We are delighted to announce the representation of three artists – Laith McGregor (AUS), Fiona Pardington (NZ) and Yuk King Tan (HK). McGregor will stage his first solo show with us in May, followed by Pardington in June and Tan in 2016. We will profile each of the artists in advance of their shows, but in the meantime go to our website for images of their work
Image: Laith McGregor, AIAIG, 2014, pencil on paper (top); Fiona Pardington, Mokosoi/Ylang Ylang, Fiji, 2014, pigment ink on Hahnemuhle photo rag; Yuk King Tan, The Beautiful Game, 2008, mixed media and firecrackers, installation detail

A number of Billy Apple satellite shows are being presented in Auckland, timed to coincide with the survey exhibition Billy Apple®: The Artist Has To Live Like Everybody Else at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. 

First up was SUCK, the first section of a two-part exhibition, Poetry in Motion, curated by Artspace director Misal Adnan Yildiz. Featuring a Suck sculpture and four small off-set lithographs on canvas of men with erections, perfectly centered on each wall, the exhibition transitioned into Poetry in Motion, a group show with with a lineup of artists including Billy Apple®, Art & Language, Bruce Barber, Yoko Ono, Martha Rosler and Laurence Weiner. This link takes you to a review of SUCK.

The Artspace show was followed by BILLY APPLE SOUND WORKS at Te Uru which gathers together, for the first time, sound works produced by Apple in collaboration with composers such as Jonathan Besser, Annea Lockwood, John Osborne and Nam June Paik.

Around the same time, Starkwhite launched its contribution to the city-wide satellite shows. Curated by Mary Morrison, TOTEM presents Billy Apple alongside Arnold Manaaki Wilson. Using the golden ratio the artist has divided the two columns in Starkwhite into artist's cut and dealers's cut. Starkwhite's share is white and remains part of the gallery architecture, and Apple demonstrates his share by painting it yellow, like a 3-D bar graph. Arnold Wilson is represented with three pou whenua of maori ancestral figures – Haumia, the god of wild, uncultivated things and her children Rangitiina and Tiniia. Grouped together they signify regeneration, emphasising the need to take care of nature's ecosystems.

You can read the curators rationale for the juxtaposition of the two artists here.
Image: Billy Apple SUCK, installation view, Artspace (top); artwork for SOUND WORKS at Te Uru (middle);  TOTEM, installation view, Starkwhite (bottom)

The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki is currently showing Billy Apple®: The Artist Has To Live Like Everybody Else, an exhibition surveying work produced during a career spanning over 50 years.

Billy Apple was 'born' in London in 1962, the same year he graduated from the Royal College of Art, when the 26 year old artist changed his name and bleached his hair. By reinventing himself, Apple sought to establish a new relationship between the the artist and everyday life by exploring how he could be redefined as a 'product' with his own distinct brand. 

His commitment to testing the boundaries between art and life continue to this day. In 2007 Billy Apple® registered his name as a trademark. He is now involved in various projects that explore the legal concept of intellectual property by bringing his art brand into the market place. As Apple says, he is a brand looking for product and the survy show includes recent examples of this move, such as his Billy Apple Cider produced through a collaboration with Saatchi & Saatchi's Derek Lockwood.

Apple's contributions to the history of pop and conceptual art have been recognised internationally, with a major two-part survey at Rotterdam's Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art in 2009, curated by Nicholaus Schafhausen. He is also represented in the Walker Art Centre's forthcoming survey of pop art opening in Minneapolis in 2016. 

Curated by Christina Barton, Billy Apple®: The Artist Has To Live Like Everybody Else runs to 21 June 2015. 
Image: Billy Apple (above), Billy Apple Cider (middle) and Billy Apple Art Free for the Taking, 2015 (below), a free multiple which is being snapped up by visitors to the the exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery 

Martin Basher's Jizzy Velvet continues this week at Starkwhite, through to 7 March 2015.
Images: installation views of Martin basher's Jizzy Velvet.

