The following is an extract from a conversation between artist John Reynolds and director Jenny Harper, which formed part of the opening weekend events around Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection.

Jenny Harper: We've walked past several works that are made up of multiple parts, such as Richard Killeen's Book of the hook (1996) and Bill Culbert's Pacific flotsam (2009). And here we are at a major new work of yours, John. Tell us, how might we approach this work for the first time?

John Reynolds: The clue to this is its title. It's called Table of dynasties, and when it was first shown it was intended for an art fair in Hong Kong. The strategy was to somehow go back into the east, back to China, and to set up a Shanghai street trader's table and sell their wares back to them. In other words, these little canvases were all made in China, they've come to New Zealand, and we wish to take them back-loved up, value added, exported if you will – towards the great mothership of the global economy at the moment. Happily, very happily for me, Justin and the team have opened up another kind of play with the work. It's now got a cinemascopic, 3D blockbuster feel, which is very successful. It's no longer a little street stall in Shanghai, over-rich and tumbling. It's something expansive and lurching and pixellated and glorious – I'm very happy with it. It's almost like a pier going out into the ocean – this marvellous sense of departure and arrival. It seems to have a beginning and an end, but maybe it doesn't. It's glorious to see the work like this because for me it's like meeting it again for the first time. It has its own wild energy which I had nothing to do with and that's a thrill.

And we've been thrilled with the response too. Some visitors seem to have noticed the curved wall it's on for the first time. It's been here since the Gallery opened, but it seems to have suddenly become ‘visible', with the presentation of your work accentuating the curve in some unusual way.

Well Jenny, I thought you made a good point earlier about how this new space has offered opportunities to gear up and get leverage for certain works, like the Bill Culbert installation nearby. Table of dynasties has also been extended with this opportunity, with this wall, with this staging. I think that's a very real illustration of the way that museums work-the play of them, the way they stage, the way they frame, the way they can tease out meanings and readings for an audience. That's just as good as it gets.

Want to read more?
Download B.160 as a PDF.