André Hemer
b.1981
CASS
- 2012
- Acrylic on canvas
- Purchased, 2012
- 593 x 685mm
- 2012/048
- View on google maps
Tags: appropriation (imagery), buildings (structures), clouds, landscapes (representations), melancholy, mountains, natural landscapes, people (agents), platforms (floors), railroad stations, suitcases, sunlight, trees, utility poles, yellow (color)
Playing with ideas of distance and deletion, this work was prompted by the constantly multiplying online presence of Cass by Rita Angus, one of the most famous paintings in the Gallery’s collection. Images of, and relating to, Cass are freely available on the internet. They include legitimate reproductions, unauthorised copies and numerous responses to the original painting in the form of school projects and even Cass-themed birthday cakes. Here, André Hemer presents his own version of Cass, created using a process that echoes the many translations Angus’s painting has undergone – from traditional materials to new media and back again.
(Absence, May 2023)
Exhibition History
Related
Collection
Rita Angus Cass
In the autumn of 1936, Rita Angus, with artist friends Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell, took a ten-day sketching trip to Cass – a remote outpost on the Midland Line to Te Tai Poutini / the West Coast. Angus completed several works in oil and watercolour in the following months, all showing her attentiveness to human presence in the sweeping landscape. Built structure and material in Cass, her best-known work, includes railway sheds, a stationary wagon, telegraph poles and stacked up timber opposite a solitary waiting passenger. Other finished works from this visit featured a derelict musterers’ hut, and the Canterbury College Mountain Biological Station with a passing steam engine.
(From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024)
Notes
Coming to your coffee table soon
On perusing Thames & Hudson's glossy new art publication, we saw a familiar name.
Notes
CASS
André Hemer's exhibition CASS is well worth a visit if you are near the Christchurch Art Gallery's space above NG on Madras street.
Notes
From CASS to <del>CASS</del> - Iterations of New Zealand's 'greatest painting'
Over 50 iterations of Rita Angus's 1936 painting Cass are collated in André Hemer's new exhibition CASS, which considers ideas of distance, deletion and dislocation.
Notes
Manchester Street
Manchester Street, Christchurch by Louise Henderson was painted in 1929 and shows a streetscape that remained largely unchanged until the earthquake of 22 February.