News | Page 55 of 57

Glass Stress Review

The Collateral Events Programme for this year's Venice Biennale includes Glass Stress. The exhibition, which includes work by Hye Rim Lee, has been reviewed in the International Herald Tribune. You can read Contemporary Reflections in Glass by Roderick Conway Morris at the New York Times/Herald Tribune website. The exhibition runs at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettre ed Arti to 22 November 2009.

Image: Hye Rim Lee, from the Crystal City series, 2008

Snow Tussock

Described by the artist as New Zealand's slowest artwork (it will take decades to reach maturity), Snow Tussock (2003) was commissioned by Starkwhite for a heritage park in East Otago. The work by John Reynolds comprises 854 tussocks planted in a 70 x 70 metre grid in a field situated between an historic church and a small cemetery that traces the post-contact history (farming and mining) of Macraes Village and its surrounds. Reynolds chose to work with the species Snow Tussock because it is a native plant under threat from annual burn-offs carried out by the local farming community.

Images: Snow Tussock (2003), Macraes Village, East Otago, New Zealand

Looking back to Wonderland

Those with an interest in the history of New Zealand photography should visit Outpost, the Auckland Art Gallery staff blog. Curator Ron Brownson has posted a selection of photographs by Alfred Burton – some from a journey he took through the King Country to Wanganui in 1885 and others from The Wonderland Album – New Zealand, which Brownson considers to be one of our most important assemblages of 19th century topographical photographs. The photographs and Brownson's informative notes are published here under Alfred Burton – the man who makes likenesses and The Wonderland Album – New Zealand (Pt 1 and Pt 2).

Image credits:

Alfred Burton, Our canoe and crew, Ranana, Whanganui River 1885, silver gelatin print, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1999 (1999/5/3)

Alfred Burton, Gigantic cabbage tree, Papakai, King Country (1999/18/63); Lake Taupo from Motutere (1999/18/66). From The Wonderland Album – New Zealand, circa 1898-1899, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. The Ilene and Laurence Dakin Bequest, purchased 1999

VVORK Collection

Boris Dornbusch's Involving All Members features on VVORK, a daily website that offers a curated collection of contemporary art. You can visit VVORK here.

Images: Boris Dornbusch, Involving All Members, 2008, aluminium blinds, box of panadol, dimensions variable

Around the Water Cooler at THE OFFICE's Far-Flung Performances

Throughout the month of July the curatorial team of Ellen Blumenstein, Katharina Fichtner, Maribel Lopez and Kathrin Myer – known collectively as THE OFFICE – staged a series of 11 performances in Berlin. The last one in the series was a collaborative work by Matt Keegan and Dane Mitchell. You can read Kari Rittenbach's review of the project (Around the Water Cooler at THE OFFICE's Far-Flung Performances) on the Art in America website.

Image: Matt Keegan & Dane Mitchell, 2009

Fahrenheit window project

Matt Henry's Fahrenheit window project is showing at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery to 31 August 2009.

Image: Matt Henry, Fahrenheit, 2009, installation view, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand

Review of Fazed

John Hurrell's review of Grant Stevens: Fazed is published here at eyeCONTACT and Nicola Harvey's review of WORD at the Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney (which includes a video work by Stevens) is published here in Frieze magazine.

Image: Grant Stevens, Flow (2009), lambda print, 290 x 410 mm, 1/8

Experiments in Celluloid

Experiments in Celluloid screens at Artspace, 300 Karangahape Road, on Thursday 6 August from 7.30pm. Curated by Derek Gehring and Nova Paul for Floating Cinema and The Film Archive, it provides an opportunity to see some rare and groundbreaking films by Phil Dadson, David Blyth, Gregor Nicholas and Alex Monteith.

Phil Dadson's EARTHWORKS is described as a simultaneous performance / recording event – co-incident with autumn and spring equinixes – to be realised at 1800 hours G.M.T, at 15 diverse locations on the 23/24th of September 1971, aiming to capture a temporary instant in the continuum of universal ebb and flow. Eight of the fifteen recipients of invitations to participate responded and performed the instructions to shoot stills and make a synchronised audio recording. The New Zealand part in the 10 minute event, at 6.00 am sunrise, on the volcanic plateau, was filmed continuously onto 16mm film, into which stills from other locations were later edited. The audio track is an unedited mix of tape-recordings.