Image: Michael Smythe's design for a New Zealand flag based on Gordon Walters' koru paintings.

Image: David Hatcher's Waitangi, First Article, English (as signed), 2004.

Adeline Ooi is the new director of Art Basel Hong Kong, replacing outgoing director Magnus Renfrew. Formerly the head of Art Basel's VIP Relations for S E Asia, she takes up her new position in January, two months out from the third edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. Read more…
Image: Adeline Ooi, director of Art Basel Hong Kong

All the best for 2015 from the team at Starkwhite.

Starkwhite is closed for the summer holiday period re-opening on 13 January and by appointment from the 5th. Our first show in 2015 is by Martin Basher.

Tonight we launch a new Inhouse designed publication by John Reynolds, with writing by Laurence Simmons seeking to unravel some of the mysteries of blueness. 

Simmons says: “Blue is as moody as we all are. It can almost mean anything. The colour of vibrant skies; the undisputed colour of heaven, but also of the cold, bruised skin of death. It is the signature of plainness in blue denim jeans, the peasantry in the Mao suit of communism, the law in police uniforms, the earnestness of bluestockings, the sign of the Virgin Mary and even John Key. Of course, the bluest blues have always been found in painting: it was lapis lazuli, the vivid blue rock from Afghanistan, that lit up Renaissance Italian painting becoming the signature shade of the Virgin Mary’s mantle; and Yves Klein’s International Klein blue that bound the pigment to the canvas for a bluer blue, at once more material and more abstract. With ‘Blutopia’ John continues that long tradition of painting in his boisterous exploration of the associations and hues of blue. He exquisitely teases out the contradictions of blue, its mercurial nature. For blue is the colour that both reassures and intimidates us. As Derek Jarman in his last film, made shortly before his death from AIDS, declared 'blue is an open door to the soul, an infinite possibility of becoming tangible'”.

We have joined the Instagram set and you can follow us at instagram.com/starkwhite where you will find this image featuring as our latest post – our place photographed by Shanghai-based artist Jin Jiangbo (making the familiar strangely unfamiliar).

Instagram as an artistic medium was the subject of one of the sessions in this year's Art Basel Miami Beach Talks programme, featuring four panelists with a combined 1.6 million followers. Amalia Ulman took the stage first, describing how she had created a fictional online narrative around the character who appears in selfies on the amaliaulman Instagram feed. Simon de Pury was next up saying he uses the service to catalogue pieces and items that he finds beautiful, followed by Hans Ulrich Obrist who talked about his handwriting project, a massive series where artists and cultural figures write short phrases on post it notes for his Instagram feed. Klaus Biesenbach then explained how Instagram helped him get over his aversion to revealing anything about himself, and co-founder of Instagram Kein Systrom wrapped up the session saying “our mission is to capture all the world's moments, but our core value is to inspire creativity.”
Image: James Franco's post-it note for Hans Ulrich Obrists' The Handwriting Project.

At the opening of the first show by new director Adnan Yildiz (tomorrow at 6pm), Artspace will present  a contribution from Billy Apple towards Artists for Kobane, a global benefit auction organised by Hito Steyerl and Anton Vidokle in solidarity with refugees from Kobane, Shengal and many other towns and areas in northern Syria and Iraq who have been displaced by IS attacks and provisionally sheltered in museums, construction sites or tents. Proceeds from this auction will go towards providing tents, winter clothes, electric stoves, blankets and diapers mainly to the municipality of Suruc, where around 50,000 refugees from Kobane live.
Images: Billy Apple, Art For Kobane, 2014, 382 x 618 x 25mm, UV impregnated ink on canvas; Billy Apple, Basic Needs, 2014,  618 x 382 x 25 mm, UV impregnated ink on canvas

Seung Yul Oh's Soom installation opened last night at the Auckland Art Gallery toi o Tamaki. Commisioned by the Gallery with support from the Chartwell Trust, the work will be on the North Sculpture Court through to 11 October 2015.
Image: Seung Yul Oh's Soom at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki

