Review damns new art gallery
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,3487811a6009,00.html
In The Press this morning was a story detailing the failure of the new Christchurch Art Gallery in meeting a wide range of goals and objectives.
Including:
In the year to June, the gallery attracted 289,097 visitors, well short of its 400,000 target and only about 40,000 visitors more than the number visiting the old Robert McDougall gallery in 2001.
The current cost per visit is $23, much higher than the $16 per visit based on 400,000 visitors a year.
Feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction among staff and stakeholders in the gallery’s performance.
A lower than expected status for the gallery as a Christchurch cultural institution and a failure to establish a strong brand.
Need for a programme that stamps the gallery as a place of cultural authority and adventure.
Quite a sad thing to read really. I understand of course that the gallery lacks the financial resources to achieve the kind of success that the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills has enjoyed. You can check out an interview with the Director of the Mori Art Museum, David Elliot here.
However, with the breadth of talent in, and shown in, the Canterbury area one would expect a little more. The kinds of exhibition, and the operating ethos of galleries such as Wellington’s City Gallery and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
prove that galleries in Aotearoa can be fun and successful.
For cutting edge work in Christchurch check out The Physics Room or The High Street Project.
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