'Modest' increase to build collection

Dunedin Public Art Gallery director Cam McCracken with works from the collection at the gallery...
Dunedin Public Art Gallery director Cam McCracken with works from the collection at the gallery yesterday. Photo by Linda Robertson.
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery has asked for ''a modest'' increase in the ratepayer contribution to the cost of acquisitions, to keep the collection relevant.

Councillors had also been asked to support efforts to encourage new private philanthropic donations and agree that the money collected from visitor donations goes to the acquisitions fund.

DPAG director Cam McCracken made the recommendations to councillors, who will consider them as part of the council's long-term budget-setting exercise beginning this week.

The council contributes $50,000 a year for gallery acquisitions and the Friends of the Gallery Society is expected to generate about $25,000 a year for the next decade.

The gallery also occasionally receives direct bequests, though Mr McCracken also called for council support for the gallery's efforts to foster relationships to encourage more.

The collection was both a resource and an asset for the city, Mr McCracken said in a report to the council.

The better it was, the more it raised the gallery's profile, allowing it attract more and better exhibitions and loans, in turn raising the city's profile.

Even though the collection was already substantial and of good quality, if its value was to be preserved, it had to be current and relevant, which was achieved by making appropriate regular additions that would keep it pertinent to audiences and remain an attractor for new audiences, donors and benefactors.

He recommended a 1% to 5% per year increase in rates-funded contributions to acquisitions over the next decade, amounting to a total increase of $128,000 over the decade.

New donation boxes, from which donations would go towards acquisitions, were planned for the gallery.

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