You can visit Phil Dadson's website here.

Images: Phil Dadson, EARTHWORKS, 1971/72, 16mm film (also available as video version)

Fazed

Three works from Grant Stevens' Fazed exhibition. For further information on these works and others by the artist you can email us at starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz.

Images (top to bottom): Grant Stevens, Blow Out (2009), lambda print, 1510 x 950 mm, edition of 8; Dormant (2009), lambda print, 760 x 1010 mm, edition of 20; Crushing (2009), digital video, edition of 9

Grant Stevens: Fazed

Grant Stevens exhibition Fazed runs to 29 August 2009. The show includes blue fluorescent tubes and audio, guitar by David Cretney.

Images: Grant Stevens, Fazed, installation views, August 2009, Starkwhite, Auckland NZ

21st-Century Art History

The latest issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art considers the future face of historiography addressing questions such as: What will the discipline of art history look like in the 21st century? What will its subjects be? With the decline of Eurocentric models of art history and the end of postcolonialism, what ways of writing art history will be possible? What would a non-national, international, or even transnational history look like? Is it a 'global' art history that we should be aiming for?

The issue opens with Curating the World, a conversation between Rex Butler and Okwui Enwezor, who is recognised as one of the major contributors on and thinkers about art in the world today. It closes with Reviews Etc, a section that includes Robert Leonard's no-punches-pulled review of The Big Picture: A History of New Zealand Art from 1642, a six-episode TV series and accompanying book by cultural commentator Hamish Keith.

The Journal of The Art is published by the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand and the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) Brisbane, with managing editor Robert Leonard. More information on the 21st-Century Art History issue is published here.

Image: Cover of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art/21st-Century Art History, Volume 9 Number 1/2, 2008/9. Available from the IMA, price AUD20

So close yet so far away

The 2009 International Incheon Women Artists Biennale, So close yet so far away, runs from 1 – 31 August 2009. It's the world's only biennale devoted exclusively to the creative endeavours of women. The programme includes The 21st Century, The Feminine Century, and the Century of Diversity and Hope curated by Heng-Gil Han and featuring the work of Hye Rim Lee (further information on this exhibition is published here) and an international symposium on the subject Women Artists in the 'Post-Feminism' Era, which takes place on 2 August 2009. (See programme here)

Images: Hye Rim Lee, Lash, 2005, single channel video; and venue for the Incheon Women Artists Biennale, Incheon, Korea

Art History

Rita Angus: Life & Vision opens tomorrow at the Auckland Art Gallery. Curated by William McAloon and Jill Trevelyan, the exhibition celebrates the life and work of one of the great pioneers of modern painting in this country. Trevelyan is also the author of the biography Rita Angus: An Artist's life, which was the non-fiction winner and biography category winner of this year's Montana Book Awards. Further information on the exhibition is published here.

Image: Cover of Jill Trevelyan's book Rita Angus:An Artist's Life

Julian Dashper 1960-2009

et al. that's obvious! that's right! that's true!

et al. that's obvious! that's right! that's true! is showing at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu to 22 November 2009. You can visit the artists' website here and mail them at etal@etal.name.

Images: et al. that's obvious! that's right! that's true!, installation views, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, NZ, July 2009. Photographs by David Watkins and courtesy of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu

What is Contemporary Art?

Art fairs on our side of the world are engaged in a tussle to become the Art Basel of Asia. We're less interested in whether there is a clear winner – we hope several emerge in the Asia/Pacific region with the potential to rival the great fairs of Europe – than the moves they make to raise the stakes.

What is Contemporary Art? is the subject of a conference organised by Anton Vidokle for ShContemporary09. The conference will be structured as a four-day series of short lectures and contents will be published in e-flux journal. The lineup of speakers includes: Hu Fang, Hal Foster, Boris Groys, Jeorg Heiser, Raqs Media Collective, Carol Yinghua Lu, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Martha Rosler, Gao Shiming and Jan Verwoert. The lecture series takes place as part of the special section Discoveries, an exhibition curated by Wang Jianwei and Mami Katoka that includes artists such as Marina Abramovic, Heman Chong, Joseph Kosuth, Susan Norrie, Shinji Ohmaki, Martha Rosler, Anri Sala, Fiona Tan, Xu Zhen and others. The conference programme description and schedule is published here.

Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre and venue for ShContemporary09

Barber Wall Painting #3

Andrew Barber's Wall Painting #3 is currently showing at the Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts to 27 September 2009. This work follows wall paintings presented in Country Painting, Starkwhite (2007) and HEADWAY: New Artists Show, curated by Laura Preston and Brian Butler, Artspace (2006).

Images: Andrew Barber, Wall Painting #3, linen on stretcher, installation views, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, Auckland (2009)

Escape artists

Today's issue of Canvas in Auckland's Weekend Herald has a story on artists living and working overseas. The lineup of artists featured in the story includes Martin Basher (New York), Alicia Frankovich (Berlin) and Dane Mitchell (Berlin).

Image: Canvas cover (Martin Basher), Weekend Herald, July 25, 2009

Screening at Blue Oyster

Boris Dornbusch is one of three artists presenting work at Dunedin's Blue Oyster Project Space “that explore lives lived through, constructed by or remembered because of the screen.” (Blue Oyster website). Dornbusch's single channel video Paviljon Marinum depicts a chance meeting in a former Yugoslavian Children's camp. The video was recorded on an island off Croatia during the artists visit to his home country in 2008. Paviljon Marinum runs to 8 August 2009.

Image: Boris Dornbusch, Paviljon Marinum, 2008, video still

Dark Water heads south

In Cho Duck Hyun's Dark Water project, a container is fictitiously transported through the Earth, hoisted up from the ground or water and opened to reveal its treasure of the artist’s photo-realistic portraits and other images on canvas. It is a Wunderkammer, revealing and reflecting on the history of individuals as well as general patterns of migration.

The original container was unearthed at the 1994 São Paulo Biennial after seemingly having travelled from Seoul. After featuring in Living Room 09: My heart is where my home is (curated by Pontus Kyander) and then Starkwhite's Project Space, Dark Water: The Antipodes Project is travelling to Dunedin. (Watch the Dunedin Public Art Gallery website for further information on the Dunedin leg of the journey.) Later it will continue its journey to another antipode, Liverpool, UK. Click here for shots of Dark Water surfacing at Auckland's Princes Wharf.

Images: Cho Duck Hyun, Dark Water: The Antipodes Project, 2009, Princes Wharf, Auckland. Photographs courtesy of the artist

40 years on

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is the latest recipient of an Arts Foundation Governors Award. The Award recognises a person or organisation that makes an extraordinary contribution to the arts in New Zealand – in this case the gallery's unwavering commitment to working with contemporary art over a period of almost 40 years. (The Gallery celebrates its 40th anniversay in 2010.) The previous recipients of the Governors Award are Otago University for its commitment to the Robert Burns, Frances Hodgkins and Mozart Fellowships and Radio New Zealand Concert for its support of New Zealand Music.

Later in the year the Arts Foundation will announce the recipients of the 2009 Laureate Awards. Five Laureates are selected each year with each one receiving $50,000. You can find out more about the Arts Foundation here.

Alicia Frankovich at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum

Alicia Frankovich's SEMPRE MENO, SEMPRE PEGGIO, SEMPRE PIÙ was performed today at Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel with Oliver Vogt, head organiser of the exhibition Rundgang 09 Spaziergang, which includes a performance programme.

Rethinking public art

Like many international cities, Auckland has a lot of public art – some good, some bad, some very very bad. The city's public art programmes are administered by the Auckland City Council which proudly proclaims: “Throughout central Auckland city there is an extensive collection of public art works including sculptures, statues, monuments, fountains, water features, mosaics and murals.” Not a very promising start. Nor is there much comfort to be gained from other aspects of the ACC's public art positioning statement on its growing collection of over 200 works “reflecting the city's unique identity, its cultural heritage, telling its stories.”

