I am a woman who was active in nz /waikato contemporary art scenes for a few years until around 2015. My work was in lots of group shows , some solo exhibitions, finalist in a few awards, purchased by a couple of significant collectors and I won a minor residency, received a national prize. I was not an arts star, but not nothing.
Around the time that I was questioning whether to go all in to keep pursuing a career in the arts or to pull back and settle for a real job, I was considering a couple of Wallace-sponsored opportunities.
The advice i got was that Wallace, the biggest patron of arts in the Waikato, wasn't interested in new women artists, and so there wasn't much point in submitting for anything he had influence over. I didn't hear about his sleaziness and abuse of young men, but he was known for blanking women's art (unless they were already successful).
Wallace's gatekeeping helped maintain an environment of exclusion that I got tired of pushing against. That wasn't the main reason I pivoted away from showing art, but it was one of the last straws.
I don't regret the path I chose instead. But I'm angry that I, and us all in the arts, just accepted that his wealth allowed Wallace to distort and corrupt our culture, as well as abuse individuals.
A few times it’s been suggested to me that I apply to the Wallace Trust for funding for an arts project. I never bothered after one of his staff members made it very clear that the only projects the trust supported were those created by men.
I read today about a petition in Australia to get character reference letters taken out of legislation around sentencing, especially considering abusers are skilled at grooming communities and getting into roles of influence. As letters in support of Wallace were able to reduce his sentence, I feel like we need changes to sentencing here in NZ. His ability to get so many letters of support was tied to the same power and influence that allowed him to carry on his abuse
Couldn’t thank you enough for bringing this up! I’m in the US but had been thinking about this exact thing. There are so many times people can write these letters in US cases though they’re usually public records unless they’re filed under seal for some reason. But I’ve seen them with convicted predators filing for clemency too.
Yep! I recommend you look up Nicole Bedera - she’s a sociologist and I talked to her about all of the 45 support letters my former PE teacher got in support during his sentencing when he pled guilty to possession and distribution of CSAM. She read them and tweeted afterwards -
The power of money and the so called elite also pervades our politics. Just look at the money pouring into Act and National to support their anti Maori and anti tax the rich policies. Sadly we now live in a world where a small group of mainly men control vast swatches of the worlds resources including its art and they all aim to make damn sure they are going to continue to hold onto it. ACT want to abuse our young men in a different way by putting them into an adult jail at 17. I’m glad I live near an endless beach and can walk away my anger. And David your back isn’t silly it’s just struggling to cope like the rest of us. Go well in getting it sorted.
I’m toying with the idea to create an ironic painting about James’ predatory behaviour, sell it to him, and then donate the money to charity. I think as a young emerging artist I could get away with it.
Welcome back to NZ David! It’s a shame you weren’t here a bit earlier, Henry Rollins did a talk here in Christchurch last week and I couldn’t help think that you would have greatly enjoyed it.
They always think they are innocent, justified in what they were doing. They get so ANGRY at people who won't believe that they're innocent, that they were just "having a little fun" or "messing around" and that the victims are "over-reacting". They think their lives should go on as normal, and sadly, a lot of people agree with them.
I remember hearing a male friend of mine once ranting at a dinner party about a rapist who had been granted permission to attend the same university that he had been finding his victims some years earlier. "He's done his time!! What about his life?!" I remember quietly responding "When have we done our time then? What about our lives." I remember my friend's brother quietly taking my hand under the dinner table as my friend ranted "You can't hold a mistake over someone forever!" That's how they see it, a "mistake" that these predators "accidentally" make, even though there are multiple victims and they had worked really hard to conceal their "mistakes". (The brother later confided in me that he too was a sexual assault victim.)
Ironically the same friend came out during the height of "me too" declaring he was a "friend to women and supporter of victims". Only when it benefits them, right?
They do it in plain sight knowing they can almost always get away with it. Then they get a little bolder. A little more aggressive. And each time they get away with it, they ramp it up the next. Until it gets so egregiously horrible that it finally breaks open and everyone scratches their head and asks "How did it get to this?"
