It makes me incredibly sad that since the name suppression was lifted, the same rhetoric that we got with Weinstein is swirling around - “well the arts, it’s like that..., it’s permissive, artists are flamboyant, it’s an insular group, you know what the ARTS ARE LIKE, they got money/prestige/fame out of it so it obviously wasn’t that bad...” and on and on. Any of us who live and work in the arts and entertainment arena know how vulnerable it is possible to be, and especially when you’re young. When you’re not sure about all the grey areas. When people won’t give you a straight answer about those areas. When you don’t want to jeopardise your work by declining certain requests, even if you know instinctively it may be a bad position to be in/may lead to other things. I feel angry for the victims, who will be feeling all sorts of things now his name is out there. And yeah, it also feels really gross knowing that the large proportion of our industry have known for years, to varying and lesser degrees.
This! 💯. And The “I don’t condone what he did, but the arts would be poorer if it wasn’t for him” line is vomit inducing. How many people have to be assaulted and traumatised before the balance shifts and he’s fully held to account by those people? He used his money and his “patronage” to pray on people which calls into account the ethics of every penny he spent.
The support letters from women made me think how men are dismissive of women who have been assaulted. If it didn’t happen to them it couldn’t have happened to anyone else. The meat man bolstered his “respectability” by being polite to women and handing out money.
I understand this implicitly, David, as someone who works within the NZ arts industry. Though I wasn't aware of Wallace - I'm a lil past his time - the rot within NZ arts goes deep. So many people we're not allowed to talk about cause of threats of legal action, so many people who we warn people off working with but can't say anything publicly cause they have far more power over the media and the public eye. It's deeply, deeply disheartening, something that sickens me daily, and I don't know how we fix it.
Have you ever googled him? He must have an absolute fortune “cleaning” his media presence. He was probably the only High Profile Business Man in New Zealand who didn’t have a Wikipedia page. That costs money.
Amazing that people still defend him. This was the worst kept secret in art circles. Perhaps it was that he was so adamant he'd done nothing wrong that convinced them. I saw him at an art gallery opening in CHC early 2022. He'd been convicted and sentenced by then but was out on bail awaiting his appeal. He brazenly swanned about the young mostly 20s men in the room like he owned the place, and they. He looked an aged lizard. Of course they all knew. But it was him who thought he still had an absolute right to maintain his public position of wealthy, kind, enabling benefactor. No conscience. No remorse. No empathy. I think that's called a psychopath.
I was curious what he was doing while awaiting sentencing - and looks like you just answered my question. I do wonder about the mindset of the Vincent Wards who wrote reference letters - did they think they would never become public? They are connected to PR people and everything - it just seems so mad they'd risk even writing them. But they did. Bizarre.
I can only speculate that the likes of Vincent and Rena felt they owed more to JW than to people they didn't know and were portrayed variously as deceitful gold diggers and knew "What they were doing" when going to the JW mansion. Classic victim blaming. If I wasn't connected to the people holding the gallery opening (a fledgling start up - cue: predator) I would have told the old creep to fuck off.
Thank you again for your writing, David. A memory - when I was a student in Wellington in the late 1960s, a young woman flatmate was asked to help out as a hostess at some arty social event. She came home quite shaken, having spent the evening dodging the mauling hands of an elderly arts philanthropist. Makes you wonder how many of these predators are out there.
Gross. This will be so incredibly common - and I hope the conversation around James Wallace will give people a reference point so they feel less alone, and more able to talk. Or at least realise more that yes, that was fucked up.
I heard second hand about his behaviour after he was put on trial. The incident I heard about was pretty standard. Man invited around to dinner to discuss his work, Expecting nothing except an art discussion. Determined passes were made and an attempt to get him drunk but he made excuses and left An unpleasant experience but probably not over the criminal threshold at that time. No drugs involved.
Not untypical of twenty years ago. It's a bit like Maggie Barry and Rolf Harris. She had a bad experience but stopped him in his tracks. Uncomfortable but not enough to go to the police with.
I read the NZ Herald this morning and some of the more glowing reviews were from women or people too famous to be vulnerable. People have many faces.
