1. PREAMBLE
The Walters Prize was established and launched
in 2001 and first presented in June 2002 as an initiative of founding
benefactors and principal donors Erika and Robin Congreve and Dame Jenny Gibbs,
working in partnership with the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The founding
partners, each of them Patrons of the Gallery since the group’s inception in
1987, hoped that the conduct of the prize would enable the significance and meaning
of contemporary art in New Zealand to become better known. They share a belief
that if contemporary art was more accessible to a growing and culturally
diverse community, then that community might better understand the work of
contemporary artists.
Through the Walters Prize, the founding
partners will endeavour to work with others to make contemporary art a more
widely recognised, debated and prominent feature of New Zealand cultural life.
Those other partners include, from 2001, founding principal sponsor Ernst &
Young and founding sponsor Saatchi & Saatchi. From 2003 Dayle Mace, chair
of the Patrons of the Gallery, joined with them to become a major donor. As
organising gallery, the Auckland Art Gallery will work with its current and
future project partners to position the Walters Prize as a biennial project of
national importance, establishing it over time as a major public event in New
Zealand’s cultural calendar.
2. AWARD
The key elements of the Walters Prize are the
prize exhibition, publication, public and education programmes, and the award
dinner. A four-person national jury, selected by the Gallery but remaining
anonymous until the day of shortlisting, nominate four works or bodies of work of
New Zealand contemporary art. Following the jury shortlisting, the Gallery
invites the four artists so nominated to install or reinstate their work or
works in the Auckland Art Gallery for an 8-12 week exhibition. About 7-8 weeks
into the exhibition, a visiting international judge selects one of the works as
the winner of the Walters Prize.
The Walters Prize award is NZ$50,000 net cash
payable to the artist selected by the prize judge (note, this sum is not
taxable). This cash award component of the prize relies on the generosity of a
biennial grant from founding benefactors and principal donors Erika and Robin
Congreve and Dame Jenny Gibbs. In addition, from 2003, major donor Dayle Mace
has generously provided a biennial grant of NZ$5,000 cash payable to each of
the four (4) artists shortlisted for the Walters Prize (note, this sum is also not
taxable). This contribution recognises the achievement, considered significant
in its own right, of being shortlisted.
Further, Saatchi & Saatchi will invite the winning
artist to travel to New York and exhibit their work in Saatchi & Saatchi
Worldwide’s corporate headquarters. This includes a business class airfare for
the artist, Auckland / New York / Auckland, 10 days accommodation, and a daily
per diem allowance at the prevailing corporate rate. This invitation remains
valid for 18 months from the date of the prize announcement, when it will lapse.
Saatchi & Saatchi have several spaces (of different sizes) in their Hudson
Street headquarters, which may be suitable for the display or installation of
the work or works that represented the successful artist in the prize.
Alternatively, the artist may choose to show other works, as agreed between the
artist and the sponsor.
The New York exhibition component of the prize
does not automatically include a direct contribution to return freight and
insurance cost. However, Saatchi’s are willing to discuss meeting these costs
with the artist – either all or in part – dependant on the scale, complexity
and installation requirements of their work. If an exhibition proves feasible,
Saatchi & Saatchi New York will host an opening event for the exhibition and,
by mutual agreement with the artist, will endeavour to create opportunities for
the artist to interact informally with its staff and the contemporary visual
arts community in New York.
In summary, shortlisted artist’s are presented
with NZ$5,000 each at the Walters Prize exhibition opening, with the prize
award of NZ$50,000 being presented to the winning artist at the prize dinner.
Note that these sums are additional to the NZ$1,000 exhibition participation
fee (see Appendix VI) paid to shortlisted artists.
3. SUPPORT
The partners in the project intend that the
aspirations of the Walters Prize will become – and long remain – a lively and
engaging catalyst for a national and international conversation around
contemporary art and artists in New Zealand. With the Gallery, they want the
prize to stimulate public discussion about contemporary art and its role in and
relationship to the wider world. They also intend that the prize should be an
on-going project presented biennially.
