Art gallery director still on a mission
Outgoing Christchurch Art Gallery director Jenny Harper tell Charlie Gates about her legacy, undone tasks and the life-changing accidents that led to a life in art.
Christchurch Art Gallery director Jenny Harper may have resigned, but she is still on a mission. There is more she wants to achieve for the gallery before she ends her 11-year run as director in April.
One of those is persuading Christchurch City Council bosses to maintain or improve funding for the purchase of new artworks for the city’s collection.
The gallery’s art buying fund was cut from $250,000 a year to $80,000 a year in 2015, making it one of the most poorly funded art collections in the country.
Harper wants to fix that and is negotiating with council staff to improve the budget in ten-year spending plans due to be finalised next year.
As an example of the power of buying contemporary art, she cites the gallery’s purchase in 2014 of a 1965 painting by Christchurch artist Gordon Walters called Black on White.
It would have cost about £100 if the gallery had purchased it in 1965, or about $3000 when adjusted for inflation and converted to New Zealand currency. In 2014, it cost the gallery $650,000. The purchase will be paid off over six years and is funded by the $1.8 million Norman Barrett bequest.
‘‘The artist didn’t get the benefit of support at the time and we have paid the much higher price for something that has appreciated in value, as we expect our works to do,’’ she says.
‘‘It’s a very good example of the value of having enough at your disposal to buy early and support your creative community while they are still working.’’
Harper believes purchasing art for the city’s public collection is one of the most important parts of her role.
‘‘We are Christchurch’s museum of art and just like the library buys books in order to keep up to date, we need to do the same.’’
‘‘I’m very committed to the collecting activity of the gallery. It is the life blood and energy of the gallery.’’
She says the gallery needs more consistent financial support to buy art for the public collection.
‘‘Christchurch has the smallest and least valuable collection of the four main centres. Even though Christchurch people are proud of their culture, it hasn’t been as evenly supported as it has elsewhere.’’
‘‘I want to argue to get that treated differently so that the gallery doesn’t have to have these bunfights every time there is an annual plan or a three year plan.’’
‘‘That is one of the things I want to do before I leave.’’
Harper was appointed gallery director in 2006 to improve faltering visitor numbers and revamp exhibitions, which were described in a council-commissioned report as ‘‘polite, low-paced and not rebellious enough’’. The new $50 million gallery building had opened three years earlier.
By the end of her first year, attendance had risen by about 60,000 visitors. In 2010, an exhibition by artist Ron Mueck broke visitor records, bringing 135,000 people to the gallery.
The earthquakes presented new challenges. The gallery was taken over on February 22, 2011 earthquake as a coordination centre for the official quake response. The building would not operate as an art gallery for nearly five years.
After Civil Defence workers left the building, Harper found herself overseeing a massive construction job to repair the gallery. The building had settled unevenly after the quakes and needed larger rubber shock absorbers installed in the foundations to make it more resilient in any future earthquake. Harper also had to run a gallery without anywhere to exhibit art.
But she was well suited to the challenge after a life shaped by adversity. When she was in her early twenties, two accidents
‘‘I’ve been pretty personally determined and resilient.’’ Christchurch Art Gallery director Jenny Harper
changed her life.
Harper was born in 1950 in Geraldine, but studied in Christchurch.
She was working on a degree in religious studies in Christchurch in June 1971 when she was hit by a van. The collision paralysed half of her face and injured her back and knee.
‘‘I don’t remember anything for a fortnight afterwards. I couldn’t close my eye to go to sleep. I had to use eye drops to stop my eye from drying out.’’
She had surgery to thread a redundant tendon from her left arm into her face to help make her smile even. Over time, she was able to close her left eye.
Then, about four years later, she was camping near Abel Tasman Park when a camping stove flared up and set fire to her clothes.
She was badly burnt and lost her right ear a year later. She spent six months in hospital enduring intense pain as her nerve endings slowly grew back. Skin from her legs was grafted to her neck and upper torso.
She remembers finding comfort in a quotation from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius:
‘‘Nothing happens to anyone that they are not formed by nature to bear.’’
She feels the accidents made her stronger.
‘‘I know I’m able to cope in difficult circumstances. I’ve been pretty personally determined and resilient.’’
She invested the money from the two accident payouts and, at the age of 30, decided to quit her teaching job in Wellington and spend the money on a new chapter in her life.
She had studied Hindu sculpture as part of her degree on religion and become interested in the history of art.
‘‘I decided to do something I couldn’t have otherwise afforded.’’
She moved to London and studied the history of art at the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art.
Ten years after starting that degree she was appointed director of the National Gallery in Wellington, which was later incorporated into Te Papa. Then, after 12 years at Victoria University, starting as head of art history and ending as academic assistant vice chancellor, she was appointed director of Christchurch Art Gallery.
In 11 years as gallery director she has left her mark on the city.
The expensive job of placing the art gallery on rubber shock absorbers, known as base isolation, will ensure the gallery can borrow major artworks from international collections without fears of earthquake damage.
She has also led a major fundraising campaign to purchase five major artworks for the gallery’s collection by big name artists Michael Parekowhai, Bill Culbert, Martin Creed, Bridget Riley, and Ron Mueck. The fundraising drive for the Mueck artwork is still running.
The most obvious of the five new artworks is a large neon sign on the side of the gallery by British artist Martin Creed that states in bold capitals: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.
Harper has also helped transform the streets of Christchurch. She helped establish the council’s public art advisory group in 2007 with council funding of about $250,000 a year. The group has commissioned eight new public artworks for the city, including two works by Antony Gormley, a string of sculptures down High St and Neil Dawson’s giant Fanfare sculpture on the northern motorway.
A council report commissioned this year found the value of the city’s public art collection had more than doubled from $5.9m in 2009 to $13.7m now.
‘‘We have more works now. It’s not as bleak in terms of public art’’
‘‘Having the Neil Dawson up at the northern entry to Christchurch is a good thing.’’
‘‘The Gormley in the Arts Centre is just beautiful. It is one of the best views of something special. If you do a couple of things like Gormley and Fanfare every decade that is pretty good.’’
So what will she do once she has left the gallery in April?
‘‘I’m going to stay in Christchurch and I think there is a lot of potential here.’’
‘‘I will take on projects that interest me. Preferably fully funded. If nothing comes my way I will write my memoirs or something.’’
‘‘I might cook some more. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing friends more. I have ten years of accumulated reading. My garden is a disaster at the moment.’’
‘‘I might do some volunteer work. I might go onto some boards or something. I think something will happen.’’
‘‘And I need to get fit.’’
In the meantime there is still work to do for the city’s art collection.
She hopes to raise $5 million for an endowment fund to help purchase artworks for the gallery’s collection. The interest from the $5m fund could provide a couple of hundred thousand dollars in extra funding every year for new artworks. About $3 million has been pledged so far.
‘‘I am always wanting to improve the collection budget. Anything that is a buffer will help the situation.’’