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While the exhibitions - Mark Braunias, Arthur Dagley, Jim Cooper - didn't rock my world, I loved the gallery spaces. The atrium, which you walk straight into off the street, has soaring double-storey white walls (the best of which is obscured in this photo), and would make an amazing project space: I'm thinking Sara Hughes, Simon Morris, Judy Millar, Benjamin Buchanan for wall works - Rose Nolan would be to die for - Rohan Weallans, Mike Parekowhai, Peter Robinson, Judy Darragh for installations; anything big, bold, and maybe a bit mad.
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The upstairs space is more domestically scaled, and when I was there broken up in a series of bays using temporary walls, which worked really well for showing smaller pieces. I could see photography and drawing shows looking great there - especially historical work when the bays are up - but the ambient light, even with the blinds drawn, seemed frighteningly bright.
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One of the nice things about the size and layout of the building is that you can see or sense most of the other spaces from wherever you are - which cuts down on that 'only person in the room' feeling. And the other people who were there seemed pretty happy. It was at that moment that I realised that I wasn't the audience the gallery probably needs to hit. I was rapturing over the building, and the other visitors were looking at Arthur Dagley.
In a Radio NZ interview last year director Richard Arlidge talked about the gallery's role in bringing Tauranga artists and art history to public attention. I wanted to see big brave work that played off the great spaces, but the local community - which voted out a Council that was trying to establish a museum to go with the gallery, and voted in a councillor who's proposing to halve the gallery's operating fund - might be a lot less interested in what's happening nationally and internationally, and a lot more interested in local artists.
The GBAG has traditionally managed to do both. I hope Tauranga can too, just so I can go back for the art, as well as the building.
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