There's a problem at the Dunedin Public Hospital, but it is not a medical one. The hospital owns or has the benefit of a large collection of works of art.
It is remarkably numerous and includes some works of real stature. There is a committee which oversees it which is not entirely easy, particularly because it does not control the building where the works are hung.
If you enter the hospital from Great King St, there is a wide passage leading to a foyer. At your left is a main reception desk and ahead of you is a wall.
At the right is a doorway and off-centre to the left an opening to a corridor. There's more wall still further left of the corridor where there is a Hospital Host information desk.
In the stretch of wall to the right of the corridor are several works of art. First is Mantis, a lithograph by Eileen Mayo (1906-94), then Pigeon in Winter, another lithograph by the same artist, then Moths on the Window, yet another by Eileen Mayo.
Ms Mayo was born in England and started her career there. She was then in Australia for some years but next came to New Zealand.
She was in Dunedin for a time and worked for the Otago Museum. She is an artist of international distinction and was responsible for some of the designs of our first decimal currency banknotes.
Beyond her array is a gap with a bench below, donated by the Swindells-Kelly family. Beyond that again to the right is an acrylic painting Red on Black, by Ralph Hotere (1931-2013), who probably needs no introduction.
It is enough to say before he died he was widely regarded as New Zealand's most distinguished living artist. Beyond Red on Black to the right there's Aramoana Series Vive, another of his acrylics.
The problem is, it has been proposed to mount a television screen on the wall in the gap between these two banks of works.
My understanding is it will display information of use to visitors and staff. It is a problem because a live, moving image screen will diminish its illustrious neighbours. It will overpower them visually.
I believe the committee, or some of its members, have conveyed their concerns to relevant people including Carole Heatly, the chief executive officer of the Southern District Health Board. Apparently, there is no sign the plan won't go ahead. If so, it would produce a very unhappy result and should be reconsidered.
I noticed too that there are pot plants on either side of the Swindells-Kelly bench. They are tall and the one on the left obscures the lower half of Mayo's Moths on the Window and the one on the right similarly occludes Hotere's Red on Black.
This is completely daft and shows whoever placed them regards the works as so much wallpaper. That is not a good look for the hospital and could easily be remedied.
At the far left beyond Mayo's Mantis there is a blank bit of wall where one potted shrub could be placed where it would interfere with nothing.
And at the right beyond Hotere's Aramoana Series Vive there's another blank space before the doorway where the other potted plant could go.
What about the television screen? I recognise the intended spot is central and thus a useful place to locate it.
It would also then be visible to the people staffing the main reception desk. It occurred to me it might go at the far end to the left above the Hospital Host desk.
This is also staffed by people from the St John organisation who might feel it is a bit odd to have a large TV screen above their heads on the wall behind them.
There is a lot of art in the foyer as well as various notices and information panels. Visually it is very busy. However, off to the further side of the main information desk, there is a wide alcove where there are two New Zealand Post post boxes.
They stand in front of a ribbed concrete pillar with empty space above the boxes where the screen could be placed.
Admittedly this is not so generally obvious but it certainly is not hidden and the screen would get a rare isolated space of its own. I recommend one or another of these alternatives, or some other, be considered.
I appreciate the people running the hospital have many other concerns than how the pictures are hung on their walls.
Nevertheless, it is a very good collection and the works affected are not minor. Presumably the powers that be regard the collection as of some benefit to their operation or they would not have them in their building. How they are displayed is important. A change of plan is needed.
Peter Entwisle is a Dunedin curator, historian and writer.
