GOLDEN DREAMS
Te Manawa turns 40
It takes colourful characters to build an art gallery of national significance from the ground up and Te Manawa has a whole heap of quirk in its foundations. As the Ma¯ nawatu Art Gallery, it began life in an old house converted by architect David Taylor on the corner of Palmerston North’s Carroll and Grey streets.
It got too small quickly as its reputation and collection grew by the year.
In 1969, mayor Sir Brian Elwood said it was ‘‘a critical time for culture in Palmerston North’’. A new centre with art at its core was needed.
The cityscape back then was a different vista than it is now. The ground Te Manawa sits so firmly on today, was then, old railway land. It was barren and lifeless and rugby, says Elwood, was more at the heart of the city than culture.
But plans were afoot to change that. The Labour Government of the early 1970s allocated a subsidy scheme to aid local government in building art galleries and museums and, as Elwood says, an emphasis on art was starting to become viable.
Luit Bieringa was the artistic director of the gallery at the time and he says the push for a new space was based on creating a place for everyone.
‘‘The main thing was to try and change the context in which the gallery operated to becoming a fully-fledged public institution that the community could relate to. We had people’s support and if you think of the time, the early 70s, we’d only just moved out of the rugby, racing and beer environment.’’
It was decided that David Taylor would be the architect, with Don Irvine working alongside him as the structural engineer. The brief was to build a public art gallery that would meet the city’s needs for the foreseeable future. The budget, says Bieringa, was not big.
‘‘We reached out to the community. We did major fundraising and that went through the community. It didn’t rely on the big money. We did community activities and that was precisely the point, because we wanted the community to own that institution and feel connected.’’
Even with the council money and financial support from the Art Society and the community, the build could not be a flamboyant one. And that, says Bieringa, is where David Taylor was extremely clever.
‘‘It was an exciting time, planning things with David, he really was quite brilliant with creating spaces that work.’’
The initial plans were drawn up in Canberra, Australia, in Margaret Taylor’s little flat. She didn’t know it at the time, but David was later to become her husband, which she says, with a beautifully expansive flamboyance, ‘‘was absolutely fatal’’. Fatal in Taylor’s vocabulary can mean wonderful or terrible, but in this case it was the first.
Margaret Taylor had first come to the Manawatu¯ Art Gallery as a visitor from the National Gallery in Canberra. It was her task to curate an exhibition from the Canberra collection to travel to New Zealand and it was how she ended up working with Bieringa.
‘‘I had a jumbo jet of art – I mean you can’t imagine. Australia back then did things on a large scale and so I arrived with this mass of art. I arrived and I was absolutely caput, so Luit just put me to bed with one of his children.’’
She says she instantly loved the environment at the gallery. ‘‘Luit had established this group of enormously happy friends. The artists back then were all friends.’’
David Taylor and Bieringa travelled to Canberra on an ideaand inspiration-seeking mission, which involved Margaret Taylor, late-night brain storming and ‘‘much hilarity’’. ‘‘Those boys were so much fun and really were brilliant together.’’
Don Irvine says the plans paid attention to the physical dimensions of the public gallery spaces and the lighting, both natural and artificial, to provide optimum viewing of artworks.
It was took four years in the making and Bieringa says at times it felt like a ‘‘homegrown cottage industry’’.
‘‘A vast amount of stuff was done by us. If you look at the gallery now, the doors and the skirting boards were done by people who just showed up. It was very hands-on and the nicest thing of the lot was when we came to the last two weeks before the opening, we didn’t even ask and we had voluntary people from the National Gallery and Gordon Brown and Andrew Drummond and all these people came down and worked with us for nothing. It was really fantastic and that was the buzz about it.’’
Margaret Taylor says the last few hours before opening in 1977 were a whirlwind of activity.
‘‘There was a last minute-flurry and everyone just got stuck in. It was a wonderfully-alive family place right from the start.’’
The doors opened to Te Manawa’s first exhibition, Flights of Fancy, which Bieringa says carried the intention of engaging with the community. ‘‘We wanted to give people a taste of what could be done in their new gallery. Something for everyone to lock into right from the start.
