Chris Booth sculptor

Another big, fat john dory on the beach this morning.... yum, a ready made breakfast fresh and organic.

I was given a book by NZ sculptor Chris Booth for my birthday which follows his lifes' work from knocking on Barbara Hepworths door in St Ives Cornwall in 1966 when he was 19 to his biggest achievement, being asked to install a sculpture in the grounds of the Kruller Muller museum in the Netherlands. Perhaps my most favourite museum in the world (well in the restricted sense of my world!) it took a team of five, ten months to complete with a budget of a million dollars. He is very sympathetic to the history of the sites and the stones he uses and works a lot with the indigenous people to create works that sit well with them.

I have always enjoyed his archway towering amongst the pohutukawa trees in Albert Park, Auckland but when he revealed in the book that the top half is fabricated in aluminium because of engineering difficulties it made me wonder if the real appreciation came from his sheer ability to get heavy rocks up in the air, not in the artwork itself. Who am I to critisize one of NZs' leading sculptors but by publishing a book of his lifes work, as in a retrospective, one can better see his philosophy and take away the engineering feats and working with local people does the piece stand alone as an exceptional piece of art (does it have to?). A lot of the time I don't think it does as in the photo above.