It gets to this, because as Hannah Gadsby says "Nobody gives a shit about women and children, only men's reputations." I would add that nobody gives a shit about vulnerable men either. Just the reputation of men with power.
Manawatia a Matariki David. All the best with your back repair. Thanks for speaking out about sexual violence and its sneaky ways of creating havoc. My Matariki wish is for a violence free Aotearoa
The pictures from the ex staffer are quite haunting., the one of the large man/small boy just about broke me. It saddens me that so many galleries seem to have enabled him - how tf was he still going to events AFTER his conviction!?!
It also made me think about my art collection *cough* (probably a bit of a stretch to call it that, especially when you look at his) and I have a majority of women artists 🤓 I hope women artists get more support from his foundation at some point. Maybe when his time on earth has ended...?
I wonder about the psychology of people like James. Initially there must have been some struggle or internal discomfort, knowing the acts were manipulative and wrong. But after years and years of rationalising your own targeted, predatory, horrendous behaviour you become caught up in your own bullshit narrative. You have no capacity for self awareness or reflection. You've had to kill that to be what you are. And then I guess, along with the money, this makes you believable to celebrity friends or other supporters, because when they talk to you the sense of injustice and innocene you have is actually real. He's a monster.
I guess it really was a slow crawl for him. The meat money just slowly went and did its thing - and he got away with more and more things without anyone saying a word, and so why would you change a thing? And then it's reaches the scale it did and collapsed so fast it must have just made zero sense to him. A confused old man.
He is what Psychotherapist calls a traumatising narcissist. They believe that they above the rest of us. Their victims are objects to be controlled, manipulated and used. Their subjectivity is denied. Such individuals project their subconscious inadequacies onto their victim for they cannot admit to their own weaknesses. They are deeply damaged but rather than taking the long road to healing and growth they become predators who in Shaw's words colonise their victim.
The best description I've heard of narcissism is that where there should be some sense is self, there is instead a void, and that needs to be filled by latching onto someone else. Your line about projecting inadequacies rings very true with my experience with a narcissist.
Thank you David foe another thought provoking piece, enriched by contributors. The entitlement, and the enabling power of wealth is both astounding and heartbreaking. Will it ever stop?
I hope it will stop. I have to. But also - ugh. Humankind's capacity to keep repeating the same old shit and patterns never ends. But we gotta keep calling it out.
I’ll check back in when I’m off work, as I’m heading in right now. Today I was diagnosed at 23 with ASD (I almost wrote ASS instead, which would’ve been hysterical). Working on my sassy Jesus piece (no no not the jewelry) and then my evangelical church experience, then my eval!
( I wore my Hannibal Webworm shirt to therapy and went into detail about how this design came to be and how much we both enjoyed Hannibal. And also how I think my Therapist is probably not a cannibal.)
How are you feeling about the diagnosis? I hope a sense of being seen and having some explanation for things, somehow? But also I am sure it is a lot to take in!
That’s my biggest takeaway from being institutionalized in that system, you can see so so many professionals without being seen. This evaluator took a shine to me, and told me I’ve got grit. He was very odd, more on that to come. He definitely saw me. My mom wrote a whole essay on what she has noticed while raising me, which was a massive massive help.
I’m feeling a bunch of feelings layered on one another, relief, validation, frustration, and some anguish. I feel like I can rest. I held myself to a standard that never truly existed for me and I buried so much pain to do so. Lord I have so much to process.
I feel like I don't have much to add to this since I'm not in NZ or the arts scene there and I've never heard of James Wallace outside of this newsletter but I can recognize that despicable humans exist everywhere. Folks who can inflict harm on others and go on about their days like nothing happened are truly some of the worst kinds of humans. I hope the stories you're getting aren't too heavy. I can only imagine the anguish that some of those involved went through. I said before make sure you're taking a lot of breaks from it. I know you can handle it, brave one, but it's still a lot.
I hope you have a lovely weekend. Take care of that back ❤️.
I had the (dis)pleasure of living at rannoch house for a period around 2014/2015 as a custodian. My bedroom was directly next door to our friend Mr Wallace though thankfully I never experienced any untoward behaviour from him myself. Possibly because of my unequivocal hetero stance which in his eyes made me a lost cause.
