The Artists' Co-op (Inc.) was a collectively run artists organisation which ran from March 1978 until 1982, and was based on the top floor of the Dalgety Woolstore in Thorndon Quay Wellington. It gave work, studios, a performance venue and exhibition space for artists.
It is best known as a liberal artists' incubator community for conceptual artists, improvised music, and other arts.
Origins
In early 1978, Bridie Lonie, Barry Thomas, Gary Griffiths and others started meeting with the idea of forming an artists' co-op in Wellington. An advertisement was lodged in Victoria University's Salient Magazine on 21 March 1978 inviting people to attend the co-op's inaugural meeting at the National Museum Theatrette at the Dominion Museum in Buckle Street.
The meeting discussed the establishment of an incorporated society for the new co-operative with its own working agenda and constitution. Then Eva Yuen, Ross Boyd and Ian Hunter, Stuart Porter, Gerard Crewdson, Gaylene Preston joined in to start the co-op.
The search for premises finally turned up the 33,000 square foot vacant Dalgety wool store penthouse with sawtooth glass roofed lighting.
An establishing grant from the Queen Elizabeth 2nd Arts Council (Creative New Zealand) of $3,000 enabled members to refurbish the large space, sand and varnish floors into circular "floor stages" in the round for both performers and audience. Members also constructed several large, portable sound baffle walls that were wheeled around to dampen the reverberant spaces and isolate the stages. Artists also constructed their own office and studios.
Several public events and exhibitions were held including artists and groups ranging from poets like Gary McCormick and Ian Wedde to photographers, conceptual artists, painting, sculpture, performances, Intervention art, happenings, free jazz and improvised music.
There was a sense that Wellington was a grey concrete capital with a "bureaucratic soul" according to writer Chris Trotter. The co-op filled a niche in country's artworld which was at a turning point as curator Robert Leonard described it "possessing the independent energy and coherence of an art movement."
Members and contributors
Co-op members, performers and exhibitors numbered over 50 and included Barry Thomas, Ian Hunter, Pauline Rhodes, Andrew Drummond, Jeanne Macaskill, Gary McCormick, Ian Wedde, Gary Henderson, Stuart Porter, Gerard Crewdson, Mark Hantler and Gaylene Preston (trade union representative). The co-op supplied artists, cartoonists and photographers for union publications, posters etc.
Groups
Several co-op members became the Primitive Art Group and the Braille Collective of improvising musicians. Wide Mouth Frogs The Gebbe Sisters: Janet, Katherine and Ngaio. Larf Theatre group Chameleon Allan Thomas' Gamelan orchestra Krishna Rock - "Living Force" Hackett Jim Allen's "Naked Bodies"
Exhibitions, performances, art works
Andrew Drummond: - Ngauranga set - Twenty Directions in an Enclosure, Body/Skin Suspension Piece, Onto Skin, Like a Bull at a Gate. Ian Hunter: - Sleep over performances. Barry Thomas: - "Williama Wei," "Wasting Time," "Whose who's who?", "Three handed Chess." Bridie Lonie: - Painted there and had an installation "Egg piece" - a double spiral of real eggs on floor. Pauline Rhodes: - "Thank you Eva" sculpture installation Eva Yuen: - "Composition in chalk and string" Peter Roche and Linda Buis, David Mealing - all performed at the Co-op Ian Wedde: - "Ancient Mariner" , "Halfway to the Sea" Bob Orr: - "Capricorn Song for Ezra" Marion McLeod: - "Dark Circles in the Dawn" Mark Hantler and Justin Keen photographs Brian King Gary Henderson: - "The old Man Son" Lindsay Rabbitt: - "Vicious poems" David Mealing: - "Desolation Row: A Socio—Political Statement" Stuart Porter: - Large Cartoon-like paintings Allan Thomas: - Gamelan Jennifer Shennan: - Dance
New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts
Five co-op members Eva Yuen, Ian Hunter, Barry Thomas, Ross Boyd and Terrence Handscomb exhibited their work at the NZ Academy of Fine arts in 1978 in a show entitled Work organised by Ian Hunter.