Skip to main content

Hamish Keith presents The Big Picture

For crying out loud! What is it with Television New Zealand?

Tonight was the premier airing of Hamish Keith's discourse on art in New Zealand called The Big Picture.

Here is TVNZ's own blurb about the show:

"Art is not made for museums - it's made to be part of people's lives," asserts Hamish Keith, iconic arts commentator and presenter of The Big Picture.

This series tells the story of New Zealand art from earliest rock drawings to the present day.

For the first time, viewers will be able to watch a substantial series documenting in detail some of the most significant art works of our history.

The six one-hour episodes, which were several years in the making,…"


I find it disgraceful that an important show such as this, well made, well researched and, dare I say it, IMPORTANT. Not only for people who are interested in art but also for people who are interested in what makes New Zealand what it is (yes, it is more than rugby and tourism). What makes it worse is that The Big Picture is a central product for TVNZ in that it conforms to precisely with the government's charter for the channel it owns. Instead of a fatuous show about the trial of Penguin Books over the publication of Lady Chatterly's Lover in the 1960s - which, though it was interesting, was not NZ culture - The channel should rotate the spots. Of course it is just situations such as these that reveals the problem that having a cultural and social agenda doesn't sit well with a Barnum & Baily clause - that making money is the currency of publicly funded culture.

The simple truth is that running TVOne as a money making venture, first and foremost is another tax.

Hardly a wonder that the New Zealand Government has accumulated multi billion dollar revenue surpluses that they don't know what to do with.

Back to the show - Make a date Sunday Nights 10.25 pm.....

Eschewing 'art speak' in favour of plain language, Keith explores pivotal moments in our history through artworks that reflect the world in which they were made. The series documents an encounter between cultures and their development across the next centuries.

The show confronts New Zealand's 'cultural cringe' and the impact it has had on our art history.

Keith asserts that some conventional ideas about art need to be turned on their head and challenged.

"Art is not made for museums, it's made to be part of people's lives," says Keith. "I want to make people realise they know more about art and have more connection with it than they think. New Zealand art is the most interesting art in the world for New Zealanders because it talks to us. It speaks our language."


Record it and watch it with your kids. The best thing my parents ever did for me was to buy 'The New Zealand Heritage' partwork. I wish I still had that…anyone know where I can see a copy?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...
1 comment
Read more and leave a comment

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...
Post a Comment
Read more and leave a comment

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...
Post a Comment
Read more and leave a comment