CoCA - Centre of Contemporary Art

I can’t believe I’m blogging about #rugby.

The art world is supposedly a safe haven for heretics like me - we share a general disdain for rugby and most physically exerting things (aside from opening-hopping and competitive free-wine guzzling).

Everything around me has been jumping on the World Cup bandwagon. Headphones, laptop bags and general merchandise aside, I was betrayed by a rebranding of my own perfume and my go-to anxiety relieving searches for ‘pug in sweater’ was infiltrated by Richie McPaw.

This morning, our own office printer patriotically ‘blacked out’ our letterhead.

Julie shares my bemusement about our national passion

This weekend, while scrolling through my facebook feed hungoverly despondently trying to avoid posts to do with the All Blacks, I came across a photo that somehow managed to unite two apparently disparate things - contemporary art and rugby fervour.

Thanks to the eagle eyed Julia Holden for the photo

#anthonygormley  #allblacks #scape8  #publicinteraction #rugby

The newly installed Anthony Gormley work looked somewhat dejected to be branded a supporter. Never-the-less, I had to be impressed that some hardy soul braved the waters of the Avon to wade out and dress a 609Kg iron sculpture.

The jersey was swiftly removed by on Saturday afternoon without any apparent damage.

Being that the sculptures will operate as “standing stones” and bear witness to all sorts of events in their 300 year projected lifespan, the work will be rained on, perched on and pooped on by any number of winged marauders; so an All Blacks jersey can’t hurt too much. I’m sure that this is just the beginning of cringe-inducing public interactions with it; I predict road cone hats during O-week, scarves in winter and perhaps an Anti-TPPA signboard on November 14th.

I’ve been working on making a condition report template as part of my internship and hence can list a few of the official terms that can potentially be added to the sculpture’s Condition Report as a consequence of the affectionate but problematic addition of said jersey and other things:

Abrasion

Accretion

Discolouration

Flaking

Foxing

Pest Damage

Scratching

Soiling: grime and splatter

Spalling

We all want public engagement with artwork, but when it’s at the expense to the integrity of the work it’s a bit dispiriting. I guess at least it wasn’t a Wallabies jersey.

Audrey Baldwin - CoCA Curatorial Intern