Janine - you hit the nail on the head "... some of the more glowing reviews were from women or people too famous to be vulnerable " - As David succinctly explained (as per usual) this man was very clever in how he operated. In some ways you can see how someone who was in no way a target during their whole life, might not recognise the reality? Hope it was blindness and not wilful ignorance!
I went to his house once and got the vibe. Surely people who had known him since the 1990s would know a lot more, and have a lot more reasons to know that writing those letters was a moral nightmare. Or did he sort of have them hypnotized along the way? Or they, like him, sort of became numb to how awful it all actually was?
Have heard through the grapevine of a person who attended a party at Wallace's house only to be drugged....before or after they were encouraged to get shirtless I'm wondering...
PERFECT comparision - as soon as I heard, I called him the Knight of Entitlement. I had friends strongly defending the fact that he had 'given so much' to the arts - LOL - NO HE DIDN'T - he simply paid for the perfect grooming salon!! If only these vile predator's victims' sentences could be reduced to 2 years and a few months. Alas, they serve for a lifetime. I get great delight in knowing that his true character has trumped his wealth. Here's to an adequately squalid closure to his story.
I was going to say the same thing. I only learned about Jimmy Saville a few years ago, but damn, what a garbage human being who was permitted to do truly atrocious things and hurt so many people.
It's happening again right now with the BBC and one of their presenters. Although the accusations aren't certain it's definitely a place where the vulnerable are taken advantage of repeatedly.
A well-known NZ writer for the Herald mainly Canvas I think it's called made a FB post defending him as he is gay so took that stance. Then all these other well-known writers and other people in the art world jumped on and also defended him. The victim blaming made me feel physically sick. One comment was "Well he is a little old man, not hard to handle" or words to that effect. I tried to explain the freeze response that victims have when assaulted or unwanted harassment happens. It was all ignored. I unfriended him immediately as I just can't do that shit anymore. It is all part of the bystander effect that keeps men able to get away with it. I follow one of the brave victims on Twitter, he was able to speak out after the name suppression ended, and he broke my heart. I am glad you are writing this, as it is important work. Thank you 🫶
Well this is incredibly bleak. Curious who this was, just for my own future reference. I am davidfarrier@protonmail.com as always - no pressure! Just like to clock where everyone stands on this stuff.
A friend of mine had experience like many other young male artists with Wallace. Although my friend was fine and got himself out of the situation it indicates to me how the cases that went to court were very much the tip of the iceberg. In a way my biggest disappointment is those like Mika who tried to help him bribe his victims. As an arts lover I’m also disappointed at what this will mean for the arts in NZ. Nobody (rightly) will want to be associated with Wallace’s dirty money now. Given it was such an open secret perhaps they shouldn’t have taken the money before either but the arts need money right and Wallace has contributed a lot to the arts in NZ. If only he could have just had pure intentions in supporting the arts
Also this bit made me gasp, when looking back on it yesterday:
(I am writing this letter to you to ask for your Letter of Support if you have anything good to say about me as a philanthropist and/or friend, with full confidentiality and for only the Court. There is no breach of Name Suppression nor any media risk to you of association with me as long as these letters are sent only to my lawyer, and he can send the select few to the Judge and no one else will need to see them.)
You just know that in his mind he is 100% correct and everyone should be on his side. He’s even happy to admit he’ll discard most of the responses and select only the best/most choice ones for his defence. Thanks ‘mate’.
Yeah not using the BCC is very very WRONG and highly manipulative - like “look at all these powerful people and YOU are one of THEM and YOU will write my letter to prove your one of them” CREEPY!!
You hit the nail on the head, David. I used to manage one of his arts scholarships that he funded through another program. It was considered very prestigious. I never met him directly but he would always be shuffling around in his velvet suits at the Pah Homestead and he would attend the various awards ceremonies. He was such an odd character and something always felt “off” without being able to put your finger on it. But he was the one with the money funding all these great opportunities for kiwi artists...so you didn’t really ask too many questions.
I wish that herald article wasn’t being a paywall 🥲 I want to see the names of the 89 people who I’ll no longer be supporting, if I even did in the first place!
They don't name them all - just some more "famous" ones. Old mayor Bob Harvey is in there. Bummer.
