#and who's paying for this portrait? the taxpayers? during a cost of living crisis? or is it cash from the duchy he inherited

[polygondotcomvideoproducer]

thats not leaking blood the colours are just a little stylized 😭 i cant be the only person who genuinely likes that portrait

I said if u squint it looks that way, I understand that it's not the intention bud. And ur probably not the only one but it's certainly a niche opinion. Like I've been racking my brain to think of reasons the artist might want to make it look like he was painting on a meat canvas and none of them are particularly flattering to ol king chuck. The artist wanted the military uniform to fade into the background to bring the man himself into better focus and humanise him. Which. yeah trying to cover over their violent history by humanising themselves is certainly what the royal family are going for these days so shoutout to the artist for getting the assignment ig lmao. And the one fucking incongruous butterfly that was apparently Charles' idea really gets me

Anyway no royal portrait was gonna work for me, in the same way that I'd be pissed if my landlord was like "hey look what I spent ur rent money on" and it was a fuckin statue of themselves, yk? Royal portraits in general are flimsy fuckin propaganda that waste our damn money, and this one is no different to me, it's just a more self-serving version

[ctprocess]

Debate and dissension are at the heart of art

For many New Zealand artists the production of artwork has a social and cultural purpose. One major factor, which allowed such work to come about, is that ­perspectives of art have changed radically in the last three decades. In the West, it has traditionally been seen as forms of high culture, patronage and individual expression. Art was primarily seen as things to be viewed in museums, art galleries and other public places. In this way, scholars and academics viewed art with the aim of interpreting an act of communication expressed in conventional symbolic forms (DeMarrais & Robb, 2013). Since the 19th century, art in New Zealand has been used as a form of persuasion or protest to highlight a wide range of social issues such as colonialism, race relations, feminism, and the environment. Such artists as Ralph Hotere, Michael Parekōwhai and Luke Willis Thompson make work that invokes discussion or debate about a united cause.

From the 1940s the arts became an important device for social criticism and activism in New Zealand. There was a need to subvert the belief that the country’s race relations were exemplary (Schrader, 2014). Rugby tours to apartheid-era South Africa raised the issue of race when Māori players were banned from the All Blacks’ 1960 tour of South Africa. One unique form of protest, which came about during this time, came from Gerry Merito of the Howard Morrison Quartet who penned the song ‘My old man’s an All Black’ to make a point about the decision to tour without Māori. The artist whose work is closely associated with the anti-apartheid movement in New Zealand is Ralph Hotere. His ‘Black Union Jack’ etching, made at Ilam in 1984, was one of several works Hotere made referring to New Zealand’s controversial ties with the South African government through rugby. On it he ironically scrawled, ‘To the people of SOWETO with love from the NZRFU [New Zealand Rugby Football Union]’.

Ralph Hotere, Black Union Jack, 1984. Etching.

Moving through to today, ‘The Lighthouse’ unveiled in 2017 is a public artwork by Michael Parekōwhai (Ngāti Whakarongo, Ngā Ariki). It is a sculpture in the form of a state house, sitting on Auckland’s Queen Wharf. The importance of the location lies in the fact that it sits on the Waitematā with reference to the 506 day occupation of Bastion Point: a protest against the Muldoon government’s decision to sell off a piece of Ngāti Whātua land overlooking Tāmaki Drive to property developers. The protest worked and today that piece of untouched, strip of green can be seen from nearly every point around the harbour. Parekōwhai is not Ngāti Whātua, however he offers his own object of resistance on the Waitematā. ‘The Lighthouse’ pays tribute to Māori resistance, to our shared histories of navigation and migration, and acts as a subversive reminder of the major housing crisis currently affecting many of us.

Michael Parekōwhai, The Lighthouse, 2017.

