Tobias, it's been good to know you

Tobias Berger's show is decreasing in size as he counts down to leaving. Picture / Dean Purcell

When German curator Tobias Berger became director of Artspace on K Road in early 2003, it was seen as a coup for a relatively small institution to attract an international player. Two years later, of the five final candidates vying to replace him when he leaves for Hong Kong next week, only one New Zealander made the short list.

Last month, New Plymouth's Govett Brewster Art Gallery appointed people from overseas to two key positions. Spanish-born New York curator and critic Mercedes Vicente becomes curator, contemporary art, from an entirely international short list of candidates and Tyler Cann from Boston takes on the new position of Len Lye curator.

Berger sees this influx of overseas talent as a response to local skills shortages.

"There were no young curators because we don't have any institutions who educate young curators," he says. "That's why a year ago Artspace established an assistant curator's job, which should have been here five years ago and should be in every institution.

"There are a lot of quite young ones and certainly some good older ones. But in between, there's a gap at the moment, which will be filled because there will be other curators coming up, like Tessa Giblin," he says, referring to Artspace's outgoing assistant curator. She will work at the Venice Biennale later this year before, with Berger's help, going on to study at De Appel Centre of Contemporary Art in Amsterdam where Berger once trained.

When Berger started at Artspace, he was already well-connected with the New Zealand art scene, after working on Toi Toi Toi, a major survey of New Zealand art in Kassel, Germany; curating an exhibition of German art for Artspace in 2000; and regularly visiting his partner, New Zealand artist Yuk-King Tan, who he married last year.

Berger was also attracted to New Zealand's multicultural environment, which provides a colourful context for Artspace.

"I do like Artspace as an institution because it's quite independent and you really can do what you think is important. It is like a laboratory. And I like Auckland and especially K Rd and I think those were two reasons why I applied.

"I wanted to live in a truly multicultural society and Auckland is that. There are very few other places where people just live together without making a big deal out of it. In Europe, if you sit together with three Asians, five Pacific Islanders and three Pakeha, it would be a topic, like, 'Wow, isn't that great?' "

Berger spent three years in Lithuania, where he curated the 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art. He enjoys spending extended periods in different places so he can get involved with the local culture, rather than making quick visits to select a few obvious artists.

"This idea of being a resident traveller is how I like to work. Going places for a long time and really trying to understand what is going on.

"It's so easy to find the top 10 or top 20 artists but the really interesting thing is to go deeper and find people who are not in that top 20 but should be in there."

As a parting gesture, Berger has organised Free New Zealand Art, an exhibition of posters representing 12 of New Zealand's top artists which are free for the taking.

"It's not my top 12," he says. "It is the 12 artists I thought could do posters the best. I have a lot of other artists I really, really like. The show is designed like a promotion show. It's a show that should travel on to Asia and Europe and promote New Zealand art, and that is why I also asked some quite established artists.

"If I did the show just for Artspace, I would have asked more young artists to do more experimental work. That's why Gordon Walters and et al are in there because nobody outside New Zealand has ever seen Gordon Walters and he's an exceptionally cool artist."

Putting on an exhibition that questions the value of art brings Berger full circle, having started his time at Artspace with the exhibition Money for Nothing.

"We really have to be thankful in this show to the artists because they are the generous ones - it's not Artspace and it's not the printer and it's not Creative New Zealand, who all did their part. The ones who really gave something away were the artists and they gave their own work away as a present."

But there is also a depressing aspect for Berger as he contemplates his imminent departure.

"I'm certainly also quite melancholic with this show because it's decreasing and it's kind of counting the days down and it is about that time aspect as well," he says with a laugh. "It's a heavy show."

Although relieved he'll be gone before the show is packed down, at the rate the posters are disappearing, he may still have to face an empty room.

Exhibition

* Who: Tobias Berger

* What: Free New Zealand Art

* Where and when: Artspace, 300 K Rd, to April 16