To achieve that goal the partners acknowledge
that the organising gallery will, in addition to its own direct funding and
staff contribution, need to work with others. The Gallery will endeavour to enlist a national television
media partner to provide news, current affairs and arts coverage of the works,
ideas, artists and events associated with the prize. This will allow the prize
project – and the works of art and artists at its core – to speak to a public
within and beyond the gallery’s walls.
The organising gallery will also seek support
from other funding, trust body and corporate sponsor partners to help it
realise its goals for the prize project and to ensure its long-term
sustainability. To assist it in this endeavour, the Gallery will work closely
with the founding benefactors and principal and major donors, and founding
principal sponsor and founding sponsor, to develop and enlarge the support base,
financial and non-financial, for the Walters Prize.
4. SCOPE
The Walters Prize seeks to determine and
publicly acknowledge the most outstanding contribution made to contemporary art
in New Zealand in the two-year period preceding its award, the so-called prize
years. For these purposes, contemporary art in New Zealand includes an
individual work or body of work predominantly created within New Zealand or in the
context of the artist’s connection to or experience of New Zealand. The work
must have been publicly exhibited for the first time during the prize years
(i.e. from last jury meeting to current jury meeting), in either New Zealand or
elsewhere in the world and have been seen by the jury member who nominates the
work.
In this respect, the prize takes no regard of
the artist’s actual or perceived identification as a New Zealand artist,
whether they self-identify or are recognised as such. Moreover, an artist’s
potential for inclusion in the prize should be determined without reference to
their ethnicity, country of origin or current nationality. Regardless of the
nominated artist’s background or experience, the prize endeavours to focus on
the achievement of artistic excellence, demonstrated within a relevant work or
body of work, as this is seen to impact on or exert influence over contemporary
art in New Zealand.
While the prize jury will inevitably consider the
artist’s reputation or professional standing when developing their shortlist, it
is not the intention of the Walters Prize to honour career achievement. Artists
whose work is shortlisted for inclusion in the prize exhibition might be
considered to be young or emerging or mid or late career. No age limit is
placed on those considered eligible for the prize. In placing emphasis on the
most outstanding contribution made to recent practice within contemporary art
in New Zealand, the prize does not set out in broad terms to recognise lifetime
achievement, whether attained in New Zealand or elsewhere.
The Walters Prize seeks to acknowledge an
artist whose work is outstanding in relative terms, in that it conspicuously
contributes to enhancing the practice, understanding or reception of
contemporary art in New Zealand. This includes work that either has demonstrably
made or will potentially make that contribution, by having exerted a remarkable
impact or influence on the nature, perception or development of contemporary
art in this country. The prize partners recognise that, in the nature of such
judgements, these determinations remain matters of informed opinion.
5. MEDIA
There are no limitations placed on the media or
contemporary visual artforms that may be considered for shortlisting for the
prize exhibition and, therefore, eligibility for the prize itself. Nonetheless,
the work or body of work shortlisted by the prize jury must be physically or –
in the case of electronic or web-based work – virtually capable of public
exhibition.
Work included under the scope of the prize
could include, but is not limited to, any of the following media or visual
artforms in potentially any combination of elements or materials: painting,
sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, installation, ceramic, glass, sound,
video, film, electronic, digital or World Wide Web internet-based work.
In broad terms, the prize encompasses
autonomous works of contemporary visual art that are conceived or intended to
be experienced and understood as such, regardless of the material of production
or identified artform. In this respect, work shortlisted for inclusion in the
exhibition should be of a kind broadly consistent with the Gallery's current
contemporary art collection policy.
6. EXHIBITION
The Walters Prize includes a biennial
exhibition presented at the Auckland Art Gallery. The prize jury is required to
agree on four (4) shortlisted artists for inclusion in the prize exhibition. Further,
the jury will also nominate two (2) reserve works, in the event one or more of
the four shortlisted artists or works is unable or unprepared to participate in
the prize. The prize exhibition will either fully comprise or otherwise be
representative of the work or body of work that, in the opinion of the jury,
merits consideration for the prize. The exhibition is approximately 8-12 weeks in
duration, typically between September to November. The exhibition's scheduling
may vary from time to time, where this assists the organising gallery to more
effectively position the prize in its exhibition programme.