On Sunday Rob and Sue Gardiner gave a floor talk about selected works in the exhibition A World Undone: Works from the Chartwell Collection, curated by Stephen Cleland. In the past Chartwell has focused on works by New Zealand and Australian artists, but the current show at the Auckland Art Gallery reveals a new international strand, featuring works by John Baldessari, Martin Creed, Gunther Forg, Christian Marclay, Robert Rauschenberg, Jessica Stockholder and Richard Tuttle. Aside from the Stockholder, the international artists are presented in a multiples section alongside local artists such as Gavin Hipkins and Jim Speers.
Image: Jim Speers' VeilSide in A World Undone: Works from the Chartwell Collection at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki

Wystan Curnow's book The Critic's Part was launched at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki last night. Edited by Christina Barton and Robert Leonard, the book brings together a selection of Curnow's art writings from 1971 to 2013 to provide the first comprehensive overview of his practice. It features long form essays that investigate the stakes for 'high culture' in a 'small province' like New Zealand; major essays on key artists including Billy Apple, Len Lye and Colin McCahon; reports on the contemporary art scene; catalogue essays and short reviews offering insightful readings of their work. Both a map of contemporary theory and practice and cogent agenda for thinking through the implications and challenges of making art here, it is a must-read book for anyone interested in New Zealand art as it has unfolded since 1970. The book is available from Victoria University Press.

Using painting as a departure point to explore relationships between art, architecture and design, Matt Henry has installed an arrangement of stretched white canvases on a white wall at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts. Some of the canvases have been inset into the wall itself, while others are hung conventionally on its surface. Both rely on the play of light to define the internal and external forms and call into question the presence of a painting in a room, not as an image or surface, but as something that might become part of the architecture in which it is placed. The project opens at Te Tuhi tomorrow and runs to 15 February 2015. 
Image: Installation view of Matt Henry's Structural Relief at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts

Rick Ellis has been appointed chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.  The former chief executive of TVNZ will provide “inspirational leadership,” says Te Papa Chairman Evan Williams, foreshadowing “a shift in the culture of the organisation.” Read more…
Image; Rick Ellis, the new chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Seung Yul Oh's memmem (downstairs) and Gavin Hipkins Erewhon: The Book of the Machines (upstairs) continue this week, throught to 29 November.

Later this month the inaugural edition of the Outsider Art Fair launches in Auckland. It will feature work by several of New Zealand's prominent outsider artists and include an exhibition of the work of the late Jim Dornan and others curated by Stuart Shepherd. Well-known collector John Perry will also showcase a small selection of folk art from early last century in the fair's curated section. The Outsider Art Fair runs at the Nathan Club, 51 Galaway Street, Brittomart from 23 – 25 November.
Image: Jim Dornan's I love One Sleepin'

Last night the Albert-Eden Local Board launched the BILLY APP, which uses mobile phone GPS settings to guide users to three of Apple’s public art works in the Albert-Eden area – Corner Post, Waipero Swamp Walk and Monkey Hill Steps – and allows them to access information on the artist and the artworks. You can download the app at www.billyappcompass.co.nz

ART+OBJECT has launched the second issue of CONTENT, a magazine published “to celebrate the vital contribution New Zealand's visual artists make to our cultural identity and increasingly to the global discourse.”

The current issue traces the journey of whare Hinemihi from the desolation of the Mt Tarawera eruption to the grounds of a Palladian manor house in an English country. It also includes interviews with Justin Paton, head of international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Simon Denny who will represent New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale. Tobias Berger discusses the Asia Pacific focus of Hong Kong's M+, Brian Butler and Isha Welsh comment on the US West Coast art scene and Richard Maloy and Roberta Thornley talk about a seminal photograph that has influenced their practices.

The lineup of exhibiting galleries for Art Basel Hong Kong 2015 has been announced. It includes Hopkinson Mossman, Michael Lett and Starkwhite from New Zealand and Andrew Jensen (AUS/NZ), Darren Knight, Murray White Rooms, Roslyn Oxley9, Anna Schwartz, Sullivan+Strumpf and Tolarno from Australia. You can see the full list of galleries here.

