Gregor Kregar Large Wise Gnome (detail) 2007. Mirror-polished stainless steel. Courtesy the artist and Gow Langsford Gallery
This exhibition is now closed
Gnomes are figures in historic folklore as well as garden ornaments. But Gregor Kregar has brought gnomes like you've never seen to 'the garden city' – staunch, shiny and more than three metres tall.
Several famous sculptures of historic figures were toppled in the Christchurch earthquakes. Two years on, sculptor Gregor Kregar has brought some unusual new monumental figures to town. Reflective Lullaby (John) and Reflective Lullaby (Robert) are gnomes like you've never seen before – huge rather than small and made in shiny steel rather than painted plaster. As Kregar puts it, 'the gnomes are not the heroes of one event but rather the funny philosophers of everyday life.' Peering out over the inner-city landscape, they look reflective (in both senses) but also armoured against trouble. Comic-heroic ornaments for the post-quake 'garden city'.
Installed in May 2013 as part of Populate! – Christchurch Art Gallery's tenth-birthday programme of art around the city.
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Date:
11 May 2013 – 30 June 2014 -
Exhibition number:
943 -
Part of
Related reading: Outer Spaces
Exhibition
Populate!
From 10 May
Christchurch Art Gallery celebrates its tenth birthday with a burst of art in the city – including whopping new murals, night-time projections and sculptures where you least expect them.
Notes
I will not use gnome puns
Two 8-foot mirror finished steel gnomes in climbing harnesses are spectacle enough without the need for word play.
Notes
Holloway Press 1994-2014
Last chance to view the Holloway Press exhibition at Central Library Peterborough this week so if you are in the neighbourhood and like beautifully printed, designed and hand-crafted books then make sure you head along.
Notes
Sian Torrington Call Out
Christchurch Art Gallery is excited to be working with Wellington-based artist Sian Torrington on a site-specific sculptural installation that will combine ideas, images and materials that relate to living in Christchurch now.
See below for a message from Sian to find out how you can get involved.
Notes
Outer Space programme sees Canterbury arts graduate exhibit work in Showhome
The Gallery's latest exhibition in the Outer Spaces programme, Showhome, has opened in Christchurch, featuring the disconcertingly 'perfect' works of recent University of Canterbury graduate Emily Hartley-Skudder.
Notes
Worcester Boulevard exhibition extended as publication developed
The popularity of Reconstruction: Conversations on a City has led to the exhibition being extended until 14 October, and the development of a publication.
Notes
The inner binding now on display at the library
If you've not been down to the Central Library Peterborough yet now's a good time to do it.
Notes
(Way Out)er Spaces
We're pretty pleased with what we're achieving with our Outer Spaces programme, but it's always good to see what else is out there. And I do mean 'out there'...
Notes
The ghost of studios past
In preparation for the next issue of Bulletin, Gallery photographer John and I have been out photographing some of the local artists who will be taking part in Rolling Maul when we reopen.
Interview
Silent Patterns
When we asked Tony de Lautour to produce a new work for the Bunker—the name Gallery staff give to the small, square elevator building at the front of the forecourt on Montreal Street—he proposed a paint scheme inspired by Dazzle camouflage. Associated with the geometric near-abstraction of the vorticist movement, Dazzle was developed by British and American artists during the First World War to disguise shipping. It was a monumental form of camouflage that aimed not to hide the ship but to break up its mass visually and confuse enemies about its speed and direction. In a time before radar and sonar were developed, Dazzle was designed to disorientate German U-boat commanders looking through their periscopes, and protect the merchant fleets.
Senior curator Lara Strongman spoke with Tony de Lautour in late January 2016.
Article
Sparks that fly upwards
Curator Felicity Milburn remembers five years and 101 installations in a gallery without walls.
My Favourite
Peter Stichbury's NDE
Anna Worthington chooses her favourite work from the Gallery collection.