First published in Column 8, on the 6th March 1991
As far as kids are concerned the Museum has it over the Art
Gallery by quite a bit. Apart from the fact that there are some live things
there to see – though none of us managed to find that tuatara – there are
several hands-on exhibits, particularly in the natural science area.
Years ago, when I lived in England, I often went with a
young friend of mine to the three enormous Museums just down the road from the
Albert Hall. The great attraction about these places was that the curators had
realised something special – just placing things in front of people isn’t
enough, especially in front of kids.
So they’d provided all manner of objects for kids to get
their hands on, and kids loved it.
These days they have a couple of computer disks comprising
the Doomsday machine. With this you can pinpoint any spot in England, and get a
photo or drawing of it, with written details. Naturally there’s always a queue
to get at it.
Our Museum has improved vastly since the days when the most
exciting thing was wondering whether the large amphibian hanging from the
ceiling three floors up would suddenly fall on your head.
Now you can go to the insect department and track down all
manner of creepy crawlies in their native habitat by pressing little buttons
and watching for little lights. You can find out whether or not you have
arachnophobia, or let your flesh creep amongst the sharks and deep sea monsters
in the Marine Hall.
It isn’t the London Science Museum yet, but I get the
impression on every visit that the staff are keen to keep people coming back.
The Art Gallery attacks the interest problem in a different way,
by frequently changing its exhibits.
I guess the purpose isn’t to attract school children in
droves, and it was brave to have a treasure hunt that actually encouraged the
kids to get close to paintings and sculptures. (They were gently warned not to
aim their pencils at the pictures.)
And the kids appreciated the mini-Crunchie at the end. (We’d
already made a killing at the Museum by going in for every hunt they had. Several
mini-Moros later…)
However, the art exhibition itself didn’t easily hold the
children’s attention, and it takes a fairly enlightened parent to explain what
was appealing about some of the exhibits.
I know this will put me in the aesthetic ignoramus class,
but frankly, it’s hard to understand how thousands of dollars could have been
spent on some of the things on display.
I’m not looking for innumerable different views of Central
Otago landscape such as we see in the Festival exhibition, but why, for
instance, isn’t there one Steve Harris in the collection? Here’s a brilliant local
artist whose work is snapped up in Australia, and he doesn’t even get a look
amongst what I feel is much inferior work.
But it’s not the done thing to criticise modern art. Tom Stoppard
rather cynically summed up what I feel about some of it in one of his radio plays.
‘An artistic imagination coupled with skill is talent. Skill without imagination
is craftmanship. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.’
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| Sticky Date - Steve Harris |
I knew Steve Harris personally; we’d met him at a day
care centre we’d run back in the late 1970s (one child insisted on calling his
daughter ‘Thirsty Harris’ in stead of Kirsty…) Steve’s speciality was still
life: wonderful pictures, often with dark backgrounds that highlighted the
various objects portrayed. Sadly, the lack of enthusiasm for his work locally
eventually saw him migrate to Australia.
This particular column was published with several typos
in it, a most unusual case. One instance gave Stoppard’s last sentence the
opposite meaning…
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