More Info →[Paul Dibble with 'Concrete in the Garden' installation]

Description

This image was taken for a story that ran in The Manawatū Evening Standard on 9 November 1981, titled 'Concrete in the Garden.' It describes the installation of the same name by the Palmerston North artist Paul Dibble (1943-2023) that was on view at the Manawatū Art Gallery.

The impetus for Dibble’s installation was his dislike of the recently-constructed PNCC Civic Administration Building and what he considered the oppressive heaviness of its brutalist concrete form. Instead, his art work “recreated a light fragile space using thin metal rods” which established “the limits of his ‘garden’ and convey that all-important lightness – in an abstract way”. Wax figures recline on strips of artificial grass, while brightly-coloured, sheet-metal parrots are perched on the metal rods. Dibble had weighted the parrots with lead-filled beer bottle tops, which meant that the movement of visitors to the gallery caused the birds to sway gently, animating the space.

Identification

Object type

Image

Content type

Image

Identifier

2024N_2017-20_BC660_041935

Archive

Manawatū Evening Standard Negative Collection

Date

November 9, 1981

Digitisation ID

2024N_2017-20_BC660_041935

Format

B&W negative