And yeah - the Paywall thing for stuff like this is such a downer. It was a great piece, and I wish they kept that stuff free (as it's so important it's seen for the public good) and kept columns and opinions behind paywalls instead.
Not to blow my own trumpet but flip that model here on Webworm. Anyway.
There is a chance some of those 89 people just had zero idea of any of his creepiness or what he had done, or what had happened at the trial - but it's a stretch.
And then you have the likes of the writer who actually doubled down. Horrific. In the bin.
I work in the arts industry in Auckland and it’s horrific hearing about how many other funders there are who refuse to denounce Wallace - and some companies are bowing down to these people and kind of just pretending not to know they still support him. Yuck!!!
Most NZ public libraries have an e subscription to the Herald available to their residents :) In Wellington it’s as simple as pressreader with your library card number and pin
Access to NZ Herald articles through Auckland City Libraries on PressReader has to be on one of their physical computers at the library 😢 still cool though, thanks for sharing!
Christchurch City Libraries has it (& lots of other ...) newsletters on line through PressReader? Don't know why the difference ... (BTW - I have been looking for more news access since I used to rely on the bird site - not the same, but better than being in the dark!)
There was one I have used in the past to read something about (cough) Chantelle Baker, but it seems not to be working.
Fwiw, there's this I just unearthed, but haven't tried:
Paste the headline in Google
The simplest ways are often the best. There are plenty of paywalled websites that have an arrangement which lets people arriving from Google search access their articles for free. Your first port of call should be to copy the headline and paste it in the search bar on Google. The article should appear as the first result, so just click that to read it for free.
And he will only serve 2/3 of his 2 years, 4 month sentence. In the end it's all about the money and people not wanting to jepodize their positions. It sounds very Harvey Weinsten to me.
Those reference letters really, really helped him.
I still struggle to know how some of those "high up" celeb types did it. They are surely not so dumb as to think the letters would not come out. They go into a court case - court cases can become very very accessible to journos once the case is over!
Yeah there was obviously no name supression in place and it seems like a very public court case. I hope someone does report on the letters of support. There might be egg on a few faces.
So many thoughts are swirling in my mind but long story short Sexual Violence/Exploitation/Abuse is much more about manipulation, power and control than most other things. James Wallace had power from his wealth and he wielded it deftly in a field where it is hard to make a living. Some Sexual Offenders wield emotional power, others physical power, others employ all forms of fear mongering. Grooming underpins Sexual Abuse. Not just victims are groomed, those around them are too. That set-up process enables access. It’s very difficult often for those harmed to realise they were deliberately manipulated. James Wallace is rich but sexual offending generally follows such a pattern. As a society we need to become more aware so we can intervene and stop the harm from happening. Sexual Violence is not inevitable …. if we all learn more about how it happens.
I feel sorry for the victims here, who have had the triple whammy of mustering the courage to lay a complaint against a "pillar of society" then who have had to wait five years to see him sentenced. On top of all that, they will now be reading about the multiple glowing character references received by Sir James, all of them written by their peers.
I imagine some of those reference writers will now be thinking "Oh shit...."
Sadly, the sort of behaviour on show here is as common as dirt. The Sacklers, for example, have shown us that if you're going to sell addictive drugs, go big (and set up as patrons of the arts so any later "reputational hiccups" can be smoothed over).
It makes me incredibly sad that since the name suppression was lifted, the same rhetoric that we got with Weinstein is swirling around - “well the arts, it’s like that..., it’s permissive, artists are flamboyant, it’s an insular group, you know what the ARTS ARE LIKE, they got money/prestige/fame out of it so it obviously wasn’t that bad...” and on and on. Any of us who live and work in the arts and entertainment arena know how vulnerable it is possible to be, and especially when you’re young. When you’re not sure about all the grey areas. When people won’t give you a straight answer about those areas. When you don’t want to jeopardise your work by declining certain requests, even if you know instinctively it may be a bad position to be in/may lead to other things. I feel angry for the victims, who will be feeling all sorts of things now his name is out there. And yeah, it also feels really gross knowing that the large proportion of our industry have known for years, to varying and lesser degrees.
