From the editor

There’s a potentially depressing conclusion to take away from this week’s cover story by Philip Matthews, and an uplifting one, too.

As trendy types including DJs, chefs and fashion designers prepare to help transform the Christchurch Art Gallery for a major fundraiser this weekend, he examined an emerging trend.

It seems social media, with its constant stream of glib, unexceptional imagery, has so colonised our minds that we now struggle to enjoy art (aka the most accomplished and profound imagery being created) on its own terms. Instead, artworks have been reduced to being used as backdrops for selfies and prints for gift store merch.

And since our big public galleries rely on visitors as well as donors to stay afloat, they must figure out how to please these digitally distracted audiences.

The thing is, if quirky portraiture like Yvonne Todd’s or Cindy Sherman’s inspires people to snap their own portrait, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it the end goal that people engage with artworks on a personal level? Better they take selfies than stay away altogether.

I still find it surprising that, on his Day Off, the admittedly exceptional teenager Ferris Bueller chose to head to an art gallery. He and his friends lark about copying the imposing body language of a Rodin sculpture, they fall in with a group of small children visiting, they gaze in awe at some Picassos, and freak out over the bottomless brushstroke detail of a Seurat painting. Ferris and his girlfriend kiss in the reflected light of Chagall’s immense blue stained glass windows.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly how you should absorb art: don’t be intimidated by the gallery’s white walls, security guards and impenetrable wall text. Don’t take it too seriously – but do look closely and let yourself be moved, however that might be.