LLC entry fee back on agenda
"We want to make it nice and simple. I quite like the library card system. We have 30,000 issued and the system is already in place." Neil Holdom
New Plymouth Mayor
The thorny issue of charging an entry fee to the Len Lye Centre is back on the agenda.
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom wants visitors to the region to pay, he said.
‘‘We should see a report coming through one of our council meetings in November looking at a range of options. My view is it’s worth exploring looking to charge people from outside the district to get into Len Lye.’’
How that would be done is yet to be discussed, but Holdom said one idea was for New Plymouth ratepayers to use their library cards to show they live in the district.
‘‘We want to make it nice and simple. I quite like the library card system. We have 30,000 issued and the system is already in place.’’
But that was just his view and there was a ‘‘diversity of views’’ around the council table, he said.
‘‘The expectation is we’ll have a report not far away and then we’ll be looking to make a call.’’
In June 2014 the council voted eight to seven to introduce an entry fee, which was supposed to come into force when the centre opened in June 2015.
However, six months later the council did an about-turn and decided not to charge an entry fee during the centre’s first year. Last Christmas they started asking for donations. The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, including the Len Lye Centre, cost the council $4.1 million in the last financial year, about $800,000 over budget. That was caused by issues such as a breakage in the Trilogy sculpture.
And the gallery doesn’t rate highly with residents according to a survey included in the council’s annual report, with satisfaction sitting at 69 per cent - or 52 per cent if the ‘don’t knows’ were included.
But while it might not be a massive hit with locals, the Govett Brewster is the country’s most internationally recognised art museum, manager Simon Rees said.
‘‘It’s the reason why Inga Fraser, a curator at TATE Britain, is coming to New Zealand soon for three weeks for further research on Len Lye for a potential exhibition in London.’’
In the 2016/17 financial year the Govett Brewster and the Len Lye Centre took two exhibitions to the UK and Australia, and Israel and Australia respectively, Rees, who travelled to the overseas museums, said.
‘‘Since 1976, international travel by directors of the GovettBrewster Art Gallery has principally been paid for by third parties and not relying upon council funds.
‘‘For these three work trips, funding came from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Wellington embassy for travel to and from Israel, the Ian Potter Museum of Art for travel to and from Melbourne, and the Molly Morpeth Canaday Trust.’’
The trust was established in 1975 and one of its deeds of purpose is to pay for international travel by Govett-Brewster Art Gallery directors, Rees said.
‘‘The exhibition Sister Corita’s Summer of Love in Australia came with a AUS $40,000 exhibition fee to the Govett-Brewster as the exhibition was curated by me.
‘‘The other two trips were associated with loaned items from the Govett-Brewster Collection, and any payments for loans between museums cover admin costs only.’’