Barry Noel Thomas is a New Zealand artist and film maker. He is known for creating 1min art films called rADz and for his activism art including in the 1970s planting cabbages in an empty building site in Wellington City.

Biography

Thomas's first work experience was working on a film set when he was 16. The film was ''Uenuku'', a

Māori language Māori (; endonym: 'the Māori language', commonly shortened to ) is an Eastern Polynesian languages, Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost membe ...

drama and also working on it were many artists from Blerta (

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and

Alun Bollinger Alun Robert Bollinger (born 1948) is a New Zealand cinematographer, who has worked on several Peter Jackson films, and many other films in New Zealand. He has also been a Director of Photography, including the second unit for Peter Jackson's tril ...

). After that experience he went to the

National Film Unit The National Film Unit (NFU) was a state-owned film-production organisation originally based in Miramar, New Zealand. Founded in 1936 when the government took over a private film studio, Filmcraft, the NFU produced newsreels, documentaries and ...

as a trainee cameraperson. Thomas went on to art school in the late 1970s at the

Ilam School of Fine Arts The Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, located in the Ilam suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, was founded in 1882 as the Canterbury College School of Art. The school became a full department of the university in the ...

in Christchurch. He was a peer of Vincent Ward and they worked together on the film ''A State of Siege''. In the 1970s Thomas formed The Artists' Co-op along with Eva Yuen, Ian Hunter, Terry Handscombe and Ross Boyd to "work outside the traditional areas of painting and object sculpture, in the more ephemeral realms of performance and conceptual art." This cooperative received a grant from New Zealand's Arts Council to connect a community within New Zealand and to international artists. In 1976 Thomas performed an activist intervention in protest of racism and in connection to HART (

Halt All Racist Tours Halt All Racist Tours (HART) was a protest group set up in New Zealand in 1969 to protest against rugby union tours to and from South Africa. Founding member Trevor Richards served as president for its first 10 years, with fellow founding member ...

). Thomas and friends outlined words "WELCOME TO RACIST GAME" with weed-killer onto the pitch of

Lancaster Park Lancaster Park, also known as Jade Stadium and AMI Stadium for sponsorship reasons, was a sports stadium in Waltham, a suburb of Christchurch in New Zealand. The stadium closed permanently due to damage sustained in the February 2011 earthqu ...

rugby field in time for the grass to die before a rugby match where two South African rugby players were due to join the team. The

New Zealand Festival of the Arts Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts is a multi-arts biennial festival based in Wellington New Zealand that started in 1986. Previous names are the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, New Zealand International Arts Festival, New ...

in 1977 used a '

happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow in 1959 to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" i ...

' by Thomas as the opening event called ''The Party,'' where guest were invited but the promised food and drinks were behind a wall of plastic. A group of guests broke down the plastic after 3 minutes. Cabbage growing

Thomas, on 4 January 1978, created a public intervention art,

guerilla art Guerrilla art is a street art art movement, movement that first emerged in the United Kingdom, UK, but has since spread around the world and is now established in most countries that already had developed graffiti scenes. In fact, it owes so mu ...

work of art ''Vacant lot of cabbages'' illegally on an empty building site in

Willis Street Willis Street is a prominent street in the central business district of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Along with Courtenay Place, Manners Street and Lambton Quay, the lower reaches of Willis Street form part of the "Golden Mile ...

in central

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

. It was created by bringing in soil and planting 180 cabbages that spelled the word ''cabbage'' as an urban garden. At the end of June that year the cabbages were harvested. The work deliberately attracted high profile media attention. During that time the location became a central gathering space for artists and community members. At the end of the six months there was a festival called ''The Last Roxy Show'' and included a ceremonial burning of the remaining cabbages. Thomas was one of the cinematographers that captured footage of the 1981 South Africa rugby tour protests that formed part of the film

Patu! ''Patu!'' is a 1983 New Zealand documentary film directed by Merata Mita about the controversial 1981 Springbok tour. It follows the inner workings of the campaign against the tour, and captures scenes of violent conflict between police and prot ...

Thomas formed a film production company called Yeti Productions and in the 1980s and 1990s they created film and art projects. They also created award winning commercials. A cross-over from this were art-based short clips that screened during commercial breaks. Not to sell products but to just be art. These were called ''rADz'', 'radical art ads' or 'haiku films' and aired between 1997 and 2001. In New Zealand 100 rADz were made with many artists and filmmakers involved including Lala Rolls, Greg Page and Nova Paul. More were made in the UK and were presented at film festivals. In 2012

Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa (Māori language, Māori for 'Waka huia, the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the Nation ...

purchased documentation of Thomas's 1978 ''Vacant lot of cabbages'' art project.

Art exhibitions

* ''Work'' (1978) – New Zealand Academy of Fine Art ''-'' group exhibition with The Artists' Co-op (Barry Thomas, Eva Yuen, Ian Hunter, Terry Handscombe and Ross Boyd) * ''When art hits the headlines: a survey of controversial art in New Zealand'' (1987) – Shed 11, National Art Gallery, New Zealand – group exhibition curated by Jim and Mary Barr * ''Artists as Activists: Environment'' (2010) – New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts – group exhibition (

Don Binney Donald Hall Binney (24 March 1940 – 14 September 2012) was a New Zealand painter, best known for his paintings of birds. Biography Born and raised in Auckland, Binney was educated in Parnell, Auckland, taking classes with John Weeks ...

, Dean Buchanan, Nick Dryden, Ian Hamlin,

Sam Mahon Sam Mahon (born July 1954) is an artist and author living in Waikari in North Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand. He is the son of Peter Mahon, a lawyer notable for the Mt Erebus disaster inquiry, and has written a book about his fa ...

, Euan McDougall, Rosemary Mortimer, Michael O'Donnell,

Michael Smither Michael Duncan Smither (born 29 October 1939) is a New Zealand painter and composer. Background Smither was born in New Plymouth and was educated at New Plymouth Boys' High School and Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland. While studying he worke ...

Grahame Sydney Sir Grahame Charles Sydney (born 1948) is a New Zealand visual artist, based in the South Island region of Central Otago. Since beginning his professional art life in 1974 he has worked as a painter (in egg tempera, oil and watercolour), prin ...

, Barry Thomas, Brian Turner and Jane Zusters)

Film

* ''HeartlanNZ'' – documentary sponsored by the

Department of Conservation Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

* ''Sho 1'' - including Thomas' definition of art

References

External links

*
HeartlanNZ
', a 50-minute documentary by Barry Thomas {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Barry Living people New Zealand artists New Zealand cinematographers Year of birth missing (living people)