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Many of micardis telmisartan you will know that early this year I became embroiled in a rather public battle with Auckland Council over the removal of an artwork on Poynten Tce painted by Berst, Deus and myself. You can read back through the posts right here on this blog if you’re not already familiar with the whole saga. A lot of you are probably already up to speed though and so I’ll cut right to the chase.
A couple of weeks ago I met with Rob Garret who is Auckland Council’s public arts facilitator and we came to a very amicable agreement – one that is going to enable a positive outcome that will benefit everyone involved and hopefully also benefit many others.
The Council agreed to withdraw their call for submissions for the new mural and have instead agreed to make a settlement with me on behalf of the artists. I was asked to price out a fair figure on par with what we would charge for a similar sized mural work in a commercial situation. I came up with the figure of $10,440.00 which breaks down like this:
Materials: $3,460.00
Access Equipment: $1,100.00
Artist fees: $5,700.00
This morning we found that the amount of $10,440.00 + GST had been deposited into our account and as promised we put it to some charitable causes – after we paid the GST direct to the Government of course! This is where the money went:
$4,394.00 - Red Cross Christchurch Earthquake Appeal
$4,394.00 – Canterbury SPCA Earthquake Appeal
And in light of the passing of micardis 80 mg 40 mg NYC graffiti Legend Case2 last week – we donated the remaining $1,316.00 USD needed to reach their goal of $5,400.00 for his funeral costs.
So that’s the first aspect of this all sorted – what about the art work?
At this stage – we can’t paint the replacement mural at Poynten Tce but in the next couple of weeks I will seek to talk directly with the landlords there and see if we can just return things back to the way it was. We will paint and maintain that site again if possible. In the mean time, The K’ Road Business Association have come to us with an alternative location, which is the side of 420/Rising Sun etc, the side facing the motorway. In an ideal world we will paint both locations or at the very least just the 420 spot but I have pulled together a fantastic team of local artists to get involved and will make more announcements about the project as it develops. At this stage it will likely be towards the end of the year as everyone involved are over-committed with their own projects for at least the next 2 months.
My vision in general though is to go a step further - buy micardis I want to work with the people of K’ Road and Cross St to get as much public art installed/painted as possible over the next year. This battle has been stressful at times but the outcome is positive and I think everyone can enjoy that. I’m optimistic that there is change ahead in how the Council starts to think about art in public space and I’m grateful, humbled and inspired by how many people were outspoken with their support on this whole issue. I would in particular like to thank Cut Collective for initiating the petition and to all the people that signed it, Barb and Cleo at the KBA, Russell Brown, Peter McLennan and Hamish Keith for everything said and done throughout this drama. I would also like to thank Saber AWR for really pushing this issue on twitter and gathering the initial momentum that caught Mayor Len Brown’s attention.
Lastly, there is still in my opinion a huge disconnect between the ‘enforcement arm’ of the Council, elected Councillors and the idealistic people in there pushing for positive change in our city. I do feel optimistic though. I hope that if anything this has illustrated that people like me, that like or do graffiti do care and have a vision for this city just like anyone else. I hope we can engage and work more often towards creating positive projects that come with compromise and understanding rather than just applying robotic bureaucratic measures to every issue that comes about. I hope that we can start to see return this city to a place where everyone can feel a sense of belonging and ownership, where things aren’t constantly standardized, painted grey or rebuilt purely as a veneer to impress foreign Rugby punters. Like I said – today I feel optimistic.
