Monday, April 11, 2016

Pointing the finger


What is it about art that sends marketing into such a spin? You can’t say that the Auckland Art Gallery hasn’t done its bit recently to present some new ideas about painting with riffs on what a sophisticated medium it is etc. But when it comes to representing a painter on an ad for Auckland's 'Autumn of the Arts' the AAG got itself associated with an artist in bullfighter pose hard at some sort of finger painting. And that’s ignoring the resulting artwork-on-an-easel that was probably knocked up by one of the art director’s kids. ‘We need to do a poster on brain surgery, anyone got a good image?' ‘I’ve got one of a guy wielding an axe, would that do?’ ‘Perfect.’