News
Seung Yul Oh's installation Oddooki is showing in our downstairs gallery to Saturday 25 July 2009.
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.
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.
Shown here are five of the six photographs presented in Layla Rudneva-Mackay's exhibition Green With Envy. The sixth image is posted below under Coming up at Starkwhite. Green With Envy runs in our Project Space until 20 June 2009.
![Coming up at Starkwhite]()
Fears that Swine Flu would rain on ART HK's parade proved to be groundless as the event was launched last night with a lively vernissage.
![17 hot air balloons and a brass band]()
« Previous Page — Next Page »
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
Certain Words Drawn
CERTAIN WORDS DRAWN is a finalist in the illustrative section of the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Published by DEAD LETTER OFFICE, a collaboration between artist John Reynolds and designer Arch MacDonnell, the book celebrates the broad scope of Reynolds' explorations, enthusiasms and engagements ranging from photography, through to architecture, fashion to painting. The book was also produced as a limited edition of 200, with unique covers and signed and numbered by the artist.
Glass Stress at Venice
Hye Rim Lee's video Crystal City is running in Glass Stress at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettre ed Arti to 22 November 2009. The exhibition is part of the Venice Biennale Collateral Events Programme. “No other city in the world is more closely associated with the art of glassmaking than Venice… The show brings together commissioned pieces by artists such as Fred Wilson, Tony Cragg and Orlan with rare objects by Jean Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Jan Fabre, Mona Hartoum, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg and Lino Tagliapietra among others.” The Art Newspaper.
Images: Hye Rim Lee, from the Crystal City series, 2008, and Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettre de Arti, Venice
Philip Dodd on ART HK
Philip Dodd, founder of China Now and Chairman of Made in China, discusses ART HK 09 and how it compares to other fairs in the world. Click here to see the video clip.
Image: John Reynolds and Table of Dynasties at ART HK 09
et al. maintenance of social solidarity
et al. maintenance of social solidarity runs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, from 25 June – 13 September 2009.
Image: et al. maintenance of social solidarity, installation view, CAST, Hobart, 2007
Photograph: Peter Robinson
Mariana Vassileva installation views
Images: Mariana Vassileva Videos, installation views, Starkwhite, 2009
Videos courtesy of the artist and DNA, Berlin
Layla Rudneva-Mackay: Green With Envy
Layla Rudneva Mackay's exhibition Green With Envy is reviewed here by John Hurrell.
Image: Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Green, 2009, C-Type photograph
Glen Hayward: Live Transmission
Glen Hayward's exhibition, Live Transmission, is reviewed here by John Hurrell.
Images: Glen Hayward, Live Transmission, 2009 installation views, all works acrylic on carved wood
Frozen Time – Art from the Antarctic
Phil Dadson's StoneMap is included in Frozen Time – Art from the Antarctic curated by Alfons Hug for the Bienal Fin del Mundo and for Stadtgalerie Keil in Germany from 13 June – 30 August 2009.
Image: Phil Dadson, StoneMap, 2004, video still
Coming up at Starkwhite
Downstairs at Starkwhite: Mariana Vassileva videos from 3 – 27 June 2009. The programme includes: Traffic Police (2009), Lighthouse (2008-2009), Tango (2007) and The Milkmaid (2006). This exhibition is a collaboration between Starkwhite and DNA, Berlin.
Image: Mariana Vassileva, Lighthouse, 2008-2009, video still, courtesy of the artist and DNA, Berlin
Projects for a small world
Edited by Gregory Burke and Christine Davis, issue 38 of Public, projects for a small world, is devoted entirely to artists' projects. The lineup of artists includes David Hatcher and et al. For more information go to the Public website here or email the journal at public@yorku.ca.
Green With Envy
Shown here are five of the six photographs presented in Layla Rudneva-Mackay's exhibition Green With Envy. The sixth image is posted below under Coming up at Starkwhite. Green With Envy runs in our Project Space until 20 June 2009.
