2AWA: Best Public Art

Here are the nom­in­ees for the Best Pub­lic Art cat­egory for the 2nd Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Awards (2AWA).

What is that?:

Art is what sep­ar­ates Man from Beast (apart from those mon­keys with type­writers who came up with the screen­play for Melody Rules, of course). There­fore it’s only fit­ting that we recog­nise the pub­lic art around the city that makes Wel­ling­ton the col­our­ful, vibrant place that it is. Of course, it’s a sub­ject­ive area, but these are the pieces that really make us do double-takes as we move around.

(nom­in­ees after the jump)

A. Sky Blues [in Post Office Square]

Dur­ing the day it might resemble “pubic hair on chop­sticks” but at night when then neon tubing lights up and reflects off nearby build­ings the effect can be stun­ning. Part of the many items that are meant to lead folks away from Lamb­ton Quay and to the water­front, Sky Blues has been a wel­come addi­tion to what was pre­vi­ously a large flat traffic island.

B. Graffiti in the alley off Left Bank

This little alley-way has become known as the Left Bank Gal­lery, run­ning as it does between Ghuznee Street oppos­ite Glover Park through to Cuba Street’s altern­at­ive shop­ping mecca, the Left Bank. Its walls host a mul­ti­tude of graf­fiti of vary­ing levels of qual­ity, from the most banal sprayed and mark­er­’d tags through to whim­sic­al and beau­ti­ful paint­ings of great style and tech­nique; as well as a nice sampler of loc­al sten­cil-art. Its ever-chan­ging walls reward repeat vis­its, and it is a use­ful primer on the artists that seek to change the face of our city armed only with stealth and a set of paints.

WINNER!!!
C. The installations along the way to the Airport

There’s a great big orange pointy thing which is actu­ally a zephyro­met­er! There’s col­oured cubes stacked on each oth­er that twirl in the wind! There’s a round­about full of fake reeds! While some of the Wel­ling­tonis­tas aren’t so fond of the Tower of Light (and judging by the smash­ing van­dal­ism it attracts, neither are Cobham Drive’s boy racers), the sculp­tures as a whole make an oth­er­wise ugly stretch of road sexy, and are a great intro­duc­tion for vis­it­ors to the vibrancy of our beloved city.

D. Invisible City [The braille sculpture on Lambton Quay]

This sculp­ture, Invis­ible City, invites touch. There is mean­ing here, but it is hid­den to mundane people. Which is kind of iron­ic, because only those to whom most of the rest of the world is in shad­ow can actu­ally read it. (On the oth­er hand, we have heard that it does­n’t mean mean any­thing in Braille either.) And so it intro­duces a little bit of mys­tery into the suity hum­drum of Lamb­ton Quay. Which is always a good thing.

E. Protoplasm (The “Pebbles” Wind Sculpture outside the Old Bank)

It may be called Pro­to­plasm if you read the plaque, but “Pebbles” is more recog­nis­able if you are look­ing to meet someone in town nearby it. This is anoth­er sculp­ture that only lives when Wel­ling­ton is windy: its stacked discs twist and gyr­ate like some man­ic geek at the school disco. Proof once again that the wind, one of Wel­ling­ton’s most polar­ising fea­tures, can be mid­wife to beauty as eas­ily as ruin your umbrella.

For a handy map of where to find these pieces, use the “best­pub­li­cart” tag on Zoom­in. Viddy them before vot­ing opens on Novem­ber 19.