Brian Rudman: 'New' city thinking has no room for sculpture

Just as well for art lovers that Michelangelo wasn't born in Auckland. If he had been, the chances are David would have ended up as fill for harbour reclamation and our knowledge of his sculptural prowess would be dependent on ageing newspaper clippings.

Which is how future generations of Aucklanders will have to learn about Terry Stringer's landmark Mountain Fountain sculpture in Aotea Square. That's if landscape designer Ted Smythe and council officials have their way.

For there is no room in their redesign plans for the civic square for this major commissioned art work. As a result, Stringer was recently notified his grand work was to be "decommissioned" - a nice piece of artspeak for "bulldozed".

The way this bronze-sheathed concrete construction was put together back in 1980 seems to be putting relocation in the too-hard basket. The fountain's problem is that it's in the way of the new grand plan to turn the square into a wide-open meeting place for concerts and public meetings.

"It works well in its situation now," says senior arts planner, Warren Pringle, "but it doesn't have a space within the concept of what the upgrade's happening for. The new thinking is the space needs to be free of objects so people can congregate."

Stringer, one of the country's leading sculptors, complains that "the council is treating sculpture as a fashion item. They don't commit to something being part of the permanent cityscape in any way".

He says the letter from the council says the proposal is under discussion, "but it seems it's gone well beyond that point. I understand they're commissioning a work to go on the edge along Queen St as a replacement piece of art. I'm sure it will be in the best possible taste. But it's a shame these things don't last beyond one generation".

Calling it a shame is being very restrained. How about a disgrace or scandal or philistinistic.

Surely it wasn't beyond the wit of Mr Smythe and the officials who drew up the parameters of his redesign to protect this major art work. If "blasted heath" is to be the new look for the square, then surely a watery hillock would provide a welcome break in the monotony.

That was certainly the concept back in 1979 when the up-and-coming artist won the Auckland Savings Bank/Auckland City Council Aotea Square water sculpture competition.

Built at a cost of $75,000, it was intended to relate to the canyon of buildings around the square and to bring a piece of New Zealand wilderness into the city. A witty extra was to have been a realistic clothed figure of a woman lying in the pool, but city elders decreed that frivolity was not quite suitable for the town square, and she got left out.

At the time Stringer said he presumed the work would offend some people but that eventually "people will get to the point where they are quite fond of it". I was never one of the offended, but I've certainly become attached to its presence there over the past quarter of century. And given the booby prize we got in Queen Elizabeth Square, where Michio Ihara's monumental Wind Tree was stuck in packing cases and replaced by the imprisoned kauri forest, I have little faith in promises of better to come, city council-style.

When the fountain was unveiled by Mayor Colin Kay in April 1981, Herald art critic T.J. McNamara welcomed Auckland's acquisition of "a grand piece of sculpture", calling it "an addition to the splendid hills of Auckland". The large forms, he noted, were "like big lava flows".

Yesterday, his enthusiasm for the work remained. It had also, he noted, proven vandal-proof, a necessary requisite in today's world.

So what now? Well before the bulldozer moves in, the public art subcommittee, chaired by Christine Caughey, has to agree to the work being "decommissioned". Also, the redesign of the square has to be signed off by the arts, culture and recreation committee, chaired by Penny Sefuiva. So if you disapprove of this throwaway approach to public artworks, now is the time to start kicking up a stink.

Could I remind Ms Caughey and her committee that Air New Zealand will never live down one of their staff cutting up a Colin McCahon painting to make a packing case. Do they want to risk similar ridicule?