New Zealand’s arts scene

Oh, big, big question. I guess because I’ve done some travelling recently I’m not in a bad position to answer that. I think we’re in a really good position although we’re badly under funded, and I think if we could get more of our arts to the rest of the world, they’d be really surprised and delighted and amazed. I mean it’s so haphazard at the moment. We’re trying to get our arts overseas and there’s some organisations you know, Creative New Zealand and there’s Trade & Industry, and the government, and they’re all putting in bits of money. But ultimately, I mean one of our most successful stories the Datsuns, who you’ll know of, you know, they just went over to the UK by themselves, slept on a friends floor, played in a gig and got spotted by the right person, which is great for them, but I think we need to be a bit more coordinated. I think our music is really great, and I think we’ll continue to do well with our music, but it needs a lot more money to market it. It’s all about marketing and getting it to the right people. I think our visual artists are fantastic! Ah, Maori and Pakeha, although I would say the rest of the world is more interested in Maori art. Maori, Pacific Island art at the moment because it’s different, it’s unique, so I think there’s a lot of potential there. There’s a lot of work being done by Toi Māori at the moment. They’re taking arts to particularly North America and Canada, and they’ve chosen where they want to go, and they’re putting probably hundreds of thousands of dollars into these various exhibitions over the last couple of years, and they’re going to build on that, and build the understanding. That’s what we need to do. We go to the Venice Biennale, and I know Frontseat's covered it I haven’t been to the Biennale before, but in a way it’s just as important for New Zealand to say, “Yeah, here we are, we’re players in the scene”, so, I think our work is great. I think we’re not as well known as we should or could be. I’ve been to the Edinburgh festival. It’s an amazing place. Every day you can go to any one of hundreds of events or more. Literally hundreds of events every single day, it’s the most extraordinary place. To try and get New Zealand some profile there, my argument is that we should set up a New Zealand venue and have a stage or something which is where New Zealand, That’s where you go, to see Flight of the Concords, or any of our comedians, or a play, or a concert, and try and brand it that way. So it is about branding, but I have no, I have no issue at all that we have some fantastic art being created here.

Yeah I completely agree. Our artists, a lot of the time, have to take their own initiative to make their pieces work overseas if they’re going to travel. In fact, if that’s the most important thing to them, because there’s not a huge amount of funding often for artists here, but then, you could say that for artists all over the world, so it’s tricky because I, yeah, I’m sort of…

Although part of the thing here Julie, is that we’ve only got four million people, and if you’re a group, even if you’re as good as Fat Freddy’s Drop, who I adore, you can only tour New Zealand so many times. I mean, Dave Dobbyn still does it and does it great. You know, him and a guitar, but they, if your ambitious, or you want to make a living from it realistically, you’re probably going to need some kind of world market. Or if you’re an artist who really wants to make a living, you’re probably going to have to find a gallery, or a dealer, or something overseas if you’re really serious about it. It’s just that we’re small and we’re isolated. That’s our problem.

That’s right. And, I mean Fat Freddy’s is a really good example actually because if you, I mean, people get really, really sick of you if you keep playing and playing and playing in the same venues all of the time, and that’s what happens in New Zealand because there’s not quite so many venues, so, yeah, you do need to sort of spread your wings a bit.