Scott Pothan ex WAM, at his house surrounded by arty quirky stuff 18 September 2015 Northern Advocate photograph by John Stone NAG 19Sep15 - NAG 19Sep15 - AT HOME: The Christ figure o
Scott Pothan ex WAM, at his house surrounded by arty quirky stuff 18 September 2015 Northern Advocate photograph by John Stone NAG 19Sep15 - NAG 19Sep15 - AT HOME: The Christ figure o
He jokes that the public arts sector can be a battlefield. He has ridden the rocky times and enjoyed great triumphs during 20 years as director of the Whangarei Art Museum. Scott Pothan talks with Lindy Laird about where he is now and where to from here.
IT IS one of Scott Pothan's many stories - how he got on the blower to the Beehive and the Whangarei Art Museum ended up with a Goldie, a Hotere and a Mrkusich.
It was 1998 and Prime Minister Helen Clark had announced the government would repatriate 59 major New Zealand artworks to distribute around regional art museums.
Pothan, founding director of the Whangarei Art Museum (WAM) he had helped establish three years earlier, saw an opportunity for Whangarei.
"Helen said, 'you're the first one off the block'. Ministry officials turned up with a folder and said, 'choose, put in your proposal but it doesn't mean you'll get everything you want','' Pothan grins.
He asked for - and got - Charles Goldie's Maori Woman, Ralph Hotere's Requiem and Milan Mrkusich's Emblem Series.
"Even the Auckland Art Gallery only got one and we got three!'' he chortles.
Pothan is no longer the director of the civic-owned collection he has been involved with since 1993 as a consultant before the Whangarei Art Museum was set up in the Cafler Park building in 1995.
From 1996, when his position as director was developed, until his last day at work in the first week of 2015 - when he took sick leave on doctor's orders - Pothan oversaw the collating, documenting, exhibiting and purchasing for that collection.
In 1989, under the leadership of Mayor Joyce Ryan, the Whangarei District Council created an annual $15,000 art acquisition fund. It was a grand gesture in the city's Silver Jubilee year to help grow a collection that began in the 1920s.
Works needed restoration, some were displayed in various civic locations or stored in appalling conditions. Even as he helped prepare the Cafler Park building for its precious cargo, Pothan was aware the building was barely adequate.
He would see the rise and fall of various schemes - sometimes politically motivated, sometimes fine ideas stemming from arts community leaders - to move the growing collection into a more fitting site. (They have included the Old Library, its interior re-designed in a collaboration between architecture/construction company Jazmax and Ralph Hotere; and the first, the second and even the third Hundertwasser proposal at the Town Basin).
Pothan says that to enable WAM, and to a degree the community, to move forward it has been necessary for stakeholders "to put to bed this nasty debate about the Hundertwasser versus the art museum".
"The irony is that all these years later the art museum became the vehicle for the Hundertwasser."
Tireless campaigner
He has had appointments on regional, national and international museums and arts boards; established cultural exchange-based exhibitions - WAM twice winning Asia New Zealand Foundations Museums Aotearoa awards; set up the first collaboration between Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and a regional art museum to exhibit Te Papa works.
Pothan invited many politicians and other powerful people to take an interest in WAM, and was himself a regular guest in the Beehive.
"I've deliberately positioned WAM on the national political spectrum from day one."
He built strong relationships with iwi. He engaged the public in community-focussed arts initiatives such as WAM hosting the Fashion Runway for Womens Refuge, and brought the Rugby World Cup and a new audience into the museum via the Peter Bush exhibition.
And he handled major bequests, called in favours and negotiated minefields, he curated, conserved and commissioned works - the latter including the Waka and Wave sculpture. Despite increased commitment over two decades from the council to its significant art collection, the acquisition fund remained at $15,000.
Scott Pothan at home. PHOTO / John Stone
Nevertheless, Pothan, for the Whangarei Arts Museum Trust, made some astute purchases. The collection was appraised in 1991 by Webbs Art Gallery in Auckland at a value of $200,000. In 2013 it was valued at $7 million.
The end of free speech
"Curatorship is the last bastion of free speech," Pothan says with conviction, and a sigh.
He's "shut down" half his house and is more or less camping in the living room, surrounded by hundreds of fascinating objet d'art. He's perched on, rather than in, an armchair beside a cheery fire.
But he's not so cheery himself, and admits to being a bit "broken down", living in "the schism", swimming out of an ocean of depression. Slightly built anyway, Pothan looks pale and thinner than usual.
His free speech reference is bitter sweet. He will not talk about why he no longer has his job, but admits to being too unwell to work this year. His testimonial from the current WAM board chairman Grant Faber is glowing.
"Over the 19 years, during which Scott served as director, reporting to the Whangarei Art Museum Trust, the Whangarei Art Museum has risen in reputation and prominence to become one of New Zealand's most respected art museums," Faber wrote.
End of story. That story anyway.
Volunteer aspirations
"I'd love to go to Syria," Pothan announces.
It's a segue springing from talk of international museum projects he's been involved with. During 20 years as an arts policy adviser, he has been outspoken about the need for bicultural representation in the sector. He's given talks on the subject for Unesco, via its International Council of Museums (ICOM), to which New Zealand was one of the first signatories in 1948.
Pothan's been a member of ICOM for 15 years and in August this year was appointed the New Zealand ICOM's board deputy chairman and secretary. He is still deeply involved with Museums Aotearoa, but the organisation is not really involved in advocating for international cultural issues, he says.
That's how Syria came up, and the 1954 Hague Convention which protects cultural heritage - museums, archives, libraries, monuments, sites, goods, etc - during armed conflicts, and highlights the concept of "world" heritage.
The International Committee of the Blue Shield is the working arm. It's a body that is wounded deeply every time Islamic fundamentalist terrorists assassinate scholars or blow up ancient sites, saying they represent other than their own view of cultural heritage.
Blue Shield is putting together a group of people to help salvage those broken bricks and mortar, the artworks, the documents, the ancient symbols of world heritage, the targets of hate.
It's not a scene one can easily imagine the dapper Scott Pothan in and, no, he's not volunteering for a tour of duty in a warzone just yet. He jokes that he has already survived two "H" bombs - Hundertwasser and Helen (Clark).
He's beginning the process of volunteering to work overseas through VSA to put his skills to work in the international museum and archival sector.
