By Tova O’Brien
A new exhibition at Wellington’s Shed Eleven sees 38 prime ministers strung up on the walls of an old shed – all for art’s sake.
If too many cooks in the kitchen are likely to spoil the broth, what would happen if you put every premier and prime minister in New Zealand’s history into one room?
It sounds like a bad joke, but hundreds flocked to see the expo that draws on New Zealand’s political history.
The last word you'd expect to hear in the punch line is modesty, but historian and curator Gavin McClean says modesty has nearly always been a trait of New Zealand’s prime ministers.
“I think there's been a long tradition of prime ministers not wanting to be seen spending money on them or recording their glories,” he says.
The common trait explains the lack of life-sized gilt-framed political portraits which are commonly seen in the United States and Britain.
The exhibition instead showcases a pop art Michael Savage and heavily symbolic Helen Clark sitting next to a perforated aluminium John Key.
Current Prime Minister John Key seemed chuffed to be immortalised in art.
“It’s nice that it's up here and as the curator said it's a little eclectic and different,” he says.
Curator Mr McClean says another common theme up until the 1920s was the frenzy of facial hair.
He says premiers of the time period always has a beard, moustache or mutton chop whiskers.
Infamous prime minister Robert Muldoon features with drag queens, on a pepper shaker, coffee cup and as a piggy bank.
Mr McClean says the piggy banks were very popular.
“People kicked them, they played football with them and the thing is the design meant there was no easy way to get the money out,” he says.
3 News
source: newshub archive
