Apec: Galleries give Govt lesson in art of user-pays

By Deborah Diaz

It has fallen to the art world to really put the "free" into the free-trade ethic of Apec.

A committee given the task of putting New Zealand art on show for world leaders at next year's trade conference is asking for free loans of art works.

A letter to galleries from art patron and committee head Jenny Gibbs explains that the Government's $44 million budget does not stretch to buying the desired cultural backdrop.

The request has brought a somewhat wistful reaction from others in the art world, who cannot help but wish that art would imitate the more conventional financial transactions of life.

"I have the feeling that all of a sudden artists have to provide a backdrop for a political happening, and it's cultural background that's not really there," said Frans Baetons, owner of Auckland's Muka Gallery.

He has written back to Jenny Gibbs, saying the Government would not be an exception to its own user-pays policies - a rental fee would apply to works borrowed.

"As Government policy has consistently pointed out, we live in a world of user pays. This has been applied to every sector of society, the arts sector included. I do not see why the arts sector should now make a special exception for the Government," he wrote.

A leading art consultant, Hamish Keith, also bemoaned the "clumsy" attempt to cover for a lack of good art in public buildings and hotels.

"These are people's life works - you don't ask for them for free. It seems a bit outrageous."

But artist Dick Frizzell declared free works an unfortunate norm.

"The big line is that it is going to be good for your career, but it usually isn't, so you get a bit cynical. But I would probably say yes, as usual. `Yeah, okay - because it's no skin off my nose'."

And of political commitment to art? "It comes and it goes. Occasionally you get a government, usually the Labour Party I might add, that takes an interest and wants it up. Other times you get a government that's culturally illiterate."

Pictured: Jenny Gibbs.