Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Square is the new pointy

We must have walked by it many times over the last few years but last Friday we actually noticed Rachel Walters sculpture Hau te kapakapa: the flapping wind. In an age of extreme art and in a land of tall pointy sculptures (the lower part of the North Island anyway) a work that sits quietly on the pavement in no big hurry to grab your attention is not common. 

Walters has cast a banana box (a staple for generations of apartment movers and the container of choice for ceramic artists to shift their wares) and set it like a bird trap on Queen Street at the entrance to Myers Park. A couple of bronze birds have already been caught and the work wonderfully provokes a mix of anxiety tinged with comedy. While we were watching two kids got down on their stomachs to try and count the catch, a couple of people took photographs and a passerby told us that she had seen them installing it a few years ago. It’s that sort of art, the kind that gets on with people and starts them talking to one another. There are couple more in the series by Walters nearby in the park.