Images: Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Blue/Yellow/Beige/Light Pink/White, 2009, C-type photographs
Coming up at Starkwhite
Glen Hayward's exhibition Live Transmission runs upstairs from 27 May to 20 June 2009.
Image: Glen Hayward, Untitled, 2009, acrylic on carved wood
Coming up at Starkwhite
Layla Rudneva-Mackay's exhibition Green With Envy runs in our Project Space from 27 May to 20 June 2009.
Image: Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Green, 2009, C-type photograph
Piece War performance
Piece War will perform in the No Free Gift charitable fundraiser at Starkwhite on Friday 22 May.
Piece War write songs about monsters, complicated love, inner worlds, morbid youth and mental disorders. Piece War write how they see and play how they feel on the inside. Sound is inspired by simple riffs like the Ramones, sophisticated boom boom beats and sweet harmonies mixed with dictator like vocals telling it how it is. Not intimidated by the music of today, they stand alone lost in their own minds, with no expectations, no technical skill and no regret. Armed with a love of sound and words, put it all together, this is what you get….. an extension of a friendship. Piece War
Hong Kong beats the odds
Set against a backdrop of global recession combined with Swine Flu, art fairs are riskier propositions these days. Happily ART HK proved to be a well-attended and buzzy fair where it was business as usual. The solo project we presented – Table of Dynasties by John Reynolds – attracted a great deal of attention and was picked up by a public art gallery. Many of John’s Table of Dynasties Out Takes, which were available individually, as pairs or in clusters, were also acquired by collectors from Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, Rarotonga, Seoul and Sydney.
ART HK Vernissage
Fears that Swine Flu would rain on ART HK's parade proved to be groundless as the event was launched last night with a lively vernissage.
ARTFORUM: SCENE & HERD in Auckland
Alica Frankovich's exhibition A Plane for Behavers opens at Artspace, Auckland on Friday 15 May 2009. Her performance at Artspace on 2 May caught the eye of Artforum's roving reviewer Michael Wilson. You can read his coverage of Alicia's performance and Andrew Barber's Gambia Castle exhibition, Dreamhome / Shithouse here.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, post performance view, Artspace, Auckland, NZ 2009
ART HK
We'll be in Hong Kong next week presenting John Reynolds' Table of Dynasties at ART HK, so keep an eye on our blog site for news and photographs from the Art Fair. ART HK runs from 14 – 17 May 2009. Starkwhite will be open while the fair is on. Hours: Monday – Friday 11.00am to 6.00pm and Saturday 11.00am to 5.00pm.
Image: John Reynolds, Table of Dynasties 2009, installation view, artist's studio, Auckland, NZ
artforum.com Critics Picks
Matt Henry's Doppelgänger exhibition at Starkwhite is featured in artforum.com's “Critics Picks” section. Read the review here.
Image: Matt Henry, Duochrome No.1 from the series “16:9” 2008, oil on linen, frame, acrylic glazing, Chartwell Collection, NZ
An uplifting experience
Alicia Frankovich's exhibition A Plane for Behavers will show at Auckland's Artspace from 16 May to 27 June 2009. A one-off performance with Artspace director Emma Bugden preceded the exhibition opening. Go to overthenet for a nice take on the performance. Alicia's exhibition Super Segue is showing concurrently at Artspace, Sydney to 23 May 2009.
Images: Alicia Frankovich performance (2009), Artspace, Auckand, NZ and Super Segue (2009), installation view, Artspace, Sydney, Australia
17 hot air balloons and a brass band
This sampler is from Phil Dadson's new video, Breath of Wind.
Image: Phil Dadson, Breath of Wind, 2009, 2 screen video installation
Starkwhite and BLACK magazine
Each issue of Auckland's BLACK magazine includes Gallery, an arts section featuring pages by New Zealand-based and international artists selected for the magazine by Starkwhite. The current issue features pages by Whitney Bedford, Michael Harrison and Thomas Hirschhorn.
Image: Thomas Hirschhorn, Poor-Racer, Sumner, Christchurch, 15 March 2009. Commissioned by The Physics Room in association with Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe.