WALK THIS WAY
Biennial event gears up to be a triumph again, writes Dionne Christian
Virginia King has islands on her mind. First, Waiheke but also the 118 small islands that make up the almost mythical city of Venice. King is making work — mainly the large-scale, stainless steel sculptures for which she is renowned — for shows in the two places. For the biennial Sculpture on the Gulf, the stunning Waiheke Island event where contemporary works are installed along a 2km coastal walk to show off the equally breath-taking natural environment, then, in May, she travels to Venice, having been invited by the European Cultural Centre to exhibit in a “collateral exhibition” which coincides with the Venice Biennale.
As the summer cicadas thrum in the garden of the St Mary’s Bay villa King shares with architect husband Mike, she seems remarkably composed given the labour involved in making art for two high-profile shows on opposite sides of the world.
The four-times winner of SotG’s People’s Choice Award admits that when she committed to Venice — after determining the invitation wasn’t a hoax — there was a moment when she thought about withdrawing from Waiheke but dates changed and she was able to do both.
Nevertheless, King says it’s been a lot of work spread across her home studio, the one she has at the family bach on Waiheke – “we bought years ago when no one wanted land on Waiheke Island” – and at rented premises in Newton.
“It’s been huge. I work really hard anyway but there was a point where I did think, ‘I hope I don’t kill myself’.” King’s also been taking commissions to help fund the trip to Venice where, despite being the only New Zealand artist invited to show in Personal Structures, she has to pay for gallery space, plus transporting by air four works and a video to the Palazzo Bembo on the Grand Canal.
“You can’t say no to Venice; it’s a huge responsibility,” she says, adding that it’s a chance not just to raise her own profile but also awareness of environmental issues and create more interest in New Zealand sculpture.
Concern about the environment has fuelled her practice since the late 1980s, when King learned about global warming and climate change long before the terms slipped into daily use: “I just could not get anybody to listen, so I thought, ‘from now on, I will make work about life and survival’.” In 2013’s SotG, King made a H¯ınaki guardian sculpture to acknowledge the need to protect marine life in the upper Waitemata; in 2017, Phantom Fleet, suspended from the trees, implied rising seas and the need to address global warming.
More than 30 years after becoming a full-time artist, she’s still vigorously wielding power tools to make the timber, stainless steel, bronze and stone installations that can be seen throughout New Zealand and Australia.
Travel to Antarctica on an artist fellowship in 1999, and meeting the scientists researching the impact of global warming, was a seminal experience and, to go to Venice, a city scientists believe could be swallowed by the sea by 2100 if global warming does not slow, will resonate strongly.
This year’s Hı¯naki continues King’s interest in traditional Ma¯ ori fish-trap forms and represents the gathering of food and survival along with entrapment and loss. It’s the first time she’s made three tall forms — Tahi, Rua and Toru — where the public can walk, sit or slide.
She is not the only artist at SotG whose work seeks to draw attention to the fragility of our environment and the urgent need for us to take more care of it.
Senior Ma¯ ori sculptor and Waiheke resident Chris Bailey has long used stone, timber and flax to create work that draws on his heritage and brings the past and present together.
Several of his installations are permanent fixtures on Waiheke; his Seven Pou stand proud across Britomart’s Sanctuary Garden and, last year, Auckland Public Art installed Bailey’s Tauranga Waka — the resting place of canoes
— in downtown Beach Rd.
For SotG, he’s pushed himself by working in bronze for the first time and crafting the 3.3m tall — and unembellished with any of Bailey’s characteristic surface carving — Te Werowero. To stand at Matiatia Wharf, arrival point for most visitors making the 35-minute ferry trip to Waiheke, it references traditional challenges — wero — made by local people to determine whether visitors are friend or foe.
For Bailey, that extends to asking visitors to be respectful of the island and its inhabitants and to examine their reasons for being there.
“On a cultural level, it’s a traditional challenge in terms of greeting but it also lays down a challenge to think while you’re here about nurturing the environment and the people who live here. When you live on an island, you see the constant challenges posed by nature and the environment — the battle of the gods, if you like.”
Bailey says the figure also stands as a guardian for the many ko¯ iwi (Ma¯ ori burials) on the edge of the bay which, as home to his hapu¯ , is a special place for him that he’s happy to share with respectful visitors.
“Come check it out, bring some sun cream and water and get involved; it’s about interacting with the people and it’s a great opportunity to immerse yourself in the community and see art and nature in new ways.”
It’s also an incredible place for artists to work, says fellow sculptor David McCracken, whose fabricated stainless steel and missile-shaped rocket, Toward a Better World, will be anchored in the sea alongside pleasure boats.
“Sculpture on the Gulf is one of the few places where you can put a work in the sea,” he says.
‘‘ When you live on an island, you see the constant challenges posed by nature.
Chris Bailey
“That involves a lot of challenges because although it’s a short-term work, it needs to endure marine conditions and the sheer relentlessness of the waves, but you can turn that into a positive because it’s an energising force and, today, there’s a lot of technology to draw upon from the maritime industry. You’ve got to be willing to take a risk, make everything robust and hope like hell that it all works out.” Like King and Bailey, McCracken says he always enjoys seeing what other artists have made — the depth and breadth of their respective imaginations as well as the technical skill.
Our leading kinetic sculptor, Phil Price, returns to Waiheke Island for SotG but he’s also working on an international project.
Price, who makes large wind-activated moving sculptures, will exhibit for the first time at Sculpture by the Sea in Cottesloe, near Perth, as the Tourism Western Australia Invited International Artist.
He’s making a 7m-high work called Ipomoea for this show and, for SotG, Candelabra, which incorporates carbon fibre and epoxy, industrial urethane (it’s a high-gloss coating), stainless steel and precision bearings.
Price says Sculpture on the Gulf is a mustsee, likening it in importance to Waiheke — and New Zealand art lovers — as the Grand Prix is to Monaco.