Art matters: Energetic observer nears end of house project

Sculptor John Radford working on house pieces for Graft. Photo / Nick Atkinson

Art causes lurching emotions.

"From hateful boredom to supreme enlightenment," as John Radford puts it, raving about regular avant-garde concert series, Vitamin S.

"It's insanely brilliant, it's part of my education," he says of the often discordant and sometimes pulseless improvisations.

Which is not to say this music doesn't have heart, but the rhythms are often stretched and bent by musicians who dissolve and reform notes and phrases into unfamiliar shapes.

The Vitamin S cast are drawn from a revolving pool of local players who make up music together on stage at The Wine Cellar, the underground summit of Myers Park. This year's series of weekly shows kicks off later in February and Radford will probably be there, his large workmanlike hands applauding generously.

Those sinking buildings in Western Park on Ponsonby Rd are Radford's. Like many of his creations, they betray his habit of meticulous observation, but he also gathers creative energy from a range of unlikely sources.

If you happen to be passing Aotea Square on February 11, you may notice a pod of stranded people prostrate on the pavers in hope of being relaunched. They'll be mummified in wetsuits and snorkelling gear and you'll need to pour water on them to keep them cool and hydrated as they await the next tide.

One of those stranded mammals will be Radford, simply a bit player in a performance piece called Whales, put together by a surrealist theatre group from Wellington called Binge Culture. It's a typical, if arcane activity for an artist summoning the energy to bring an ambitious five-year project to completion before the end of the year.

His current opus, called Graft, is inspired by the demolition of around 14,000 characterful homes for the ongoing construction of Auckland's central motorway interchange. The final installation will feature 256 individually handcrafted houses, but the "performance" of the work has already begun, as aspiring homeowners can buy and sell the individual miniature dwellings from Radford's real-estate agent alter-ego Ron Jadford, a fast-talking hustler who happens to be Australian.

When I meet Radford at Millers on Cross St I learn that one of the houses has been sold, on spec, to the owner of the cafe to pay for Radford's prodigious coffee tab.

There are also periodic street parties where the Graft homeowners can get together and view their properties. The last of these events is pencilled for April when all 256 of the maquettes will be hung for the first time, suspended at slightly different heights on invisible lines from the ceiling to reveal the streets and hills of an imaginary long-gone suburb. By then it may be too late for a shrewd developer to grab a bargain, but with Ron Jadford around it'll be hard to resist taking a flutter on these beautiful and increasingly valuable objects.

While Radford toils in the summer heat to complete Graft, he keeps an ear cocked for unusual and imaginative happenings about the city - like the Vitamin S concert series or the Binge Culture street performance.

He also finds it hard to resist the temptation posed by a Norfolk pine, its symmetrical spiral of branches itching to be climbed to the very top.

Radford's long arms and strong Dalmatian paws revel in a break from the sometimes repetitive and always intricate labour of creating his next artwork.