This! 💯. And The “I don’t condone what he did, but the arts would be poorer if it wasn’t for him” line is vomit inducing. How many people have to be assaulted and traumatised before the balance shifts and he’s fully held to account by those people? He used his money and his “patronage” to pray on people which calls into account the ethics of every penny he spent.
The support letters from women made me think how men are dismissive of women who have been assaulted. If it didn’t happen to them it couldn’t have happened to anyone else. The meat man bolstered his “respectability” by being polite to women and handing out money.
It’s not justice unless it’s timely justice.
I understand this implicitly, David, as someone who works within the NZ arts industry. Though I wasn't aware of Wallace - I'm a lil past his time - the rot within NZ arts goes deep. So many people we're not allowed to talk about cause of threats of legal action, so many people who we warn people off working with but can't say anything publicly cause they have far more power over the media and the public eye. It's deeply, deeply disheartening, something that sickens me daily, and I don't know how we fix it.
Yeah - I don't know for a fact, but have little doubt Wallace would have a lawyer on the ready for some cease and desists along the way. Ergh.
Have you ever googled him? He must have an absolute fortune “cleaning” his media presence. He was probably the only High Profile Business Man in New Zealand who didn’t have a Wikipedia page. That costs money.
Amazing that people still defend him. This was the worst kept secret in art circles. Perhaps it was that he was so adamant he'd done nothing wrong that convinced them. I saw him at an art gallery opening in CHC early 2022. He'd been convicted and sentenced by then but was out on bail awaiting his appeal. He brazenly swanned about the young mostly 20s men in the room like he owned the place, and they. He looked an aged lizard. Of course they all knew. But it was him who thought he still had an absolute right to maintain his public position of wealthy, kind, enabling benefactor. No conscience. No remorse. No empathy. I think that's called a psychopath.
I was curious what he was doing while awaiting sentencing - and looks like you just answered my question. I do wonder about the mindset of the Vincent Wards who wrote reference letters - did they think they would never become public? They are connected to PR people and everything - it just seems so mad they'd risk even writing them. But they did. Bizarre.
I can only speculate that the likes of Vincent and Rena felt they owed more to JW than to people they didn't know and were portrayed variously as deceitful gold diggers and knew "What they were doing" when going to the JW mansion. Classic victim blaming. If I wasn't connected to the people holding the gallery opening (a fledgling start up - cue: predator) I would have told the old creep to fuck off.
Thank you again for your writing, David. A memory - when I was a student in Wellington in the late 1960s, a young woman flatmate was asked to help out as a hostess at some arty social event. She came home quite shaken, having spent the evening dodging the mauling hands of an elderly arts philanthropist. Makes you wonder how many of these predators are out there.
Gross. This will be so incredibly common - and I hope the conversation around James Wallace will give people a reference point so they feel less alone, and more able to talk. Or at least realise more that yes, that was fucked up.
Absolutely believe this too.
I heard second hand about his behaviour after he was put on trial. The incident I heard about was pretty standard. Man invited around to dinner to discuss his work, Expecting nothing except an art discussion. Determined passes were made and an attempt to get him drunk but he made excuses and left An unpleasant experience but probably not over the criminal threshold at that time. No drugs involved.
Not untypical of twenty years ago. It's a bit like Maggie Barry and Rolf Harris. She had a bad experience but stopped him in his tracks. Uncomfortable but not enough to go to the police with.
I read the NZ Herald this morning and some of the more glowing reviews were from women or people too famous to be vulnerable. People have many faces.
Now we all know that it was a lot more serious. I
Janine - you hit the nail on the head "... some of the more glowing reviews were from women or people too famous to be vulnerable " - As David succinctly explained (as per usual) this man was very clever in how he operated. In some ways you can see how someone who was in no way a target during their whole life, might not recognise the reality? Hope it was blindness and not wilful ignorance!
I would be curious to get in his head to see how aware he was that it was all *wrong*. I feel he probably never did - and still doesn't, right?
I went to his house once and got the vibe. Surely people who had known him since the 1990s would know a lot more, and have a lot more reasons to know that writing those letters was a moral nightmare. Or did he sort of have them hypnotized along the way? Or they, like him, sort of became numb to how awful it all actually was?
Have heard through the grapevine of a person who attended a party at Wallace's house only to be drugged....before or after they were encouraged to get shirtless I'm wondering...
