Cost of maintaining public art doubles
The cost to ratepayers of maintaining Christchurch’s everincreasing public art collection has almost doubled in 10 years.
But public art advocates say the money spent maintaining the art is a fraction of its capital value.
The art is putting Christchurch on the map, they say.
Twenty-three pieces of public art have been added to Christchurch City Council’s collection since 2010 – a 34 per cent increase. There are now 91 pieces dotted throughout the city and across Banks Peninsula.
New artworks – including David McCracken’s Diminish and Ascend staircase at the Botanic Gardens, Julia Morison’s Tree Houses for Swamp Dwellers, Sir Antony Gormley’s Stay in the Avon River and Caine Tauwhare’s Waharoa in Lyttelton’s Albion Square – have helped push up the maintenance cost. These four artworks alone are costing the council $22,047 to maintain annually.
Last financial year the council spent $112,000 cleaning its artwork – $19,000 more than the
$93,000 budget. However, that was not enough to properly maintain the pieces and council staff are now requesting an additional $50,000 in the 2019/20 financial year, on top of the $95,500 already budgeted, taking the annual public art maintenance cost to
$145,500. In 2008, artwork maintenance cost $75,950.
The most expensive artwork to maintain is Diminish and Ascend, which was responsible for killing two seagulls who flew into the end of the sculpture, impaling themselves on the spike. Bird droppings are cleaned off the sculpture twice a week at an annual cost of about $7600.
At a city council meeting last month, council citizens and community principal adviser Brent Smith said some of the artworks cost a lot of money and, if the council let them deteriorate, their value would drop.
The council’s Public Art Advisory Group chairman Anthony Wright said public art was a critical part of the infrastructure of a world-class city, which Christchurch aspired to be. ‘‘The cost of maintaining roads are taken for granted. Art needs to be looked at in the same way.’’
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel said she loved public art because it helped a city’s identity. ‘‘I know there are certain pieces of public art that people feel drawn to.’’
Wright said during the last 10 years, groups including Scape Public Art and the advisory group had worked together to establish a body of public art that put Christchurch on the map.
Public art made its way into people’s brains and memories and became part of city life, he said.
Earlier this year, the council stopped funding the purchase of new public art through its public art fund, which it had previously granted about $290,000 annually.
Since 2007, the fund had helped purchase a series of highprofile new artworks for the city, including Gormley’s Stay sculptures in the Avon River and the Christchurch Arts Centre, and Neil Dawson’s giant Fanfare sculpture.