“[It’s] to provoke thought, right? A good piece of art will provoke thought,” he said.
“It provoked me to think that maybe I should pick this up.”
The defaced New Zealand flag at the centre of the controversy. Photo / LDR, Max Frethey
Gambirazzi, 38, said that security officers tried to stop him and there was a “small scuffle” as he took the flag away from the Hastings Art Gallery and got into his car on December 4.
“I understand under the eyes of the law, it’s theft, you know, but I don’t really see it as theft. I was just uplifting the flag, really.”
Flag to be returned to gallery
The next day, he was arrested and handed the flag back to police, who said it would be returned to the gallery.
Gambirazzi appeared in the Hastings District Court on Friday charged with stealing the flag, which in court documents was given a dollar figure value – $15,000 – as the property of the artist, Diane Prince.
No plea was entered.
Prince first exhibited her installation Flagging the Future 30 years ago, as a critique of Jim Bolger’s Government and its cap on Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
One of its elements was the New Zealand flag lying on the floor with the words “Please walk on me” stencilled on it, provoking an outcry and its removal from the Auckland Art Gallery.
The work has prompted a similar response as part of a tour this year.
It was withdrawn from display at the Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū in Nelson in May, after complaints that the invitation to walk on the flag was disrespectful.
When it was exhibited at the Hasting Art Gallery Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga, it caused controversy and protest there too.
Hastings councillor Steve Gibson said seeing the flag on the floor of the gallery with a sign inviting people to walk on it was a real shock.
“That flag has been carried by New Zealanders in every major conflict and it holds deep meaning for many of us,” Gibson said.
Gambirazzi also said the flag represented New Zealand as a country, and “I feel strongly about my country”.
“To be honest, when I went over there, I was hoping it was behind a screen, behind some sort of barrier or potentially even on the wall … so you couldn’t actually physically stand on it,” he said.
“Then I would understand it from more of a statement – a piece of artistic expression.
“But I found it just in the middle of the floor. I thought, ‘Well, I can pick this up just as easy as I can stand on it’, so that’s what I’ve done,” Gambirazzi said.
“If that was the Tino Rangatiratanga [Māori sovereignty] flag, or any other flag of any nation in that same position, I feel I would have been over there just as quick to do the same thing.”
Gambirazzi will next appear in court on January 13.
The Diane Prince artwork was on display at the Hastings Art Gallery. Photo / NZME
Earlier, exhibition curator Gina Matchitt said, on behalf of Prince, that the reaction to the installation was like taking “a litmus test of the country”.
“The purpose of it is to unpack dialogue and talk about what the flag means to you,” she said.
“That often depends on your experience and upbringing.
“To many Māori, the flag has a different meaning.”
She said Prince was asking people to walk on it as a form of protest.
“But you don’t have to. It’s a personal choice,” Matchitt said.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.