A few images of our joyous community, taken at the opening of Darryl Walker's exhibition in dialogue...
Photographs by Siv
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
in dialogue
A few images of our joyous community, taken at the opening of Darryl Walker's exhibition in dialogue...
Photographs by Siv
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
art history 101 (NZ)
Most days I walk through the doorway to 147 Cuba Street. This is hard to avoid as it's the only (safe) way to access Enjoy Gallery. I am, like countless other others I imagine, quite attached to 147's eclectic and resonant doorway - an icon that has become synonymous with Cuba Street, and with Peter McLeavey's gallery. One day I remember Arlo Edwards doing Peter a favour and stripping back a few dozen of the countless layers of posters, drawings, and all else plasterable that seems to gravitate and find its way there. After a while he pointed out an old Misery sketch his efforts had uncovered. A testament to the layering of history imbued within this small exterior space. I would argue that without this doorway, Cuba Street just wouldn't be Cuba Street...and where would that leave us?
Anyway, on my way past this morning I noticed this print: a print of a painting of 147's doorway, plastered in 147's doorway (No doubt the humour and/or irony of this action was not lost on the person accountable). The print is of a painting by one Jo Hardy - apparently being shown at the Yvonne Rust gallery in Whangarei - titled Art History 101 (NZ): darkening Peter McLeavey's doorway.
Aside from liking the painting myself, the title raises a couple of interesting questions for me. Like can art history (for that matter New Zealand's art history) be recalled through the history of dealer galleries with equal effect as it can be through those of public art spaces, and forums for art criticism? And to that effect, what does the comparative absence of 'the general public' and its criticism mean for the evolution of these dealer galleries, and furthermore for this hypothetical record of art history? Since Dealers are motivated by the market, and not the public at large, might they be giving the art public what they truly want - what's in demand -without it being packaged and easy to swallow: therefore being more critical and less subjective than our institutions?
Nice painting though Jo.
post and image by jeremy
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The weekend that was...2
Some images of last weekend's White Fungus Relocation Party - in reverse chronological order just to splice things up a bit.Images include Tsushi's poetry reading, Greg Malcolm's musical set and Peter Trevelyan's light installation.
All images by Kimberley Lorne-McDougall Gustavsson
Friday, May 8, 2009
the weekend that was
Hue & Cry Issue Three launch party,
Including performance by Raised by Wolves.
All images by John Lake
Thursday, May 7, 2009
James Luna is visiting Enjoy
James Luna
Artist Talk
Tuesday 12 May 6PM
Enjoy Public Art Gallery
Enjoy is pleased to announce that Native American contemporary artist James Luna will be giving an artist talk in the gallery this coming Tuesday.
For over three decades Luna (Luiseño, Pooyukitchchum/Ipai) has been creating visual art, interdisciplinary exhibitions and performances that are informed by his native culture, use modern technology and speak to current issues and declare them to be ‘authentic'. Don’t be fooled, however, that he is a nice (safe) Indian storyteller. His stories are both humorous and painful. They evoke ancient cultural values and provoke questions of contemporary native identity while debunking stereotypes. At Enjoy, James will be showing several short video-pieces, and speaking to their context and content: Don't miss this opportunity to be an audience to an un-scripted insight into the artist's process and practice.
Luna is in Wellington as part of the One Day Sculpture series, where his project Urban (Almost) Rituals will be taking place. Commissioned by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Urban (Almost) Rituals will unfold from 8am on 14 May 2009, at Te Papa, in the Te Papa Amphitheatre. In the event of bad weather, the event will take place in Te Papa's Soundings Theatre.
Check out James' website, Te Papa's website, and the One Day Sculpture website for more details and info.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Artists and Institutional Critique
by Paula Booker
Responding to your article Art and Architecture 20 April, I agree that often European institutions seem able to modernize their existing buildings with an overarching respect for the original architecture style of the institution, while updating the interior gallery spaces to the needs of contemporary artists — and in acknowledgment of the current prevalence of the 'white cube style' gallery space as standardized model for exhibition design.
However, some of the recent re-developments in New Zealand, while often necessary improvements and additions, are often appallingly ill-considered from an art experience, art conservation or heritage perspective. The Auckland Art Gallery redevelopment is an unfortunate example of waffly council brief and show-off architecture combining to ruin a lovely heritage building. This re-development is the work of Sydney-based FJMT and, Auckland-based Archimedial and collides french Neo-classicism and a post-pop jigsaw style with echoes of Te Papa and also Auckland's Queen St imax/Civic Theatre development (we can blame architecture firm JASMAX for both of the latter). Hopefully the AAG will look and work better than images and models show. See here for details of the Auckland developement http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/node/30343
Others, such as the newish Christchurch Art Gallery attempt to create statement buildings, for reasons often including the purposes of promotion of the institution at the cost of exhibition space and unreasonable cost to the gallery/taxpayer (It is often mentioned that the annual cost of cleaning the glass-fronted CCAG is greater than their annual collections acquisition budget!) and all that heat, light and condensation
must affect the exhibition spaces and ultimately, the art.
I was fortunate to attend a very interesting conference convened by Artspace Sydney last weekend. Some sessions addressed what was referred to as the 'neo-liberalisation' of museums and galleries internationally. This blight - suffered by te papa among other NZ institutions — sees institutions increasingly reliant on visitor numbers for viability/funding. (Imagine where Enjoy would be if this was a blanket rule for state/government/CNZ funding!)
Neo-liberalisation, when applied to art institutions, sees the growing of publicity departments and shrinking of curatorial staffing and academic/research investments, as institutions pursue cultural equity in the form of commercial sponsorship and stampeding attendance figures at the cost of audience development, support for new research and presentation of challenging cultural output. It also has the unfortunate side-effect of turning the exhibition and artists into products to be pared down, simplified and sold to a mass public.
A key example of this in evidence during my time in Sydney was the blatant commodification of Yayoi Kusama's work for her survey show at the MCA. Banners everywhere were covered not with Kusama artworks, but spots a bit like her work. The Sydney public was encouraged to 'go dotty over art at the MCA'. I saw a notice at in the entryway advising that a special 'Kusama spotted chocolate brownie' was available during the show from the gallery cafe...eek! Art=symbol=marketable product=cash. Market and audience forces have always been at play but this felt so crass...FYI - the Sydney MCA's Kusama exhibition will feature prominently in the opening program of the re-developed City Gallery Wellington. (The issue of the commercial exploitation of what this exhibition shows to me to be a deranged individual is another issue, however interesting. You can read the wall text/artist statement and make up your own mind about that)
the show is listed here: http://www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=4737
Anyway the Artspace conference was very interesting, and addressed "questions crucial to the future of art institutions and their relationship to contemporary practice in the 21st century, with particular reference to curatorial and artistic strategies in Australia and the Asia-Pacific" ...and discussed the way the principles of institutional critique has been incorporated into institutional practice. Some more info on the conference Spaces of Art here:
http://www.artspace.org.au/public_archive/conference_spacesofart.php
Many speakers also talked of the opposite to this neo-liberalisation, and developing new spaces, centered on projects and context and with artist-centred approaches. Nina Montmann talked about European examples working in this way and I thought of Enjoy, and Artspace Auckland among other local examples.
Getting back to local institutions and their redevelopments... perhaps it is simple, as Billy Apple constantly and vocally claims — artists should be consulted on the specifications of a new art space or a major redevelopment. Don't artists naturally have a professional sensitivity to the needs and also future use of the space, at least equally if not more finely tuned than any architect?
//
the end
attached images:
redeveloped auckland art gallery - artists impression
CCAG glass fronted building
Kusama
Responding to your article Art and Architecture 20 April, I agree that often European institutions seem able to modernize their existing buildings with an overarching respect for the original architecture style of the institution, while updating the interior gallery spaces to the needs of contemporary artists — and in acknowledgment of the current prevalence of the 'white cube style' gallery space as standardized model for exhibition design.
However, some of the recent re-developments in New Zealand, while often necessary improvements and additions, are often appallingly ill-considered from an art experience, art conservation or heritage perspective. The Auckland Art Gallery redevelopment is an unfortunate example of waffly council brief and show-off architecture combining to ruin a lovely heritage building. This re-development is the work of Sydney-based FJMT and, Auckland-based Archimedial and collides french Neo-classicism and a post-pop jigsaw style with echoes of Te Papa and also Auckland's Queen St imax/Civic Theatre development (we can blame architecture firm JASMAX for both of the latter). Hopefully the AAG will look and work better than images and models show. See here for details of the Auckland developement http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/node/30343
Others, such as the newish Christchurch Art Gallery attempt to create statement buildings, for reasons often including the purposes of promotion of the institution at the cost of exhibition space and unreasonable cost to the gallery/taxpayer (It is often mentioned that the annual cost of cleaning the glass-fronted CCAG is greater than their annual collections acquisition budget!) and all that heat, light and condensation
must affect the exhibition spaces and ultimately, the art.
I was fortunate to attend a very interesting conference convened by Artspace Sydney last weekend. Some sessions addressed what was referred to as the 'neo-liberalisation' of museums and galleries internationally. This blight - suffered by te papa among other NZ institutions — sees institutions increasingly reliant on visitor numbers for viability/funding. (Imagine where Enjoy would be if this was a blanket rule for state/government/CNZ funding!)
Neo-liberalisation, when applied to art institutions, sees the growing of publicity departments and shrinking of curatorial staffing and academic/research investments, as institutions pursue cultural equity in the form of commercial sponsorship and stampeding attendance figures at the cost of audience development, support for new research and presentation of challenging cultural output. It also has the unfortunate side-effect of turning the exhibition and artists into products to be pared down, simplified and sold to a mass public.
A key example of this in evidence during my time in Sydney was the blatant commodification of Yayoi Kusama's work for her survey show at the MCA. Banners everywhere were covered not with Kusama artworks, but spots a bit like her work. The Sydney public was encouraged to 'go dotty over art at the MCA'. I saw a notice at in the entryway advising that a special 'Kusama spotted chocolate brownie' was available during the show from the gallery cafe...eek! Art=symbol=marketable product=cash. Market and audience forces have always been at play but this felt so crass...FYI - the Sydney MCA's Kusama exhibition will feature prominently in the opening program of the re-developed City Gallery Wellington. (The issue of the commercial exploitation of what this exhibition shows to me to be a deranged individual is another issue, however interesting. You can read the wall text/artist statement and make up your own mind about that)
the show is listed here: http://www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=4737
Anyway the Artspace conference was very interesting, and addressed "questions crucial to the future of art institutions and their relationship to contemporary practice in the 21st century, with particular reference to curatorial and artistic strategies in Australia and the Asia-Pacific" ...and discussed the way the principles of institutional critique has been incorporated into institutional practice. Some more info on the conference Spaces of Art here:
http://www.artspace.org.au/public_archive/conference_spacesofart.php
Many speakers also talked of the opposite to this neo-liberalisation, and developing new spaces, centered on projects and context and with artist-centred approaches. Nina Montmann talked about European examples working in this way and I thought of Enjoy, and Artspace Auckland among other local examples.
Getting back to local institutions and their redevelopments... perhaps it is simple, as Billy Apple constantly and vocally claims — artists should be consulted on the specifications of a new art space or a major redevelopment. Don't artists naturally have a professional sensitivity to the needs and also future use of the space, at least equally if not more finely tuned than any architect?
//
the end
attached images:
redeveloped auckland art gallery - artists impression
CCAG glass fronted building
Kusama
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