Jimmy Saville comes to mind: powerful, knighted abuser with money and connections. Everyone knew for years, yet no one spoke out.
Very similar overall physical vibe, too - just these tiny, shrunken corpse-like men.
PERFECT comparision - as soon as I heard, I called him the Knight of Entitlement. I had friends strongly defending the fact that he had 'given so much' to the arts - LOL - NO HE DIDN'T - he simply paid for the perfect grooming salon!! If only these vile predator's victims' sentences could be reduced to 2 years and a few months. Alas, they serve for a lifetime. I get great delight in knowing that his true character has trumped his wealth. Here's to an adequately squalid closure to his story.
Yes. The perfect grooming salon. Constructed and perfected over many years and many victims.
I was going to say the same thing. I only learned about Jimmy Saville a few years ago, but damn, what a garbage human being who was permitted to do truly atrocious things and hurt so many people.
It's happening again right now with the BBC and one of their presenters. Although the accusations aren't certain it's definitely a place where the vulnerable are taken advantage of repeatedly.
I think we need to see it play out before making a pronouncement: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/10/claims-about-bbc-presenter-are-rubbish-says-young-person-at-centre-of-scandal?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
A well-known NZ writer for the Herald mainly Canvas I think it's called made a FB post defending him as he is gay so took that stance. Then all these other well-known writers and other people in the art world jumped on and also defended him. The victim blaming made me feel physically sick. One comment was "Well he is a little old man, not hard to handle" or words to that effect. I tried to explain the freeze response that victims have when assaulted or unwanted harassment happens. It was all ignored. I unfriended him immediately as I just can't do that shit anymore. It is all part of the bystander effect that keeps men able to get away with it. I follow one of the brave victims on Twitter, he was able to speak out after the name suppression ended, and he broke my heart. I am glad you are writing this, as it is important work. Thank you 🫶
Well this is incredibly bleak. Curious who this was, just for my own future reference. I am davidfarrier@protonmail.com as always - no pressure! Just like to clock where everyone stands on this stuff.
Just emailed you the details.
Many thanks!
A friend of mine had experience like many other young male artists with Wallace. Although my friend was fine and got himself out of the situation it indicates to me how the cases that went to court were very much the tip of the iceberg. In a way my biggest disappointment is those like Mika who tried to help him bribe his victims. As an arts lover I’m also disappointed at what this will mean for the arts in NZ. Nobody (rightly) will want to be associated with Wallace’s dirty money now. Given it was such an open secret perhaps they shouldn’t have taken the money before either but the arts need money right and Wallace has contributed a lot to the arts in NZ. If only he could have just had pure intentions in supporting the arts
Mika and Jevan Goulter - yeah, not great. Complicit in the most cynical way possible.
Yes-I wonder if he upped the ante as he had too many people getting themselves out of the situation.
Sending out an un-BCC’d, desperate plea email that blames the victims and justice system to your ‘friends’ screams innocence
Also this bit made me gasp, when looking back on it yesterday:
(I am writing this letter to you to ask for your Letter of Support if you have anything good to say about me as a philanthropist and/or friend, with full confidentiality and for only the Court. There is no breach of Name Suppression nor any media risk to you of association with me as long as these letters are sent only to my lawyer, and he can send the select few to the Judge and no one else will need to see them.)
You just know that in his mind he is 100% correct and everyone should be on his side. He’s even happy to admit he’ll discard most of the responses and select only the best/most choice ones for his defence. Thanks ‘mate’.
Okay, this absolutely seems like the weirdest part to me. Begging people to write letters and then throwing in that they may not even be used.
Yeah not using the BCC is very very WRONG and highly manipulative - like “look at all these powerful people and YOU are one of THEM and YOU will write my letter to prove your one of them” CREEPY!!
I had not clocked the psychology of the CC - but I suspect you're entirely correct on that.
I wish someone had hit "Reply to all" and sent only the 💩 emoji.
You hit the nail on the head, David. I used to manage one of his arts scholarships that he funded through another program. It was considered very prestigious. I never met him directly but he would always be shuffling around in his velvet suits at the Pah Homestead and he would attend the various awards ceremonies. He was such an odd character and something always felt “off” without being able to put your finger on it. But he was the one with the money funding all these great opportunities for kiwi artists...so you didn’t really ask too many questions.
