Nine Lives Speeches

The following are transcripts of speeches given at the Nine Lives: The 2003 Chartwell Exhibition opening night, 12 September 2003. By Chris Saines, director, Auckland Art Gallery and Rob Gardiner, Trustee, Chartwell Collection.

Chris Saines: Auckland Art Gallery
Tena koutou i runga, i te karanga, o te ra.  E te whare Toi o Tamaki, tena koe.

E hoa maa, e rangatira maa, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa…

WELCOME

On behalf of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki I am delighted to welcome you to Nine Lives: The 2003 Chartwell Exhibition, the most ambitious Chartwell project that we've presented within recent years.

Before moving to introduce tonight's speakers, to say something more about this exhibition and its wider community of supporters, I want to briefly acknowledge a number of tonight's special guests.

In many ways Nine Lives is premised on nine individual shows representing nine highly individual artists, the number of which was simply based on the available spaces within the New Gallery.

Can I begin by acknowledging the artists themselves whose work forms this project, welcoming them along with their families, friends and gallerists?  Above all else it is their work that we celebrate tonight.

They are:

 Julian Dashper
 et. al.
 Jacqueline Fraser
 Bill Hammond
 Giovanni Intra
 Michael Parekowhai
 Peter Peryer
 John Reynolds, and
 Michael Stevenson
While mainly seen through the two lenses of the Chartwell and Gallery collections, Nine Lives includes additional works by the late Giovanni Intra, loaned, drawn together and in some cases re-made by friends.

Giovanni's representation here is in parts supplemented by generous lenders and in other parts reconstitutes work he showed at Teststrip and elsewhere.  His mother Barbara is an especially important guest.

Can I as warmly welcome Rob Gardiner, his wife Ev and daughters Sue and Karen?  Together, it is Rob and Sue who are responsible for Chartwell's work, including, as you can see, a brand new website!

I welcome Brett Shepherd and Scott Perkins, representing principal sponsor Deutsche Bank, and gratefully acknowledge the support that they continue to give to this Gallery's contemporary art programme.

I also acknowledge representatives of Auckland City, the Gallery's core funder and manager, including members of the Gallery's Enterprise Board and other City councillors present here tonight.

Welcome as well to Patrons of the Gallery, including Jenny Gibbs, the chair of the Auckland Contemporary Art Trust, owners of the New Gallery, and representatives of the Friends of the Gallery.

And welcome finally to public gallery colleagues Greg Burke, from the Govett-Brewster Gallery and Sophie McIntyre from Victoria University's Adam Gallery.

Welcome to you all.

INTRODUCTION

The collection development and philanthropic programmes of the Chartwell Trust must now constitute one of the most determined and ambitious programmes of any private charitable trust in this country. 

More critically, at least for the community in which the trust and its collection live, Chartwell is not a private enterprise but a public one that somehow gainfully occupies the space between. 

Over almost 30 years of relentless commitment to the visual arts of New Zealand and Australia, Chartwell has staked out a unique piece of ground - it is a major player within our contemporary art community.

Few other countries around the world can lay claim to a private trust that works so widely and passionately in the sole cause of building and supporting its contemporary visual culture.

By any measure Chartwell's has been a remarkably ambitious and sustained act of tactical philanthropy - a challenge to make us think more about how contemporary art works: to share arts experiences.

Since 1974 its growth has largely been the responsibility of one person, Rob Gardiner, who has relished a freedom from almost every condition that large collection based art institutions impose. 

This has created a collection that now numbers over 700 works, a collection that snaps and crackles with points of difference from every other public gallery or major private collection in New Zealand.

Of course this makes the Chartwell collection an even more effective diagnostic of art's prevailing condition.  And this is particularly so when, as now, it is aligned with this Gallery's contemporary collection. 

Since responsibility for the Chartwell collection transferred here, in early 1997, the trust has acquired a further 227 new works and we have staged six exhibitions based on its holdings. 

The seventh in this now annual series is curator Robert Leonard's Nine Lives, a show that elucidates and amplifies the Chartwell project in a way and to an extent not done previously.

I congratulate Robert on this show and on the publication which documents it.  His first major project since joining us earlier this year, Nine Lives is a product of his unfailing energy, judgement and care.

I know that he worked to involve as many artists as was practicable in its installation, so I want to additionally thank those who lent us that support or otherwise assisted in the development of the publication.

I want to recognise too the writers and interviewers who have added so considerably to this catalogue, including among them Allan Smith, Tony Green, Barbara Blake, Gavin Hipkins and Wystan Curnow.

As well as acknowledging its designers Arch & Jane MacDonnell of Inhouse, and co-editor Michael Gifkins, can I also briefly acknowledge those Gallery staff who worked so assiduously toward this night?

