DRINK UNTIL YOU LIKE IT OR YOU DON’T OR YOUR MATE DOES
DRINK until you like it.
You could say that about a lot of things. Your partner. The kids. Colleagues. Life.
Maybe anti-vaxxers should try that approach.
But when the great orator Mayor Tom Tate blurted it out this week he was talking about the sculpture occupying the entrance to the Home of the Arts gallery at Bundall.
To recap, what he said in full was: “Don’t like it? Have another drink, keep doing it until you like it. Then by the end of the night you go ‘that’s a great piece’.”
Surely this is one of his best speeches. He was joking, hamming it up briefly at a council meeting and drawing uproarious laughter from fellow councillors. He was taking aim at a flood of opinionated criticism of the artwork by Sydney-based Sri Lankan artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran. The only person who didn’t laugh – according to a Bulletin observer – was CEO David Edwards, whose eyes flitted back and forth, uncertain how to react to Cr Tate’s advice for art critics. One killjoy in the Bulletin ‘Text the editor’ page chastised Tate for encouraging binge drinking.
HOTA has attracted some colourful, unflattering descriptions and critiques all the way. The building design has been dubbed a Rubik’s Cube. A formerly proposed centre-piece tower was called the “Fruit Tingle” for resemblance to lollies. One wit in the Bulletin noted Nithiyendran’s entrance sculpture looks like “Wilson found the ecstasy stash”.
Everyone will have a different reaction and way of engaging with it. A friend initially concluded: “Legit makes me anxious” and felt it was embarrassing for a city striving to be taken more seriously. Fair.
But then they read Ann Wason-Moore’s Bulletin column on it and noted: “How did she manage to make me feel guilty for hating this one?”
The OTT scarecrow and his vertically challenged neon sidekick is growing on me. It has me intrigued by what else is to come, excited for the HOTA gallery’s looming opening weekend and pumped at a new string being added to this multi-layered city’s bow. Who thought a decade ago as a resident you’d be able to say to visitors let’s go check out the thriving new arts precinct.
Some will love the sculpture for selfies. It’ll no doubt scare some kids. Others will laugh and delight in it. I’ll probably tire of pondering it rather promptly and my mind will wander to other important questions like whether the new rooftop HOTA bar is open and if it has a big screen for the Highlanders Super Rugby clash. Each to their own. That’s the point.
The gallery launch is going to be a seminal moment for the GC, long and deservedly known for being famous for fun but eyed by some pretentious southerners as lacking substance and a je ne sais quoi that big-city residents seem to think they possess which doesn’t exist elsewhere.
HOTA gallery and those behind it should take comfort from Oscar Wilde’s great line – up there with Cr Tate’s genius – “there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”. If you want to get amongst what’s sure to be a busy opening, visit: