Editorial: A sight to raise the human spirit

OPINION: Two impresarios featured in the news this week.

One panders to salacious instincts; the other lifts the human spirit. One is pornographer Steve Crow, the other is World of WearableArt founder Suzie Moncrieff. No prizes for guessing which is which.

Fortunately for Wellington, Mr Crow chose Auckland for his latest Boobs on Bikes parade - a publicity stunt that no longer even has the virtue of being novel.

Unfortunately for Auckland, Ms Moncrieff chose Wellington when her blend of dance and art and theatre outgrew Nelson. It is the jewel in Wellington's crown as the cultural capital of the nation.

True, Auckland also showcased the work of New Zealand's leading fashion designers this week, although you'd have been hard-pressed to notice if you were watching Close Up or Campbell Live on Tuesday night. The former was more interested in the surgically inflated boast of a woman claiming to have the largest breasts in the world, and the latter in a pay dispute between a stripper and Mr Crow.

He probably counted his appearance on Campbell Live a publicity coup. It was not. It was a sad illustration of how tawdry a business he operates in. He and a woman who pretends to enjoy exposing herself to strangers cannot agree on how much she should be paid for the pleasure.

Mr Crow probably doesn't understand, but life is about more than turning a quick buck. At its best, it is about things that lift the human spirit, stir the imagination and make us feel good to be alive. The World of WearableArt does all three.

For the next nine days, those lucky enough to have tickets will be able to revel in the creativity, imagination and ingenuity of artists and designers who have fashioned extraordinary garments out of things often regarded as valueless grass, polyester, recycled clothing, and used teabags to name just a few. Their creations are beautiful, surprising and, sometimes, sexy although not in a way Mr Crow would recognise.

Wellington owes a debt of gratitude to those at the city council who persuaded Ms Moncrieff to bring the show to Wellington. It also owes a debt to the individuals and families who helped to foot the bill for the upgrade of the City Gallery, reopening tomorrow after a $6.3 million refit, with what looks like a bad case of the measles. The exterior of the building has been adorned with dots, the trademark of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama whose Mirrored Years exhibition features inside.

For the next five months visitors to the gallery will be able to enter a weird and wonderful world created by a one-time contemporary of Andy Warhol in New York, who has gone on to become a grand dame of the art world.

Both the Kusama exhibition and the World of WearableArt show are triumphs of the imagination.

Reduced to their component parts cloth, junk, paint and lightbulbs their materials have little intrinsic worth. In creative hands they are priceless.

At a time when many have had to tighten their belts and when there is a seemingly limitless appetite for the sordid and the titillating, it is refreshing to be reminded of the best that humans are capable of.

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