Storytelling about place, culture and identity is now associated with Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand and the privileging of social history exhibitions over contemporary art, so the art world gets jumpy whenever it encounters this kind of Te Papa-ish rhetoric. However there is a new broom in the Council's public art locker and things are about to change. Recently Pontus Kyander took up the position of Manager of Public Art for the city, supported by an advisory committee of artists and independent curators/writers chaired by art consultant Trish Clark. Kyander's background as an art critic, independent curator, editor of FORMAT (a contemporary arts programme for Swedish Television) and guest professor at EWHA University, Seoul suggests we can look forward to a less pedestrian art commissioning programme in the future. We'll keep an eye out for Kyander's public art interventions, but in the meantime Neil Dawson's Echo at the Christchurch Arts Centre continues to provide a great benchmark for NZ artists and commissioners working in the public art arena.

Images: Neil Dawson, Echo, 1982, installation views, Christchurch Arts Centre

eyeCONTACT

You can read a review of Seung Yul Oh's current exhibition Oddooki here. The show runs to Saturday 25 July.

Image: Seung Yul Oh, Oddooki, 2009, installation view, Starkwhite, Auckland

Coming up at Starkwhite

Sydney-based artist Grant Stevens is next up in our downstairs space (3-29 August 2009). This is Stevens' second exhibition with us (the other being Going Steady, 2007) and he was one of four artists we presented at ShContemporary 08.

Image: Grant Stevens, Crushing, 2009, digital video, 4 min 13 sec

Teststrip (1992-1997)

With the proliferation of artist-run spaces in Auckland, along with occasional offshore extensions (see our previous posting on HIRSCHFELD), it's timely to look back to Teststrip, the great artist-run space that continues to influence the development of publicly funded contemporary art spaces as well as artist-run spaces in New Zealand.

In 1992 eight artists (a mix of recent graduates and more experienced artists) frustrated with the lack of exhibiting opportunities from public institutions and dealer galleries took on the lease of a modest floor at 10 Vulcan Lane in the heart of Auckland's CBD and opened Teststrip gallery with a group show of their work. The collective followed this with a series of solo shows and short-run publications. Encouraged by the response they resolved to extend the programme by inviting other artists to exhibit in exchange for a nominal fee to help pay the rent. At the end of 1994, due to the growing gentrification of the CBD, Teststrip was forced to move to a new building at 454 Karangahape Road, Newton, which gave the opportunity for the collective to reconsider opportunities. With funding from Creative New Zealand the group upgraded the two-gallery space, formalised the publication series – the Teststrip micrographs, employed an administrator and worked with a designer to develop a graphic identity. Teststrip broadened the kind of projects they undertook in particular working with Australian artists and curators and holding a series of shows by Los Angeles artists. In their final year the collective strengthened their connection to the wider arts community with the inclusion of music, theatre events and exhibitions of work in jewellery and ceramics. The Teststrip model has influenced subsequent artist-run spaces around New Zealand and several members are still part of these collectives. From the introduction to Teststrip: a history of an artist-run space (1992-1997), published by Clouds (The book can be purchased from Clouds. Price: NZD50)

Image courtesy of Clouds

HIRSCHFELD Berlin: a new art project space

Along with Genevieve Allison and Justus Kinderman, Boris Dornbusch (a recent addition to Starkwhite's lineup of artists) has started HIRSCHFELD, a new art project space located in the former archive of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Zentrum, which was part of the Institute for Sexual Research of the Humboldt University in East Berlin. HIRSCHFELD is committed to developing a critical programme with primarily early-career artists. Exhibitions will take place intermittently for the length of the opening night only. We'll post further information on the space and the programme as it comes to hand.

“Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was the founder of The Institute for Sexual Science, first of its kind worldwide. The Instititute was established under the more liberal atmosphere of the newly founded Weimar Republic and was oriented towards progressive social and scientific developments.” (HIRSCHFELD press release.)
Image: HIRSCHFELD art project space, Berlin

Oddooki

Seung Yul Oh's installation Oddooki is showing in our downstairs gallery to Saturday 25 July 2009.

Images: Seung Yul Oh, Oddooki, 2008, installation views, July 2009, Starkwhite, NZ

The Man in the Hat

Luit Bieringa's documentary on legendary art dealer Peter McLeavey will screen at cinemas around the country in the 2009 New Zealand International Film Festival. This is Bieringa's second film with producer Jan Bieringa and follows ANS WESTRA: Private Journeys/Private Signposts, which premiered in the 2006 New Zealand International Film Festival.

