Wellington Lays Down Challenge to Super City

Wellington Lays Down Cultural Challenge to Super City
 
Aucklanders are being called on to prove their stroke of creative genius by completing their own masterpiece at Taste of Auckland, which opens at Victoria Park today.
 
Positively Wellington Tourism (PWT) and Te Papa will be inviting festival-goers to help paint a 5m x 2.7m version of Johann H W Tischbein’s Goethe in der römischen Campagna (Goethe in the Roman Campagna) as part of a campaign promoting European Masters: 19th-20th Century Art from the Städel Museum, currently on at Te Papa.
 
PWT Chief Executive David Perks says Auckland has shown great enthusiasm for proving its creative capabilities, with Taste of Auckland presenting media partner Metro magazine last year claiming Wellington’s cultural capital mantle as more rightfully Auckland’s.
 
“We’re giving Aucklanders an opportunity to put their brushes where their mouths are so to speak.”
 
The paint-by-numbers promotion is part of a campaign for the major international exhibition that has focused on getting up close and personal with the stories and personalities behind the famous artworks.
 
Goethe in der römischen inspired Andy Warhol to create his own version in 1981, helping turn Germany’s most famous writer into a pop icon. Another popular work has been Max Beckmann’s controversial 1923 double portrait of the wife and mistress of a Städel Museum director.
 
“With art there’s so much more than meets the eye,” Mr Perks says. “These aren’t just creative masterpieces, they act as storytellers of a time we never knew, but wasn’t so different to modern day as we often think.”
 
The work of 70 great masters are part of the exhibition, which is expected to draw over 100,000 people to experience a European summer in the coolest little capital in the world.
 
The Auckland masterpiece will also have a showcase of its own, with Wellington promising to exhibit it at Wellington International Airport for a few weeks before finding it a more permanent home.
 
Those who contribute to the painting will go in the draw to win a European summer in Wellington to see the real deal. Taste of Auckland opens tonight, with sessions running through until Sunday.

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