The co-ordinating curator assigned to manage
the prize is responsible for negotiating the allocation of exhibition space to
each shortlisted artist. Dependent
on the nature and scale of works, the first level galleries of the New Gallery building
currently serve as the principal exhibition venue. However, the organising
gallery reserves the right to make alternative spaces available for the
purposes of the exhibition, either within the New Gallery or main Gallery
buildings or at alternative Auckland venues or sites.
Prior to confirmation of the shortlisted works
and advising the nominated artists of their selection, the Gallery will
undertake a feasibility test of the nominated works. The test will be completed
within two weeks of the jury meeting and will consider scale, cost of
presentation, freight, availability for loan, etc. Should the presentation of
the actual work nominated be impossible to realise due to scale, cost of
presentation, freight, unavailability for loan etc, or its representation
through documentation be deemed not to effectively represent the work, then the
Gallery will contact the jury to make a further nomination from their reserve
list.
For the sake of clarity, if the shortlisted work
is unavailable for inclusion in the exhibition then the artist may ultimately
choose to represent it through preparatory or associated works, or video,
photographic or electronic forms of documentation. If required, the organising
gallery will assist the artist to produce such documentation as part of funding
their participation in the exhibition. However, it remains the strong
preference of the organising gallery that the actual work or body of work that
is shortlisted will be included in the exhibition for review by the prize
judge.
While shortlisted works might be represented
either partially or wholly through other existing or newly produced but related
works, particularly given the nature or some contemporary practices, shortlisting
is not intended to stimulate the production of entirely new work that may have
gone unseen by the prize jury. It is important to reiterate in this context
that the prize is awarded for "the most outstanding contribution made to
contemporary art in New Zealand" in the prize years, as initially scoped
and shortlisted by the jury.
In addition to the review of the exhibition by
the prize judge, and the award of the prize based on his or her decision, the
organising gallery might also conduct a People's Choice vote throughout the
course of the exhibition. The People's Choice prize, if applicable, will be
determined in association with the founding principal sponsor.
7. CATALOGUE
The Gallery, through the co-ordinating curator,
will prepare a small-scale catalogue of between 20-32pp, four-colour, in
association with the prize exhibition. The design and format for the catalogue will
generally include the following elements: a statement from the founding
benefactors and principal donors and/or other partners; a foreword by the Gallery's
director; background on the judge; summary observations on the prize years
and/or shortlisted artists from the jury; overview on each of the shortlisted
artists written by the co-ordinating curator; shortlisted artists portraits,
statements and illustrations.
8. JURY
The selection of artists shortlisted for
representation in the biennial prize exhibition will be made by a New Zealand
based group of invited experts, the prize jury. Membership of the jury will be
determined and appointed, from prize to prize, at the discretion of the Gallery.
The final determination of the prize award is based on the shortlisted artist’s
representation in the exhibition and is made by the prize judge.
The jury will comprise no less than three (3)
and no more than five (5) individuals with recognised expertise in the visual
arts and/or in allied contemporary cultural arenas. Jury membership can include
but is not limited to those who are senior practising artists, art critics,
writers, curators, art museum directors, art historians, or those otherwise
prominent in allied contemporary cultural arenas.
The Gallery is required to keep membership of
the jury confidential until the announcement of the shortlist. At the same
time, members of the jury are required to retain confidentiality as to their
membership until that time. The purpose of maintaining confidentiality over
membership of the jury is to ensure that they can more effectively undertake
their role from the relative anonymity of being a regular and interested observer
of contemporary art exhibitions, thereby more easily retaining their critical
independence and freedom to act.