“There's an airy spirit of existential enquiry running through Luit Bieringa's lovely portrait of Wellington art-dealer Peter McLeavey. A fundamental biographer's question – what makes this guy tick – is quietly turned back on us: McLeavey seems to live a highly ordered life in a state of perpetual curiosity about what makes any of us in this corner of the world tick, himself included. Starting out as an a dealer from his bedroom flat in 1966, McLeavey was already championing Toss Woollaston, Colin McCahon and Gordon Walters as purveyors of vision informed by New Zealand experience. Forty years and 500 or so exhibitions later, he's still there. Cinematographer Leon Narbey follows the dapper man in a hat from his home in Hill Street on the circuitous scenic route he takes each morning to work. Bieringa intersperses this lyrical picture of McLeavey's Wellington with readings from his correspondence and frank, revealing conversations with the man himself.” New Zealand International Film Festival

Credits: Luit Bieringa (Director), Jan Bieringa (Producer), Leon Narbey (Photography), Lala Rolls (Editor); Plan9 (Music); Sam Neill (Narration)

Image: Film still, The Man in the Hat

THE PERFORMANCES, Berlin

With Matt Keegan, DAAD-based artist Dane Mitchell is presenting a collaborative work in THE PERFORMANCES on Saturday 25 July 2009. THE PEFORMANCES is a series of events that are taking place at a storefront in the neighbourhood of Tiergartern throughout July 09. THE OFFICE has invited artists who are currently living in Berlin or passing through the city to present new or already existing projects sharing a focus on sound/music and language. Every evening has a different format; the site is used differently on each occasion. It becomes a stage, a venue for a lecture, a music hall or playground.

Based in Berlin, THE OFFICE temporarily occupies empty spaces throughout the city. The goal is to rediscover Berlin, to channel and transmit information, and provide space for discursive thinking around the arts. THE OFFICE is a collaboration between Katharina Fichtner, Maribel Lopez and Kathrin Meyer. Founded in May 2009, it explores different models of cooperation between curators, writers and artists outside of the institutional context. You can go to THE OFFICE website here for the schedule of performances.

Image: Matt Keegan & Dane Mitchell, 2009

China in four seasons

On Saturday night the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery launched its series China in four seasons with an exhibition of Jin Jiangbo's vast photographs, including a new series of works created during his residency in New Plymouth. It's a must-see show and worth a trip to New Plymouth to catch it. China in four seasons is a year long project comprising 4 residencies and exhibitions that present the singualrity and insight of selected artists working in China today. The orther artists to be presented in the series are Guo Fengyi (curated with The Long March), Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen.

China watch

As reports circulate on the Internet about the emerging, new-generation Chinese collectors more interested in contemporary art than antiquities, it's interesting to see how art fairs in the region are positioning themselves in relation to this development. ART HK worked Hong Kong's history as the financial hub of Asia and gateway to modern China, presenting the 09 event in the Oltmanns designed Convention and Exhibition Centre on Victoria Harbour. Despite the gloomy international backdrop of a global recession combined with a Swine flu pandemic, the fair was a success featuring heavy-hitter galleries (Gagosian, Kukje, Lisson, White Cube and others), attracting 28,000 visitors and delivering on its pre-fair promise to access Chinese collectors from the mainland as well as Hong Kong. Big-ticket sales of USD1m+ were achieved with galleries also reporting strong sales for more accessibly priced works. ART HK says it is in the process of emerging as one of the key international platforms for contemporary art.

Next on the calendar is ShContemporary. The fair will be staged once again in the historic Exhibition Centre playing up Shanghai's history as the Paris of the East as well as its current position as a global super city. The messaging out of Shanghai focuses on: the emerging collectors in the region; Asia is the future; and an art fair with a fresh vision. They say: “This year ShContemporary returns with a new artistic director and initiatives to engage with emerging collectors from the region. A unique curatorial team consisting of Wang Jianwei, Mami Kataoka and Anton Vidokle is working with Fair Director Colin Chinnery to give SHContemporary an experimental and daring art vision.” Clearly SHContemporary also has its sights set on becoming the first truly international art fair to emerge in the Asia/Pacific region.