There’s many colourful stories from my time living there, too many to recount here but I do distinctly remember that on arriving for my first day, the man whom I was replacing gave me a brief induction of the house before he left. He took me up to what was to become my bedroom, shut the door and proceeded to ask me very calmly but sternly if I knew how to say “no” and if I was gay or straight. I was 19 years old and this was to be my first experience moving out from my family home. I think my naïveté at the time protected me somewhat but that initial conversation sums it up really!
In the email he sent on Wednesday and seen by the Herald, he didn't say why he had resigned as Auckland Symphony Orchestra conductor.
"I have loved working with you over the last 11 years and am very proud of what we have all done," Thomas wrote.
However, in an email he sent to members just one day earlier on Tuesday, August 24, he had said he was "challenging these accusations" made by his former EGGS student and wanted to continue conducting next year.
I am a woman who was active in nz /waikato contemporary art scenes for a few years until around 2015. My work was in lots of group shows , some solo exhibitions, finalist in a few awards, purchased by a couple of significant collectors and I won a minor residency, received a national prize. I was not an arts star, but not nothing.
Around the time that I was questioning whether to go all in to keep pursuing a career in the arts or to pull back and settle for a real job, I was considering a couple of Wallace-sponsored opportunities.
The advice i got was that Wallace, the biggest patron of arts in the Waikato, wasn't interested in new women artists, and so there wasn't much point in submitting for anything he had influence over. I didn't hear about his sleaziness and abuse of young men, but he was known for blanking women's art (unless they were already successful).
Wallace's gatekeeping helped maintain an environment of exclusion that I got tired of pushing against. That wasn't the main reason I pivoted away from showing art, but it was one of the last straws.
I don't regret the path I chose instead. But I'm angry that I, and us all in the arts, just accepted that his wealth allowed Wallace to distort and corrupt our culture, as well as abuse individuals.
A few times it’s been suggested to me that I apply to the Wallace Trust for funding for an arts project. I never bothered after one of his staff members made it very clear that the only projects the trust supported were those created by men.
Lordy. It was all just so, so ridiculous wasn't it?
Just so.
I read today about a petition in Australia to get character reference letters taken out of legislation around sentencing, especially considering abusers are skilled at grooming communities and getting into roles of influence. As letters in support of Wallace were able to reduce his sentence, I feel like we need changes to sentencing here in NZ. His ability to get so many letters of support was tied to the same power and influence that allowed him to carry on his abuse
Couldn’t thank you enough for bringing this up! I’m in the US but had been thinking about this exact thing. There are so many times people can write these letters in US cases though they’re usually public records unless they’re filed under seal for some reason. But I’ve seen them with convicted predators filing for clemency too.
Oh I'm glad! For me I found it so lucky to read different things around the same time that happen to converge and it has got me thinking too.
Yep! I recommend you look up Nicole Bedera - she’s a sociologist and I talked to her about all of the 45 support letters my former PE teacher got in support during his sentencing when he pled guilty to possession and distribution of CSAM. She read them and tweeted afterwards -
https://twitter.com/nbedera/status/1650934784124657680?s=46&t=8EWWGZasDyzvhL8oYw9xRw
Oh wow, could you provide a link to this? I’d love to look at it.
It seems it is just a petition for NSW (so far) in relation to perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lc/Pages/epetition-details.aspx?q=hjTKTfEbrBjTOpaTYQw-oA
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/your-reference-aint-relevant-dark-secret-behind-teens-school-photo/news-story/e983761badb54f320f0ee61178fb8854%3famp
“Your Reference Ain’t Relevant” is an amazing campaign name.
This is such a good point.
The power of money and the so called elite also pervades our politics. Just look at the money pouring into Act and National to support their anti Maori and anti tax the rich policies. Sadly we now live in a world where a small group of mainly men control vast swatches of the worlds resources including its art and they all aim to make damn sure they are going to continue to hold onto it. ACT want to abuse our young men in a different way by putting them into an adult jail at 17. I’m glad I live near an endless beach and can walk away my anger. And David your back isn’t silly it’s just struggling to cope like the rest of us. Go well in getting it sorted.