In appointing jury members, the Gallery will
endeavour to provide the prize with the best possible overview of exhibition
activity in the five major metropolitan centres of Auckland, Christchurch,
Wellington, Hamilton and Dunedin. To optimise that coverage, the Gallery will
aim to include members from, at least, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
and, at best, seek to encompass as many other centres and/or regional areas as
is achievable within its resources. The jury is not restricted to nominating
works from their designated major metropolitan centre/s and/or regional zone/s.
The jury is required to meet only once as a
formally constituted group on a date to be fixed by the organising gallery,
ideally some six (6) months from the opening of the prize exhibition. On
meeting, they will determine their four (4) shortlisted works for inclusion in
the exhibition and consideration by the judge. The jury will also nominate two
(2) reserve works, in the event one or more of the four shortlisted artists is
unable or unprepared to participate in the prize, or that due to scale, cost of
presentation, freight, availability for loan, etc the work is unable to be
included. Again, it remains the strong preference of the organising gallery
that the actual work or body of work that is shortlisted will be included in
the exhibition for review by the prize judge.
In shortlisting works, the jury are not required
to adopt a curatorial perspective on how each will work together as an exhibition.
Instead, work should be selected solely for its deservedness as a nominated
work. Designing the exhibition is the role of the co-ordinating curator and the
gallery designer, working in close collaboration with the shortlisted artists.
9. JUDGE
The founding benefactors and principal donors,
in consultation with the Gallery, select and invite the prize judge. The judge
will be an eminent national or international figure in the world of the visual
arts or an allied cultural arena. He or she will be of such standing as to act
to focus public, critical and media attention on their role. Those invited to
be prize judge may include but are not limited to being senior practising
artists, art critics, writers, curators, art museum directors, art historians
and the like.
The judge will, by preference, be a person able
to deliver an associated public lecture on their field of interest or expertise
in the contemporary visual arts or an allied field. The decision of the judge
in making the prize award will be considered final and binding. For the
purposes of the inaugural prize, the judge will be invited to Auckland for a
minimum 4/5-day period, at a time to be mutually agreed.
10. CO-ORDINATING CURATOR
The Gallery will appoint a co-ordinating
curator at the beginning of the prize years to act as its representative in all
substantive dealings between the Gallery, the prize jury and the artists
nominated for inclusion in the prize exhibition. The co-ordinating curator will
be available to brief the jury as necessary on the exhibition potential and
constraints of the Auckland Art Gallery spaces dedicated to the prize.
Finally, when the exhibition is being assembled
and its content is known, the co-ordinating curator will advise the director
if, in their opinion, a nominated work or works should be excluded from the
exhibition. The purpose of this advice is to protect the Gallery where the
nature or content of a work or works is deemed to be in breach of the law,
therefore making it an offence to exhibit it, or is otherwise considered to be
in serious conflict with Gallery policy.
The co-ordinating curator will prepare an
associated catalogue to the Walters Prize exhibition that will include a short
essay on each artist. There will also be interpretive material in the form of
wall texts and videos made available to assist the public.
A comprehensive education and public programme
will be mounted by the Gallery in association with the exhibition,
11. DINNER
A prize award dinner will immediately follow
the selection of an awarded artist by the prize judge. The dinner will be
scheduled on a date convenient to the Gallery, the judge and the founding
benefactors and principal donors and project partners. This is most likely to
occur no less than four weeks following the opening of the prize exhibition.
The award dinner is conceived as being a
distinct, separately sponsored and high profile element of the prize. It will
be the occasion on which the prize award is announced by the judge to an
audience including the shortlisted artists, members of the jury and founding
benefactors and principal donors and project partner representatives. The
Patrons of the Gallery and other key organising gallery donors and stakeholders
will also be invited to attend.
It is the goal of the founding partners in
developing the prize that the dinner is in some part given coverage by the
national television media partner enjoined to support the prize. Coverage would
ideally include a live cross to the judge’s announcement of the awarded artist.
Further, it is hoped it can include coverage of the highlights of the media
conference scheduled to be held immediately following the announcement.
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