Led by Louise Pether and hugely assisted by Andrea Dornauf in registration, and the conservation, preparator and promotions teams, can I thank them all for their over-reaching contributions to this show?

I can tell you that a lively public and education programme begins tomorrow, with Daniel Malone and Anne Shelton - and includes Nine Lives After Dark on the 26th and Big Day Art on the 28th of September.

We're determined to make this show a central part of the visual arts programming within AK03, which kicks into action in just over a week's time.  Good luck to everyone who's been involved in that initiative.

The Gallery's proud to be part of the inaugural Auckland Festival, and proud to have been involved in bringing two instalments of the Matthew Barney Cremaster film cycle to Auckland for the ocassion.

To work on this scale of both exhibition and programming we need to rely heavily on the support of our partners, and in this case we are greatly in debt, for the second year in succession, to Deutsche Bank.

They have made it possible for us to achieve a more visible presence in the community for Nine Lives and to build a comprehensive public and education programme in its support.

I want to welcome and thank Brett Shepherd and Scott Perkins, who are representing Deutsche Bank, for their unflinching support of a project that's at the sharp end of corporate sponsorship of the arts. 

It's enormously encouraging to this Gallery, to the Chartwell Trust and to the contemporary art community more broadly that you have embraced Nine Lives as you have.

I thank you for that support and take great pleasure in inviting Brett Shepherd, CEO of Deutsche Bank to address you.

As you will have seen, tonight also marks the launch of the new Chartwell web site, with selections from the site cycling through in preview and the real McCoy waiting for you at www.chartwell.org.nz.

As well as links to the search engine on the Gallery's website, this project has its own ambitions, offering a succinct account of the Trust's work, its ongoing contemporary art projects and its future.

From a users perspective, the Trust hopes that the website will also serve as a mini portal into other Internet resources on the works within its collection and, increasingly, be a conduit to artists themselves.
Chartwell, in its collecting and in its project support, has always pursued an open and lateral system; it's always been a work in progress, always been open to new ideas.  This site is part of that.

There is a generosity and an idiosyncrasy of spirit here that is unconstrained by publicly funded outcomes and acquittals.  That will be nowhere more apparent than in Nine Lives and the Chartwell site.

It's my great pleasure to now welcome Rob Gardiner to say something more about both projects.

Prof. Jeremy Diggle was appointed visiting head at Elam School of Fine Arts on 1 July.  He has taught throughout the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States and remains here until April next year.

Jeremy has taken sabbatical from his position as Professor of Research (he was formerly the Head) of Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland to fulfil his commitment to Auckland.

In addition to his teaching Jeremy is a respected artist in his own right, working across a variety of media.  While his work is included in a number of national collections he works outside the commercial arena.

He is sometimes described as a digital artist, partly because of an on-going multimedia project in which the narrative is told through a range of digital and traditional media, and from several points of view.

While the computer and the web are integral parts of that particular story's growth, he sees himself as an artist who collaborates with others, and whose practice is not confined to any one medium.

We were enormously pleased that he agreed to act as tonight's guest speaker, and I hope you will join me in making him feel welcome.

It remains for me to say that Nine Lives is now open across the road at the New Gallery. 

Robert Gardiner: The Chartwell Collection

Mr Director, Chris Saines, Ladies and Gentlemen- 

The Chartwell Collection project is made so much more rewarding by the richness of its relationship with the Auckland Art Gallery. The Nine Lives Exhibition becomes another exciting example of how that is happening and we are really grateful to the Gallery and its City funders. The Gallery plays a very important role in the cultural life of our city and the leadership Auckland is providing to New Zealand in the visual arts is of increasing importance to everyone.  Thanks go to you Chris and to your staff. You all do such great work.

Chartwell looks to achieve goals of wider public education in contemporary art practice in a number of ways including the use of works from the Collection in exhibitions like Nine Lives. Exhibitions of this kind  provide wide public access and opportunity to learn more of the fantastic work being made by our New Zealand contemporary artists.

In this show Robert Leonard has brought his  respected experience to the curatorial role,   selecting work from the Chartwell Collection, the Auckland Art Gallery Collection and from private lenders, to create a thoughtful and challenging juxtaposition of artists and work. He is also responsible for a very fine catalogue accompanying and recording the exhibition.     

You will see that there is a tested passion in all of the works in this show; the products of  extraordinary effort of self and creative mind.

Congratulations and thank you Robert and   congratulations and thanks to the artists.

Chartwell is delighted that Deutsche Bank is participating as sponsor for the exhibition. This is  positive corporate investment in the visual arts of the most important kind.  

We live in fast changing times; challenging to our culture and economy in a very competitive world. The visual arts have a contribution to make in upskilling more of us in the thinking involved in innovation and creativity.

Chartwell wants to help that happen.