Thanks, Nigel. You're right - it's not silly. I think I try and downplay it just so I feel less stressed about it!
I’m toying with the idea to create an ironic painting about James’ predatory behaviour, sell it to him, and then donate the money to charity. I think as a young emerging artist I could get away with it.
Welcome back to NZ David! It’s a shame you weren’t here a bit earlier, Henry Rollins did a talk here in Christchurch last week and I couldn’t help think that you would have greatly enjoyed it.
Oh man - I really would have!
Also: I like your idea.
Was going to send him a mean email, but he changed it to jameshaywallace@icloud.com and that is too secure for me.
“It’s pronounced Ya-mesh-ay”
ya messy
Mānawatia a Matariki! I'm about to hit the road to visit friends in Hawke's Bay. Don't tell them but I'm most excited to see my family cat.
Friends + cat combo is a good combo!
They always think they are innocent, justified in what they were doing. They get so ANGRY at people who won't believe that they're innocent, that they were just "having a little fun" or "messing around" and that the victims are "over-reacting". They think their lives should go on as normal, and sadly, a lot of people agree with them.
I remember hearing a male friend of mine once ranting at a dinner party about a rapist who had been granted permission to attend the same university that he had been finding his victims some years earlier. "He's done his time!! What about his life?!" I remember quietly responding "When have we done our time then? What about our lives." I remember my friend's brother quietly taking my hand under the dinner table as my friend ranted "You can't hold a mistake over someone forever!" That's how they see it, a "mistake" that these predators "accidentally" make, even though there are multiple victims and they had worked really hard to conceal their "mistakes". (The brother later confided in me that he too was a sexual assault victim.)
Ironically the same friend came out during the height of "me too" declaring he was a "friend to women and supporter of victims". Only when it benefits them, right?
They do it in plain sight knowing they can almost always get away with it. Then they get a little bolder. A little more aggressive. And each time they get away with it, they ramp it up the next. Until it gets so egregiously horrible that it finally breaks open and everyone scratches their head and asks "How did it get to this?"
It gets to this, because as Hannah Gadsby says "Nobody gives a shit about women and children, only men's reputations." I would add that nobody gives a shit about vulnerable men either. Just the reputation of men with power.
Manawatia a Matariki David. All the best with your back repair. Thanks for speaking out about sexual violence and its sneaky ways of creating havoc. My Matariki wish is for a violence free Aotearoa
Same back at you! There were some loud fireworks booming across the skies of the far north last night and it was beautiful!
The pictures from the ex staffer are quite haunting., the one of the large man/small boy just about broke me. It saddens me that so many galleries seem to have enabled him - how tf was he still going to events AFTER his conviction!?!
It also made me think about my art collection *cough* (probably a bit of a stretch to call it that, especially when you look at his) and I have a majority of women artists 🤓 I hope women artists get more support from his foundation at some point. Maybe when his time on earth has ended...?
Oh the new Arts House Trust I think are moving really fast to try and redress the balance, and he has zero control over that.
Good!
I wonder about the psychology of people like James. Initially there must have been some struggle or internal discomfort, knowing the acts were manipulative and wrong. But after years and years of rationalising your own targeted, predatory, horrendous behaviour you become caught up in your own bullshit narrative. You have no capacity for self awareness or reflection. You've had to kill that to be what you are. And then I guess, along with the money, this makes you believable to celebrity friends or other supporters, because when they talk to you the sense of injustice and innocene you have is actually real. He's a monster.
I guess it really was a slow crawl for him. The meat money just slowly went and did its thing - and he got away with more and more things without anyone saying a word, and so why would you change a thing? And then it's reaches the scale it did and collapsed so fast it must have just made zero sense to him. A confused old man.
He is what Psychotherapist calls a traumatising narcissist. They believe that they above the rest of us. Their victims are objects to be controlled, manipulated and used. Their subjectivity is denied. Such individuals project their subconscious inadequacies onto their victim for they cannot admit to their own weaknesses. They are deeply damaged but rather than taking the long road to healing and growth they become predators who in Shaw's words colonise their victim.