I wish that herald article wasn’t being a paywall 🥲 I want to see the names of the 89 people who I’ll no longer be supporting, if I even did in the first place!
They don't name them all - just some more "famous" ones. Old mayor Bob Harvey is in there. Bummer.
And yeah - the Paywall thing for stuff like this is such a downer. It was a great piece, and I wish they kept that stuff free (as it's so important it's seen for the public good) and kept columns and opinions behind paywalls instead.
Not to blow my own trumpet but flip that model here on Webworm. Anyway.
There is a chance some of those 89 people just had zero idea of any of his creepiness or what he had done, or what had happened at the trial - but it's a stretch.
And then you have the likes of the writer who actually doubled down. Horrific. In the bin.
I work in the arts industry in Auckland and it’s horrific hearing about how many other funders there are who refuse to denounce Wallace - and some companies are bowing down to these people and kind of just pretending not to know they still support him. Yuck!!!
Most NZ public libraries have an e subscription to the Herald available to their residents :) In Wellington it’s as simple as pressreader with your library card number and pin
Great, and legal, tip!
Access to NZ Herald articles through Auckland City Libraries on PressReader has to be on one of their physical computers at the library 😢 still cool though, thanks for sharing!
That’s really disappointing :(
Christchurch City Libraries has it (& lots of other ...) newsletters on line through PressReader? Don't know why the difference ... (BTW - I have been looking for more news access since I used to rely on the bird site - not the same, but better than being in the dark!)
Thanks for the tip. I didn’t know about the Pressreader app.
There is something you can use to read paywalled articles. I'll see if I can dig it out. (Might take me a little time)
There was one I have used in the past to read something about (cough) Chantelle Baker, but it seems not to be working.
Fwiw, there's this I just unearthed, but haven't tried:
Paste the headline in Google
The simplest ways are often the best. There are plenty of paywalled websites that have an arrangement which lets people arriving from Google search access their articles for free. Your first port of call should be to copy the headline and paste it in the search bar on Google. The article should appear as the first result, so just click that to read it for free.
You can read most NZ-based paywalled media using this website: https://accessiblenews.xyz/
It's good to see something approaching journalism again. Instead of social media fluff.
And he will only serve 2/3 of his 2 years, 4 month sentence. In the end it's all about the money and people not wanting to jepodize their positions. It sounds very Harvey Weinsten to me.
Those reference letters really, really helped him.
I still struggle to know how some of those "high up" celeb types did it. They are surely not so dumb as to think the letters would not come out. They go into a court case - court cases can become very very accessible to journos once the case is over!
Yeah there was obviously no name supression in place and it seems like a very public court case. I hope someone does report on the letters of support. There might be egg on a few faces.
💯 Harvey Weinstein was who came to my mind when I was reading this. I hope there’s a day when we don’t have predators like this anymore...
So many thoughts are swirling in my mind but long story short Sexual Violence/Exploitation/Abuse is much more about manipulation, power and control than most other things. James Wallace had power from his wealth and he wielded it deftly in a field where it is hard to make a living. Some Sexual Offenders wield emotional power, others physical power, others employ all forms of fear mongering. Grooming underpins Sexual Abuse. Not just victims are groomed, those around them are too. That set-up process enables access. It’s very difficult often for those harmed to realise they were deliberately manipulated. James Wallace is rich but sexual offending generally follows such a pattern. As a society we need to become more aware so we can intervene and stop the harm from happening. Sexual Violence is not inevitable …. if we all learn more about how it happens.
I feel sorry for the victims here, who have had the triple whammy of mustering the courage to lay a complaint against a "pillar of society" then who have had to wait five years to see him sentenced. On top of all that, they will now be reading about the multiple glowing character references received by Sir James, all of them written by their peers.
I imagine some of those reference writers will now be thinking "Oh shit...."
Sadly, the sort of behaviour on show here is as common as dirt. The Sacklers, for example, have shown us that if you're going to sell addictive drugs, go big (and set up as patrons of the arts so any later "reputational hiccups" can be smoothed over).