‘‘There was a theme of flight and flying and dreams, and it had things from various collections around New Zealand but also fun stuff from contemporary artists about flight. We commissioned work by Paul Dibble and Andrew Drummond and Pat Hanley put on kite flying events at the land behind the gallery.’’
Workshops and talks and movement through the door. Te Manawa was settling into its new foundations and it was an exciting time for Palmerston North. Bieringa says they worked hard to break through people’s perception of entering a gallery.
‘‘There can be a threshold or fear about going into a church, a gallery or a museum. It was quite a serious challenge in those days. We wanted there to be no barriers.’’
It was an open-door policy too for the artists and the stalwarts of the time – Toss Woollaston, Pat Hanley, Peter Peryer, Gordon Brown, Phil Clairmont were some of the many who became real friends of the gallery. They would often stay with the Bieringas or the Taylors, and their works are held in the collection.
And it is a collection that grew with the gallery. The Art Society and Te Manawa Museums Trust worked throughout the years alongside the various art directors, who all brought their own certain flair to the gallery, to acquire an extensive collection.
It has become a true commentary of art and New Zealand over the decades and Margaret Taylor knows it well. After getting involved in the heady days of Te Manawa’s creation, she has always been there, as Bieringa’s assistant, a curator, art director for four years and as a Te Manawa Art Society member.
The current exhibition is a celebration of the art gallery’s 40-year milestone and as Margaret Taylor walks around the landscapes that make up Golden Dreams, she says the paintings are ‘‘old friends’’. They prompt stories, moments of quiet pause, memories and laughter.
‘‘The artists were all friends and it really was wonderful. Many would come and stay. We operated on very little money too, but that didn’t seem to matter somehow because artists are inventive and we jolly well just got out and did it.’’
Ian Scott’s Golden Dreams was used as the title and hero image for the exhibition because it was displayed during the opening in 1977, creating a full circle and a place to stop and contemplate. Margaret Taylor says the gallery has stood the test of time.
‘‘Luit was determined to expand art education here in New Zealand and he was determined to have a building that he could do that in. And what they did with this space was staggeringly good.’’
Art without boundaries, beyond walls and limitations has been an ongoing ethos in the gallery’s 40-year history. Many others have helped form that: James Mack, Ian North, Peter Purdue, Jane Vial, Julie Catchpole, Athol Mccredie, Steven Fox and all the staff, volunteers and artists that have passed through the doors.
Andy Lowe, Te Manawa’s chief executive, is the current colourful character to build and grow on those first foundations and he says the future is exciting. An ‘‘imagine if’’ submission by the Te Manawa Museums Trust to the Palmerston North City Council is a reflection of just how much Te Manawa has grown. They say they have outgrown the building and want a new space, just like they did back in 1969, and they want it to be extraordinary.
‘‘It means that we could have something unlike anything else in the world,’’ says Lowe, ‘‘surprising and energetic where paradoxs could happen. It’s so exciting.’’
Getting the vast collections out of the ‘‘deep, dark bowels of the building’’ is a priority.
‘‘There were different boundaries being pushed back when this was first built, professional art practice and things like that. We have that now and we spring board off that, but we want to make the collections accessible and interactive. All this taboo around you can and can’t touch is something that we need to be testing. The limits are different now and we need to ask questions.’’
The dream building would cost up to $58 million and Lowe says they project it would increase visitor numbers from 200,000 to 500,000 a year. Plan B has costings sitting between $30m and $45m, and would include a mix of renovation and new buildings. Lowe says it is time to be brave.
‘‘Luit was and he got himself into trouble all of the time. But look what he achieved. If we can hold the mana as we go along – that’s important, because the history is really important to me. Those fireside stories, they hold mana.’’
Whatever the outcome, changes will happen at Te Manawa. Earthquake strengthening is a must-do and the collections need better storage. The art gallery is an ongoing vision that has been and will be seen through many different eyes. And in its 40th year, it is having its second castle-in-theair moment with a look back to the past and a projecting forward of new imaginings for the future.
‘‘It was an exciting time, planning things with David, he really was quite brilliant with creating spaces that work.’’ Luit Bieringa