Images: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and Shanghai Exhibition Centre

Critical-Digital-Matter

Aotearoa Digital Arts, New Zealand's only digital artists network, held its 6th annual symposium in Wellington recently with a line up of contributors that included Stella Brennan (a co-founder of ADA) and Phil Dadson. You can find updates from the symposium here. And those interested in the digital arts should check out The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader co-published with Clouds. In this comprehensive anthology editors Stella Brennan and Su Ballard present essays, artists' pageworks and personal accounts that explore the production and reception of digital art. Ranging from research into the preservation of digital artworks to the environmental impact of electronic culture, from discussions of lo-tech aesthetics to home gaming, and from sophisticated data mapping to pre-histories of new media, the book presents a screen grab of digital art practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. You can purchase the book from Clouds.

Images: Phil Dadson presenting at Critical-Digital-Matter: The 6th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium, 26-28 June 2009, Victoria University School of Design, Wellington; and the cover of The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader

China Watch

Guy Ullens, the Belgian industrialist and collector of Chinese art since the mid-1980s, has sold 18 works from his collection to Chinese collectors. Proceeds from the sale (reported to be over USD20m) are to go towards financing the operations of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing and to fund future acquisitions. Housed in a Bauhaus- style former arms factory, the UCCA is a non profit art centre funded by Guy and Miriam Ullens that “…presents exhibitions of established and emerging artists and develops a platform to share knowledge through education and research.” The sale shows the rise of mainland Chinese collectors with an eye for contemporary Chinese art rather than antiquities. Meanwhile the international art world watches for signs of another shift in focus, this time away from Made in China towards art that is created in and/or presented in China.

Images: Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing

et al. maintenance of social solidarity

et al. maintenance of social solidarity is showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (lower level 2) to 13 September 2009. You can go to the et al. website here.

et al. maintenance of social solidarity, installation view, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, June 2009

Coming up at Starkwhite

After a seven month showing at Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand, Seung Yul Oh's performance sculpture Oddooki will be re-staged at Starkwhite from 4 – 25 July 2009. You can see an earlier posting on Oddooki here.

Image: Seung Yul Oh, Oddooki, installation view, Te Papa the Museum of New Zealand Sculpture Court, 20 October 08 to 1 June 09

We Go Far… And Way Back

Works by Andrew Barber and Dane Mitchell feature in We Go Far……And Way Back at SHOW GALLERY, Staten Island, NY. Curated by Victoria Munro the exhibition also includes works by Julian Dashper, Matthew Deleget, Daniel Gottin, Kyle Jenkins, Lucy McMillan, Jan van der Ploeg and Tilman. It runs to 1 August 2009.

Image from the exhibition invitation

Alicia Frankovich interviewed in ART WORLD

The latest issue of ART WORLD Australasia (Issue 9 June/July 2009) includes an Amber McCulloch interview with Alicia Frankovich – see an earlier posting here on her shows at Artspace, Sydney and Artspace, Auckland. Frankovich is known for her use of performance, installation, photography and video to address issues surrounding place, space and the body.

Images: Alicia Frankovich, To Dwell is the Drink Coco-Cola of Urbanism, 10.10.2008, performance for the International Prize for Performance 2008, Teatro Sociale of Trento. Photo Hugo Munoz Courtesy Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea di Trento

Real Art Roadshow

Founded and directed by visionary art patron Fiona Campbell, the Real Art Roadshow is New Zealand's largest travelling art exhibition with over 120 artworks touring secondary schools throughout the country. The RAR collection is presented in two large, customised trucks allowing students to experience contemporary art in mobile galleries. The Real Art Roadshow experience includes enrichment and education programmes tailored to student needs. Campbell's continued commitment to supporting artists through the purchase of art for the RAR collection and putting it to work in secondary schools is a good news story at a time when art patronage and sponsorship is on the wane in New Zealand's recessionary economy. See here for more information on the Real Art Roadshow and how to support it.

Images courtesy of the Real Art Roadshow

eyeCONTACT review

You can read John Hurrell's review of Mariana Vassileva Videos here. The exhibition runs to Saturday 27 June 2009.

Image: Mariana Vassileva, Lighthouse, installation view, Starkwhite, June 09