Max Patte, the sculptor behind Solace in the Wind (right), hard at work in his studio. (Photos: Supplied, Image Design: Archi Banal)

SocietyFebruary 26, 2022

The man behind the old man

Sam Brooks

Contributing writer

Max Patte, the sculptor behind Solace in the Wind (right), hard at work in his studio. (Photos: Supplied, Image Design: Archi Banal)

Max Patte is one of New Zealand’s most prominent sculptors and the creator of one of our most beloved pieces of public art. Now, after more than a decade in this country, he’s leaving to start a new life in Europe.

If you’ve been around the Wellington waterfront, chances are you’ve seen a naked old man, his back arched and his arms thrown back, as if in defiance of the worst of the weather the capital city can throw at him. Installed in 2008, Solace in the Wind – the old man’s official name – has become one of the city’s most recognisable attractions. He has been photographed countless times, awarded just a bit less than that, and vandalised at least once.

As public art tends to do, the sculpture no longer feels like the property of the man who made it, but that of the community who has claimed it. But what about the man behind the old man, though?

The sculptor who made Solace in the Wind is named Max Patte, he’s 44 and he currently calls Wellington home. Patte has been an artist for over three decades, and each one of his credits feels like its own story. He studied at the Wimbledon School of Art in London and was elected as an associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 2008. He made the Batman suit worn by Christan Bale in Batman Begins. Ian McKellen lent him his house for an exhibition. Richard Taylor, of Weta, is credited as his first and greatest patron. His sculptures sit in the collections of Charles Saatchi, Michael Hill and countless other people with titles before their first name and capital letters after their last.

They’re the kind of credits that might suggest you’re dealing with the stereotype of a famous artist. A rockstar, an eccentric, maybe a bit of a dick.

Max Patte couldn’t be further from that cliche. He’s mild-mannered, and deeply, refreshingly normal. He has a keen understanding of the business, and a chill, healthy relationship to his art, which spans sculpture, painting and light art. When we talk in a Ponsonby cafe, his voice barely makes itself heard over the music, even as he talks excitedly about his future plans.

Max Patte, with his wife Amy and their two kids. (Photo: Supplied)

After spending well over a decade here, Patte has decided to leave New Zealand, where he has a thriving studio and a strong commercial base. It’s a decision that, like many he makes, is partly personal and partly commercial. “I set myself a goal many years ago of living and owning a property in the Mediterranean somewhere by the time I was 40. We’re four years late,” he says. “Just as Covid hit I was literally a week away from getting on the plane to go back to Ibiza to look for some land.”

Patte and his wife have two young kids, five and three, and they had to make the decision to stay in New Zealand and settle in, or up the stakes and move. They’ve settled on the island of Mallorca, off Spain’s east coast. What both he and his wife wanted was to be closer to family – Patte is originally from London, his wife from Ireland – and to be closer to a bigger market for his work.

That combination of the personal and the practical is typical of Patte, it seems. As we talk he switches seamlessly between discussions of business and his personal life. The business of making and selling art can seem bafflingly opaque to outsiders, but Patte makes it seem second nature. He credits being around Richard Taylor for much of his commercial acumen. “I picked up a lot of how to run a business and sell a product purely by osmosis of being around those kinds of people.”

Before that, “I never really realised that I had a business head on me. They certainly never teach you anything like that at art school.”

He definitely thinks it should be, though. Patte has not taken the traditional artist’s route – building up a portfolio, going through galleries for exhibitions, and relying on those dealers for growth and promotion. Instead, until very recently, Patte self-promoted and sold directly from his own studio.

The collegial ease of doing business like that is something that Patte’s going to miss when he leaves New Zealand. The stark difference between operating here and in England was made clear on his first day in this country, when he went to open a bank account and the bank manager asked him if he wanted a cup of tea and a chat. “In Britain, they basically want your DNA sample.”

The smallness of New Zealand has been vital to Patte’s business growth – it means he often has a personal relationship with his clients. “I definitely like to, where possible, get to know and meet my clients and actually see where the works are going to hang,” he says. “The advantage of having a studio where people can come visit you is they form that personal connection and they get to see how the works are created.”

In fact, the purpose of his trip to Auckland is to visit a few clients, including one just down the road from where we’re sitting, in Herne Bay. Patte tells me he can’t imagine any other country in the world that has such a concentrated group of collectors willing to support and patronise his kind of work.

Max Patte at work alongside one of his works. (Photo: Supplied)

He brings up one client, an older woman, who met him at a primary school where he was giving a talk. She came to meet him at his studio the following day, and bought one of his works – a big investment, as Patte’s works can run from mid-five to six figures. “She just loved it so much and burst into tears in my studio, saying ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re letting me own one of your works’,” he says. “Like I was some kind of guardian.

“A lot of my works are very expensive and anybody would consider them heavy financial investments, but to a lot of my collectors, you know, they’re either very wealthy and it’s all relative. To her, it was this really big thing.”

