Arts Foundation of New Zealand announces laureate awards

Last night the Arts Foundation of New Zealand announced the recipients of the 2014 Laureate awards. The recipients include Lisa Reihana (visual arts) and Cliff Curtis (film). You can see the full list of awardees here.
Image: Lisa Reihana

Arts Foundation of New Zealand awards announced

The Arts Foundation of New Zealand held its annual awards in Auckland last night. The Todd Family received the Patronage Award for their extraordinary support of the arts in New Zealand (the Todd Foundation's $3m contribution to the Len Lye Centre is the largest private donation ever made to the arts in New Zealand), Laurence Aberhart received a $50,000 Laureate Award and Kushana Bush picked up a $25,000 New Generation Award.
Image: Laurence Aberhart's Mt Taranaki

Recipient of the Arts Foundation's Award for Patronage announced

The Chartwell Trust is the recipient of the Arts Foundation's 2011 Award for Patronage. The Arts Foundation provides $20,000 to the recipient to distribute to arts projects of their choice. As with previous awardees, the Chartwell Trust is donating $20,000 so that four $10,000 awards can be made to artists and/or arts organisations at the award ceremony on 11 October.

To date the award has gone to: Gus and Irene Fisher (2010), Adrienne, Lady Stewart (2009), Gillian and Roderick Deane (2008), Dame Jenny Gibbs (2007) and Denis and Verna Adams (2005).

Image: Clinton Watkins, Feedback (2011), video stills from a free art download project presented by Chartwell and Starkwhite at the 2011 Auckland Art Fair

Harriet Friedlander Residency takes Seung Yul Oh to NYC

Seung Yul Oh arrived in New York this week courtesy of the $80,000 Harriet Friedlander Residency. Administered for the Friedlander Family by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the award has no strings attached to it. Recipients are free to stay in NYC for as long as the $80,000 lasts, and Oh picked the right time to go with the NZ dollar trading at a post-float high of between US$0.8000 and US$0.8600. While recipients of the award are not required to develop specific projects under the Residency, the inaugural awardee, filmmaker Florian Habicht, set the bar with his NY film Love Story which premiered in Auckland recently at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

Image: a recent (untitled) work by Seung Yul Oh

Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureates Announced

Ceramicist and set designer John Parker is one of the five Laureates announced last night in Dunedin by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. Each year the Arts Foundation makes five $50,000 awards across art forms. 

The lineup of Laureates from previous years includes: Shane Cotton, Neil Dawson, Phil Dadson, Warwick Freeman, Julia Morison, Ann Noble, Michael Parekowhai, Peter Peryer, John Reynolds, Joe Sheehan and Ronnie van Hout.

Image: Cover of the publication produced by the City Gallery Wellington for the exhibition John Parker: Ceramics, 2002

Art & Patronage: Laureate Award

In our second posting on arts patronage at work in the New Zealand art world we look at the Arts Foundation of New Zealand's Laureate Award. Each year the Arts Foundation hands out five $50,000 awards across art forms, including the visual arts.

The award is not open to application giving it a point of difference over many other art prizes in New Zealand. A panel of peers is appointed to select suitable awardees and the recipients receive an unexpected call inviting them to accept a no-strings-attached award of $50,000. They can choose to do whatever they like with it and they don't have to report back to the Foundation on how it was used.

The Arts Foundation administers a number of awards, including the New Generation Award (every two years five artists are awarded $25,000) and an annual Award for Patronage recognising exceptional contributions to the arts as patrons. The recipients of this award are given $20,000 to distribute to artists, arts projects and arts organisations and all recipients have chosen to add another $20,000 of their own taking the distributed funds up to $40,000.

The full repertoire of Arts Foundation Awards is financed through an endowment fund built up by large donations from benefactors and smaller ones from a growing base of supporters. The multiple benefactor/supporter entry points remove wealth as a necessary precondition of patronage and allow more people to experience the pleasure to be gained by supporting artists.

Disclosure: Starkwhite co-director John McCormack is a member of the College of Governors of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand

Image: European Hare by Peter Peryer, the Arts Foundation's first visual arts laureate. You can visit Peryer's blog here

40 years on

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is the latest recipient of an Arts Foundation Governors Award. The Award recognises a person or organisation that makes an extraordinary contribution to the arts in New Zealand - in this case the gallery's unwavering commitment to working with contemporary art over a period of almost 40 years. (The Gallery celebrates its 40th anniversay in 2010.) The previous recipients of the Governors Award are Otago University for its commitment to the Robert Burns, Frances Hodgkins and Mozart Fellowships and Radio New Zealand Concert for its support of New Zealand Music.

Later in the year the Arts Foundation will announce the recipients of the 2009 Laureate Awards. Five Laureates are selected each year with each one receiving $50,000. You can find out more about the Arts Foundation here.