{"id":185431,"date":"2025-12-15T21:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185431\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T21:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:48:08","slug":"man-charged-with-stealing-diane-princes-please-walk-on-me-flag-which-went-missing-from-hastings-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185431\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with stealing Diane Prince\u2019s \u2018Please walk on me\u2019 flag which went missing from Hastings gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c[It\u2019s] to provoke thought, right? A good piece of art will provoke thought,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt provoked me to think that maybe I should pick this up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe defaced New Zealand flag at the centre of the controversy. Photo \/ LDR, Max Frethey<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi, 38, said that security officers tried to stop him and there was a \u201csmall scuffle\u201d as he took the flag away from the Hastings<\/a> Art Gallery and got into his car on December 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand under the eyes of the law, it\u2019s theft, you know, but I don\u2019t really see it as theft. I was just uplifting the flag, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flag to be returned to gallery<\/p>\n

The next day, he was arrested and handed the flag back to police, who said it would be returned to the gallery. <\/p>\n

Gambirazzi appeared in the Hastings District Court<\/a> on Friday charged with stealing the flag, which in court documents was given a dollar figure value \u2013 $15,000 \u2013 as the property of the artist, Diane Prince<\/a>. <\/p>\n

No plea was entered.<\/p>\n

Prince first exhibited her installation Flagging the Future 30 years ago, as a critique of Jim Bolger\u2019s Government and its cap on Treaty of Waitangi settlements.<\/p>\n

One of its elements was the New Zealand flag lying on the floor with the words \u201cPlease walk on me\u201d stencilled on it, provoking an outcry and its removal from the Auckland Art Gallery.<\/p>\n

The work has prompted a similar response as part of a tour this year. <\/p>\n

It was withdrawn from display at the Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakat\u016b in Nelson<\/a> in May, after complaints that the invitation to walk on the flag was disrespectful.<\/p>\n

When it was exhibited at the Hasting Art Gallery Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga, it caused controversy and protest there too.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat flag has been carried by New Zealanders in every major conflict and it holds deep meaning for many of us,\u201d Gibson said.<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi also said the flag represented New Zealand as a country, and \u201cI feel strongly about my country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo 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 \u2026 so you couldn\u2019t actually physically stand on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I would understand it from more of a statement \u2013 a piece of artistic expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I found it just in the middle of the floor. I thought, \u2018Well, I can pick this up just as easy as I can stand on it\u2019, so that\u2019s what I\u2019ve done,\u201d Gambirazzi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that was the Tino Rangatiratanga [M\u0101ori 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi will next appear in court on January 13.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Diane Prince artwork was on display at the Hastings Art Gallery. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Earlier, exhibition curator Gina Matchitt said, on behalf of Prince, that the reaction to the installation was like taking \u201ca litmus test of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of it is to unpack dialogue and talk about what the flag means to you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat often depends on your experience and upbringing.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo many M\u0101ori, the flag has a different meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Prince was asking people to walk on it as a form of protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you don\u2019t have to. It\u2019s a personal choice,\u201d Matchitt said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201c[It\u2019s] to provoke thought, right? A good piece of art will provoke thought,\u201d he said. \u201cIt provoked me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20497,4057,13239,117100,57231,4296,18940,71,1229,79912,5194,29529,5158,14909,6501,111,43,139,69,90,100703,117099,3048,4744,1361,34890,13558,2201,5977,102,26157,6730,80],"class_list":["post-185431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-barrier","tag-behind","tag-charged","tag-defaced","tag-diane","tag-exhibition","tag-flag","tag-from","tag-gallery","tag-hanging","tag-hastings","tag-hoping","tag-man","tag-me","tag-missing","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-please","tag-princes","tag-said","tag-stealing","tag-that","tag-walk","tag-wall","tag-went","tag-which","tag-with","tag-words","tag-would","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}