Chch. Art To Tour

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 7

Chch. Art To Tour

“You know, in Auckland they think of Canterbury as a place full of landscape painters. If they saw some of this stuff it would wake their ideas up.” The remark was made a while ago by John Coley, one of the organisers of the 20/20 Vision art show which is being held in the Durham street art gallery. It now looks as if Auckland will have a chance to catch up with recent and radical developments in Canterbury art because arrangements have been made for 20/20 works to be shown there.

“We have had a firm offer from the Barry Lett Gallery in Auckland and an approach from the Hamilton Art Gallery,” Coley announced this week. Gallery space available and freight costs limited the number of works which could be sent, but his own assemblagepaintings, constructions by Michael Eaton and Don Peebles, and recent paintings by the 1966 Hay’s Art Contest winner and runner-up, David Graham and Quentin MacFarlane, would be included. Coley describes the venture as a break-through, for although Canterbury painters had exhibited individually in Auckland, it was a long time since there had been a collective assault. Negotiations are also being made for “a digest” of the exhibition to be shown in other centres. It all shows that this informal group of artists has come a long way from its formation in disrespectful circumstances two years ago, to produce something as a counter to the antediluvian cream-puffery of the Pan Pacific Arts Festival. “We decided to have a show that was a forum for experi-

mental work—ideas that some of us had, or had heard about, and had never tried because there was nowhere to exhibit the results,” John Coley explained. “We were not concerned with producing the Great New Zealand work of art, we were having fun-and gaining good experience. Some of us used materials and subjects that otherwise we might never have tried. “I heard someone say about one work, ‘lt’s been done before.’ Perhaps it has. But at least it’s a starting point. And it gives the person who comes along to look at it some idea of what’s going on in the visual arts.

“You read about pop art, op art and junk sculpture—here is the chance for a firsthand experience of it. If you saw a picture of Michael Eaton's construction over there (pictured), you can’t tell whether you ean pull out the drawer, but if you come along you can try it.” And between the shows the group won an accolade of respectability when its members dominated the Hay’s art contest awards this year against national competition.