The best description I've heard of narcissism is that where there should be some sense is self, there is instead a void, and that needs to be filled by latching onto someone else. Your line about projecting inadequacies rings very true with my experience with a narcissist.
I would qualify the description, based on the evidence, he is " a cashed up traumatising narcissist!
Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you David foe another thought provoking piece, enriched by contributors. The entitlement, and the enabling power of wealth is both astounding and heartbreaking. Will it ever stop?
I hope it will stop. I have to. But also - ugh. Humankind's capacity to keep repeating the same old shit and patterns never ends. But we gotta keep calling it out.
Absolutely this....and why I admire your work so much, as difficult as it must be. Take care and heal well.
Oh Hello David!
I’ll check back in when I’m off work, as I’m heading in right now. Today I was diagnosed at 23 with ASD (I almost wrote ASS instead, which would’ve been hysterical). Working on my sassy Jesus piece (no no not the jewelry) and then my evangelical church experience, then my eval!
( I wore my Hannibal Webworm shirt to therapy and went into detail about how this design came to be and how much we both enjoyed Hannibal. And also how I think my Therapist is probably not a cannibal.)
I love this therapy story. Your therapist rules.
How are you feeling about the diagnosis? I hope a sense of being seen and having some explanation for things, somehow? But also I am sure it is a lot to take in!
That’s my biggest takeaway from being institutionalized in that system, you can see so so many professionals without being seen. This evaluator took a shine to me, and told me I’ve got grit. He was very odd, more on that to come. He definitely saw me. My mom wrote a whole essay on what she has noticed while raising me, which was a massive massive help.
I’m feeling a bunch of feelings layered on one another, relief, validation, frustration, and some anguish. I feel like I can rest. I held myself to a standard that never truly existed for me and I buried so much pain to do so. Lord I have so much to process.
I feel like I don't have much to add to this since I'm not in NZ or the arts scene there and I've never heard of James Wallace outside of this newsletter but I can recognize that despicable humans exist everywhere. Folks who can inflict harm on others and go on about their days like nothing happened are truly some of the worst kinds of humans. I hope the stories you're getting aren't too heavy. I can only imagine the anguish that some of those involved went through. I said before make sure you're taking a lot of breaks from it. I know you can handle it, brave one, but it's still a lot.
I hope you have a lovely weekend. Take care of that back ❤️.
I had the (dis)pleasure of living at rannoch house for a period around 2014/2015 as a custodian. My bedroom was directly next door to our friend Mr Wallace though thankfully I never experienced any untoward behaviour from him myself. Possibly because of my unequivocal hetero stance which in his eyes made me a lost cause.
There’s many colourful stories from my time living there, too many to recount here but I do distinctly remember that on arriving for my first day, the man whom I was replacing gave me a brief induction of the house before he left. He took me up to what was to become my bedroom, shut the door and proceeded to ask me very calmly but sternly if I knew how to say “no” and if I was gay or straight. I was 19 years old and this was to be my first experience moving out from my family home. I think my naïveté at the time protected me somewhat but that initial conversation sums it up really!
Fuck that’s a lot. Oof. What an intro.
A friend of mine who worked there ages ago said one of his responsibilities at Rannoch was to tell guests to the house how not to get raped :(
Ugh. No words.
They really don’t give a fuck. Reminds me of this guy: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/leading-conductor-peter-thomas-resigns-amid-investigation-into-relationship-with-student/62IIVB3A2IEDR7LORMVENKQ7QM/
Gaslighting and manipulating right to the very end
YUCK.
In the email he sent on Wednesday and seen by the Herald, he didn't say why he had resigned as Auckland Symphony Orchestra conductor.
"I have loved working with you over the last 11 years and am very proud of what we have all done," Thomas wrote.
However, in an email he sent to members just one day earlier on Tuesday, August 24, he had said he was "challenging these accusations" made by his former EGGS student and wanted to continue conducting next year.