Art matters: Space and priority crucial to our art

Michael Parekowhai's Atarangi II outside Te Tuhi - The Mark. Photo / Te Tuhi

Michael Parekowhai's sculpture The Lighthouse will begin to take shape on Auckland's Queens Wharf next year. When it's finally unveiled, the city will get a new landmark in the shape of a two-storey state house featuring hand-blown chandeliers, each representing a different constellation.

As the anticipation builds, it is easy to forget that the city already has a large-scale work by the leading artist. Atarangi II has towered over Pakuranga, outside Te Tuhi gallery for the last 10 years.

That the suburb beat the wider region to the unveiling of such a project won't surprise anyone who knows the local arts society's commitment to delivering the best - sometimes confronting - contemporary art to its community.

In recent times, performance artist Kalisolaite Uhila slept rough in and around the building for a fortnight, for which he received a Walter's Prize nomination. The gallery also staged the New Zealand contribution in Santiago Sierra's work, Destroyed Word.

Exactly what will happen to Auckland's forgotten Parekowhai - and more to the point, when - is the subject of considerable uncertainty as it currently stands in the path of a proposed motorway flyover on Reeves Rd, where Te Tuhi is situated.

If the new road is built, not just the sculpture but also the whole gallery will have to be moved. One plan - to turn the building around so its front window doesn't face the flyover - would cost an estimated $6 million. The confusion was created in February, when Auckland Transport issued a press release stating a busway could be put through the Pakuranga town centre without the new road bridge.

In fact, the statement suggested the flyover could be deferred into the next decade.

The news led many to believe the proposed roading project had been effectively canned, prompting another statement two months later from Auckland Transport chairman Lester Levy, who said that no decision had been made on the matter.

In the meantime, somehow the gallery has to get on with business as usual.

To date, Te Tuhi has managed not only to act as creative forum, but also operate on a sound business model, raising the majority of its income from leasing space in the building to community groups.

However, for this to remain the case, the premises must remain an attractive option to tenants. That might be difficult with plans for the proposed road constructed between the gallery and the impressive development of the town centre. The solution appears fairly obvious, Te Tuhi must be moved into the heart of the new community and given assistance to do so. But the situation raises another point.

When a commission like The Lighthouse or Atarangi II is first made public, much of the discussion is around the merits of the work one way or another. But the space and priority afforded to art in our lives and communities often says more about us than the installations ever say. Often this is the most important contribution made by those who have the vision to champion a big idea and see it through to completion.