Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan
Quietly powerful and immersive video works revealing the politics behind our view of landscape.
John Vea: Ini Mini Mani Mou
Powerful new work examining the complexities of the immigration process in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dear Shurrie
The art, influence and friendships of sculptor and teacher Francis Shurrock
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Article
Shifting Lines
It's where we live: the encrusted surface of a molten planet, rotating on its own axis, circling round the star that gives our daylight. Geographically, it's a mapped-out city at the edge of a plain, bordered by sea and rising, broken geological features. Zooming in further, it's a neighbourhood, a street, a shelter – all things existing at first as outlines, drawings, plans. And it's a body: portable abode of mind, spirit, psyche (however we choose to view these things); the breathing physical location of unique identity and passage.
Notes
Who let the dog out?
I was browsing recently through the online collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and came to an abrupt halt before a sculptural work by the artist Marisol, a detail of which is shown here.
Notes
New exhibition: Shifting Lines
Here's a little from behind the scenes. Shifting Lines opens tomorrow, 9 November, and runs until 19 January 2014. It's a show about drawing as an idea, which is permitted here to take very different forms. It includes work by six artists – Andrew Beck, Peter Trevelyan, Katie Thomas, Pip Culbert, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano – all of whom use line to investigate space and structure in unexpected ways.
Notes
The 18th century power paunch
There are websites for everything. Here's a recent discovery by a colleague, a site to which we could make a nice contribution or two ourselves – I mean from the collection.
Exhibition
Shifting Lines
Six artists use line to investigate space and structure in unexpected ways.
Notes
Morose Jester
An early work by Sydney Lough Thompson (1877-1973) is a recent addition to the collection, having been left to the Gallery by generous bequest.
Notes
Rooftops, backyards, urban scapes
As a supplement to the article in today's Press GO section, highlighting the recent purchase of Ivy Fife's Untitled (Towards Worcester Street from St. Elmo Courts), here's a modest selection of paintings of rooftops, backyards and urban scapes from the collection...
Article
Yvonne Todd: The Wall of Man
A succinct ad placed in the classifieds of the North Shore Times in March 2009 attracted some forty applicants. Respondents were shown a photographic portrait of an unnamed executive, and directed towards ervon.com – artist Yvonne Todd's website – to decide whether or not they wanted to be photographed. Some still did. The unfolding story might not have been exactly what they'd expected, but all who agreed understood it would be something different. Next came the eliminations: sixteen men were chosen to be photographed; twelve made it to the final cut. The resulting images were printed at varying sizes and titled: International Sales Director, Retired Urologist, Family Doctor, Senior Executive, Hospital Director, Company Founder, Sales Executive, Chief Financial Officer, Image Consultant, Independent Manufacturing Director, Publisher, Agrichemical Spokesman. This is The Wall of Man.
Article
Success to Excess
Several early British portraits in the Gallery’s collection depict sitters whose identity is as yet unknown; pleasingly, their number has been reduced in recent years. One painting in particular—previously titled Portrait of a Gentleman in a Blue Jacket and Embroidered Waistcoat — is greatly enriched by having the story of a specific human life attached to it. It is also unexpectedly linked to other portraits in the collection.
Exhibition
Yvonne Todd: The Wall of Man
A collection of apparently straightforward corporate photographic portraits, the type usually seen in company boardrooms or annual reports, becomes increasingly puzzling in its intent.