What about Solace in the Wind, though? For Patte, the Wellington waterfront icon was a turning point in his career, probably his biggest professional moment after joining Weta Workshop. He never expected the sculpture to take off the way that it did, and even now, many years after its installation, people continue to send him photos of it. “It still blows me away, and I almost have trouble associating with it, because it doesn’t really feel quite real. Even stylistically, when I look at it now, if I were to do it again, I would do it very differently.”

Patte and his family visited the sculpture a few weeks ago. They went around the waterfront on the now ubiquitous, slightly cringe, four-seater bikes (“we’ve got this finite time in New Zealand and we’re doing all the tourist things”) and stopped by Solace. His wife took a photo of him with it, and he peered around to see how it had weathered.

“He’s gone on to live this separate life, and he obviously keeps giving back,” says Patte of the nameless man he made. “I get all these nice messages about him, and we get sales of the maquettes, which is obviously brilliant.”

A big difference between Solace in the Wind and his other work is that Solace is something that Patte gets to see regularly. A lot of his other work, which goes into collections, might never be seen by him again. “There’s obviously a lot of time and emotional energy when you create a piece, then you may only live with it for a few days because it gets boxed up and goes out to a gallery and goes to a collector. It’s like waving your kid off to boarding school.

“I just try to always think about the next thing and get on and make the next work.”

Max Patte hard at work in his studio. (Photo: Supplied)

So what is next for Patte? Well, the house and studio in Mallorca. He’s also got a gallery in Sydney, set up during the pandemic. He expects that he’ll return to New Zealand once a year, to maintain relationships with clients and suppliers.

But for the first time, he’s making work for himself. “It’s quite a selfish career. You’re doing something that you want to do and you obviously have to hope that other people like and want to own it so that you can go on and do the next thing. But I’ve never deliberately set out to make works that will hang in my own home.

“Partially, because we don’t have a house big enough where I could hang much of my own work, but now I actually want to own one piece of every series that I’ve done, just sort of for my own personal gratification.” But there’s a business element to this too: he doesn’t just want to show people sculptures on his iPad, it’s deeply helpful to actually have pieces he can show potential clients in the studio.

He finishes our interview by casually mentioning that in a few months’ time he’s off to Isola Santa, a Tuscan village which has the highest concentration of sculptors and artists in the world, to oversee two sculptures that will be carved in marble, a new form for him. They’re based on a 1977 George Tooker painting called “Voice”, a quietly distressing painting of two men on either side of a door, each aware of each other’s presence.

The way he tells this story is Max Patte all over. Great art, delivered matter-of-factly, with no nonsense or drama. Sort of like how you might come across Solace in the Wind on a midday waterfront stroll.

(Image / Archi Banal)

OPINIONSocietyFebruary 26, 2022

A week on the ground at the ‘freedom village’

Stewart Sowman-Lund

The Bulletin editor

(Image / Archi Banal)

After a week reporting from the ongoing parliament protest, Stewart Sowman-Lund reflects on his experience.

The first thing you notice as you walk towards what would normally be the bustling Wellington bus terminal is just how big the occupation really is. With the protest now into its third week, the streets all around the Beehive, including Bunny and Molesworth Street, have been completely taken over by tents, portaloos, cars, and even makeshift showers. It’s an elaborate operation and it’s hard to truly appreciate the scope of it from videos or photos.

Then you hear it: chanting and cheering, often a repeated chorus of “peace and love”, followed by the distant echo of cars tooting their horns in support as they drive past. In the distance, on parliament grounds itself, you might hear the muffled voice of Trevor Mallard blasting out a message over the loudspeakers. He’s drowned out by air horns or people singing the national anthem.

While the streets around parliament building may still be closed, police appear to be moving the barricade closer to parliament by a few metres every day. The number of cars is slowly dropping each day, with police now estimating around 300 remain parked illegally on the surrounding streets in contrast to the 900 or so that were there about a week ago. Permanent protesters are now around 150 to 300 – although if you ask any of them for an accurate figure they’ll likely add another zero.

I’ve been in Wellington since Monday night, two weeks after the convoy of protesters, many anti-mandate but others anti-vaccination, anti-government, or simply anti-anything-else-they-want, descended on the capital. After a fortnight of reporting on events from Auckland, heading down to Wellington seemed like the only way to really know what was going on.

Dubbed a “freedom village” – complete with a welcome banner and all – parliament lawn has turned from a collection of tents into what now feels like a permanent occupation. There are street signs, including “No Booster Lane”, that point you toward different factions of the so-called village. Some of the tents now have letterboxes or gardens. Baby lettuce plants are found in pretty much any patch of dirt. You might be offered a scone by a small child carrying a platter. There are countless food stalls, a yoga zone, a dance tent where bands perform generally OK cover renditions of classic hits, a church, a basketball court, a skate park – and even a “kids movie area”. Aladdin was playing on Tuesday.