Last night the Arts Foundation of New Zealand announced the recipients of the 2014 Laureate awards. The recipients include Lisa Reihana (visual arts) and Cliff Curtis (film). You can see the full list of awardees here.
Image: Lisa Reihana

Ice Watch is Olaffur Eliasson's latest environmental project. In a square in Copenhagen he arranged 12 chunks of ice weighing in at 100 tons to resemble an ominous clock. The melting ice represents the amount of ice that disappears every 100th of a second due to global warming. Read more…
Image: Olafur Eliasson's Ice Watch, City Hall Square, Copenhagen

On a recent trip to Shanghai we saw Ugo Rondinone's Breathe, Walk, Die at the Rockbund Art Museum. Featuring 40 impassive clowns spread over a five-floor installation that was both beautiful and unsettling, it was a reminder that Coulrophobia, or fear of clowns, is still relatively common. Now a new development is unfolding in France where police are reported to be on hight alert after fake clowns caused panic in a spreading phenomenon that has led to violence and a response by vigilantes. Read more…
Image: Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's It

Seung Yul Oh's memmem (downstairs) and Gavin Hipkins Erewhon: The Book of the Machines (upstairs) continue this week, throught to 29 November.
Gavin Hipkins Erewhon (Planet) and Erewhon (Forest) 2014, archival pigment prints, 600 x 337mm  

Sydney-based curator William (Bill) Wright passed away on Friday night after a battle with cancer. Formerly the Assistant Director (Professional) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales where he headed the curatorial programmes, he was also curator of the 4th Biennale of Sydney, Vision in Disbelief, which included New Zealand artists Billy Apple, Christine Hellyar, Richard Killeen, Peter Peryer and Boyd Webb. Wright also curated a number of memorable shows such as The British Show (with Anthony Bond), Systems End: Contemporary Art in Australia, The Rose Crossing and New Zealand X1. He was later curatorial director at Sherman Galleries and most recently director of William Wright Artists Projects.

Wright's connection with New Zealand dates back to research trips for the Biennale of Sydney and the New Zealand XI exhibition, which was shown at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Auckland Art Gallery. He will be missed by his friends and colleagues here, as well as in Australia.

After two years of construction, and many more years planning, Auckland's Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery opens today with a programme of exhibitions, events and activities including a tour of the gallery by director Andrew Clifford. Read more…

Art patron Jenny Gibbs has clarified her position on the Venice Biennale following reports that she has withdrawn her support after hearing Creative New Zealand is providing Dirty Politics author Nicky Hagar with airfares to and accommodation in Venice where he will join the team supporting Simon Denny, the artist selected to represent New Zealand at the 2015 Biennale. Gibbs is making a statement about Hagar's involvement, but hasn't bailed out of the project. Rather she has redirected her support to the newly created position of assistant curator for the Venice project, a move that has been welcomed by Creative New Zealand. According to the earlier reports, Michael Friedlander has also withdrawn his support, but he was unwilling to make a statement when contacted by the press following up on the announcement by Jenny Gibbs.

On Friday we open an exhibition upstairs of new work by Gavin Hipkins. Realized in conjunction with the artist’s recently completed feature length essay film Erewhon, the exhibition features a new suite of photographs presented alongside a key chapter from the film, and Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel, The Book of the Machines.   
Image: Gavin Hipkins, Erewhon (Mountains)

Lara Strongman is the new senior curator at the Christchurch Art Gallery, replacing Justin Paton who moved on to take up the position of Head of International Art  at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In the latest issue of the Bulletin, Strongman talks about her approach to writing and curating in post-quake Christchurch. Read more…

In this frieze blog post, Carol Yinghua Lu comments on the origin and development of participatory practices and social intervention in the field of contemporary art in China, and a more recent drift away from the political and social realm towards the market where new auction records get more WeChat time than the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Read more…
Image: pro-democracy protester in Hong Kong