Prior to Parekōwhai’s work unveiling, an outcry of concern by the news media and general public was that the work was a large waste of taxpayer money that could have been used to solve the very issue it is trying to highlight. The irony of a fake state house being built a midst a housing crisis does not sit well with many. The cost to build ‘The Lighthouse’ was $1.5 million, however unlike many public artworks, this one had essentially no public funding. It was commissioned by Auckland Council and funded by the real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson and by private donors. It is worth remembering that $1.5 million is not that much to spend on a major public artwork. Many millions of dollars get used for other forms of public entertainment, like sport, which get little to no questioning by the media or the general public. Parekōwhai’s lighthouse has done precisely what good public art should be doing. It raises concerns and gives prominence to an issue; at the same time it explores wider questions about place, belonging, and Māori sovereignty. Although the artwork itself may not provide an explicit solution to the housing crisis, it brings light to the issue and invites us to take action (Lopesi, 2017).

Public art and contemporary art’s role in society is to act as a mirror of culture. Gaugy (2016) says of modern artists that they understand what is about to arise, and they magnify what is going on in our world. Luke Willis Thompson is a Fijian-European artist from New Zealand whose recent work engages Black trauma. Cultural theorist Ariella Azoulay writes about the notion of “deterritoriallised citizenship” through the function of photography and its capability to negotiate relationships between us in spite of where we live or the powers that govern us (Ng, 2017). Thompson’s latest work titled ‘autoportrait’ is a silent film study of Diamond Reynolds, the partner of Philando Castile, who was shot dead by a police officer in Minnesota in 2016. Reynolds was sitting next to Castille when he was shot at point-blank range and she videoed and live streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Luke Willis Thompson, autoportrait, installation view.

Thompson describes ‘autoportrait’ as a “sister image” to the Facebook Live broadcast by Diamond Reynolds in July 2016. The traumatic scenes of Castile’s last moments were viewed millions of times before it was taken down. In contrast, ‘autoportrait’ is a 35mm black and white film portrait of Reynolds, who stands in intimate distance with the camera, still and quiet (one take is silent, while she sings softly in another). A week before the work debuted at the Chisenhale, the police officer who shot Philando Castile was acquitted of manslaughter. Thompson told The Guardian that his portrait intends to show Reynolds’ grief and to place her into cinematic history, because “the history of cinema owes black life something” (Oliver, 2018). Azoulay’s notion of deterritoralised citizenship sees that ‘autoportrait’ is made for and exhibited in the United Kingdom, by Thompson who is from Auckland and Fiji, about its American subject. Here, the citizen-making function of photography is in full effect.

Art for discussion or reaction in public places are distinct approaches from recent conventions of involving a solitary artist producing work for the museum or a gallery wall (DeMarrais & Robb, 2013). Public art is important for society; it is used to interrogate the world we are living in. In many cultures and societies, the production of art sparks discussion and ideally forces change and action to occur. Art which debate and dissent current issues, local or global, create important snapshots of our present day society.  It is not only valuable to the people it concerns at the time but also in the ongoing history of art.

REFERENCES

DeMarrais, E. and Robb, J. (2013) Art makes society: an introductory visual essay, World Art, 3:1, 3-22, DOI: 10.1080/21500894.2013.782334

Gaugy, M. (2016). What is modern art’s role in society today? Retrieved August 29, from https://www.quora.com/What-is-modern-arts-role-in-society-today

Lopesi, L. (207). An homage, a beacon: on Michael Parakowhai’s ‘The Lighthouse’. Retrieved September 2, 2018, from http://pantograph-punch.com/post/lighthouse

Ng, K. E. (2017). Hey, you there! Tactics of refusal in the work of Luke Willis Thompson. Retrieved September 1, 2018, from http://pantograph-punch.com/post/tactics-of-refusal-LWT

Oliver, H. (2018). Who is Luke Willis Thompson? And what the hell is the Turner prize? Retrieved August 31, 2018, from, https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/28-04-2018/who-is-luke-willis-thompson-and-what-the-hell-is-the-turner-prize/

Schrader, B. (2014). Arts and social engagement. Retrieved August 30, 2018, from https://teara.govt.nz/en/arts-and-social-engagement/page-2

Essay written for Art History class, term 3, year 2. Hungry creek Art & Craft School. Tutor: Maree Wilson.