‘Freedom village’ (Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund)

At the front, directly in front of the Beehive, a main stage allows people to speak freely on whatever their chosen subject is. Most criticise the government, even advocating for MPs to be arrested. One man on Thursday prayed for Jacinda Ardern’s soul and said that Satan had got between us and the government. Many preached that they wanted vaccination mandates to be ditched on or by March 1 – the same date that protest splinter groups plan to rally in the streets.

The mainstream media has faced criticism from protesters for not reporting the truth or fronting up to speak to people on the ground. Of course, both of those assertions are false, but nevertheless I made it my goal to speak to a wide range of people on parliament’s front lawns. Almost all were happy to chat, albeit after first questioning why I was wearing a mask (“I really want to see your teeth,” said one protester) and then telling me that the government was funding The Spinoff and informing me what to say (spoiler alert: they’re not).

Most of the protesters I spoke to, like Tania and Nathan, considered themselves purely anti-mandate. Tania said her daughter had lost her job over the vaccination requirement and that was enough to prompt her to volunteer as security at the protest. Nathan said he felt justified blocking the roads and causing “inconvenience” to Wellingtonians as that was “outweighed by the fact many people [at the protest] don’t have homes or jobs to go back to”.

Others, like Winona, were there as freedom protesters. She was one of many who subscribed to the “sovereign citizen” conspiracy theory – a type of “pseudolaw” whereby people claim not to be subject to legislative law. Winona told me that she only learnt about the sovereign citizen ideology on her way to Wellington.

Those I’ve spoken to over the past few days all consider themselves core protesters. That’s to say, they’ve stayed put despite the sprinklers being put on, the repeated Barry Manilow, and the lack of engagement from politicians. All have been quick to reject that they are associated with fringe beliefs like white supremacy or QAnon, but equally all were happy to continue protesting in the knowledge they were possibly standing alongside people with these fringe beliefs. Everyone I spoke to acknowledged that those views had been part of the protest, at least at the start. Tania told me that the grounds had become alcohol and drug free in order to try to snuff out inappropriate behaviour, blaming booze for people acting out of line.

Protesters from the parliament occupation (Photo: Birgit Krippner/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

I may not have personally encountered anyone from any of the more fringe groups (although I did meet one flat-earther), but anti-vaccination rhetoric was common. Alongside a tent alleging itself to provide “health” advice was a garden filled with crosses, each one purporting to represent a person killed by the Covid-19 vaccine.

While the protest crowd was generally relaxed over the past week, many of the signs that remain on parliament grounds point to a more sinister element. Aside from the blatant misinformation, antisemitism was common and misogyny directed at the prime minister was rife. Tania, the security guard, admitted that as a feminist she found those messages hard to grapple with. But, she said people were just really angry. “People have different responses.” One such example: a horse float that is emblazoned with: “Jacinda, your taxi is waiting”. Tania told me the owner is a “lovely” woman. “[She’s] up on the front line keeping the peace, but she is angry.” One van had “lying bitch”, written in ominous red paint, scrawled across it.

Some of the crowd were less happy with my presence. One man, who appeared to identify as a member of the “independent media”, trailed me around with a camera pointed in my face, blurting conspiracy theories about The Spinoff, my colleagues and the media in general. I’m sure that footage will end up in my inbox eventually. Another protester served me with a “trespass notice” and claimed that parliament grounds and the neighbouring streets were no longer public land. The notice was riddled with inaccuracies, using He Whakaputanga (or the 1835 Declaration of Independence) as a way to try to claim control over the land. A police officer told me he’d been given “a bunch” of notices, pointing me to a nearby pole where one was taped up. “We’re still here though,” he said. The trespass notice also claimed iwi were now in control of the area, despite local Wellington iwi rejecting that assertion days ago when they asked protesters to leave.

Police officers have remained a largely passive presence over the week. Every potential entry to the protest is lined with cops, standing silent, and enduring near constant abuse from protesters. “This is a police state,” I heard one protester yell. “We used to live in a democracy: we don’t any more.” A man in a ute pulled over by one blockade and yelled: “Jacinda is the real criminal. Why don’t you go and lock the whole lot up.” The officers just smiled and waved. Roughly once every day, officers in riot gear surrounded the crowd as the giant concrete bollards were moved, one by one, further into the camp.

(Photo by MARTY MELVILLE/AFP via Getty Images)

I’ve been asked by numerous people whether there is an end point to the occupation in sight. It’s honestly hard to say. Some protesters told me they would leave if Ardern or a senior politician fronted up and listened. “We just want dialogue,” said one. “We’ve been here for two-and-a-half weeks and nobody has even bothered to speak to us.” Most, however, told me that it would take an end date for vaccination mandates to be announced, or even for all Covid-related laws to be scrapped immediately.

It appears as though the protesters who remain are the most determined to see immediate change. “We don’t want to be here either,” said one. “But many of us have nowhere else to go any more.”