eroticism and voyeurism.
Other work has included a Tardis time-travelling bed which folds down into a bed...and a lamp made out of a Barbie doll and a road-kill hawk. He attached the wings to the doll, replaced the doll's legs with the bird's claws, and now she sits in a bird cage and can be lit up!
But is this latest work actually art?
Art historian John Stringer thinks not. He points out that penises appear in art of all cultures and are not considered obscene, but "...it's about context. Beca's work is silly and provocative with little artistic merit. It is merely sexualised erotica.''
So there you have it! Would critics in 1504 have said the same about Michelangelo's David?

Get The Message

Do you think Jetstar might get the message, if enough passengers wore this T-shirt?

And yes, I'm taking bulk orders! Your choice of colour...