First Foray into the 4th Auckland Triennial - not without a hitch

I guess I am now officially an out of towner, and so, in Auckland briefly last week we decided to take our first bite at the 4th Auckland Triennial. We set off with instructions from an art local to find Shed 6. Not easy - no signage to speak of and a complete nightmare in terms of parking and three point turning out of tight spaces. However, as committed art people we did persevere, but the bigger question is, was it worth it? And I have to say if it wasn’t for a restorative lunch in the cool biker surroundings of Deus Ex Machina at Shed 5, the answer would be No. Saved only by a chicken salad and the work of Richard Bell.

The other work probably suffered from my mood at having had to work so hard to find it. Consequently the only thing big and bold enough to knock me out of it was Bell's work. It packs quite a punch and pokes you in uncomfortable places as he examines racism (in Australia) in ways that made me wince. He is an extremely interesting artist, and these works certainly got to me. I spent a year in Queensland in 2001, searching for like minds to talk art, books or even movies and they were very thin on the ground. So, I turned my energy to contemporary aboriginal art, which unsurprisingly turned out to be a subject not popular with most locals. In that year I began to get an inkling of what lies beneath (and not that far) – what Bell is on about. He jumps whole-heartedly into these murky waters with intent to make the art world and others squirm.

Example - on receiving the 2003 National Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art he collected the prize for his wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words "White girls can't hump". Needless to say it caused way more fuss than his winning work and people have been talking about it ever since. In Scratch an Aussie 2008, one of two works at the Triennial, Bell takes on the role of an aboriginal Freud psychoanalyzing racist white Australians clad in gold bikinis. A lot has been said of his works and I won't do more of that here suffice to say that, to find out more – make the trip.

These work really deserve to be seen by more than just by a few sturdy art folk and I really question the chosen venue for them (and indeed the other poor refugees hanging out at Shed 6). Would a contemporary art film festival or theatre have been a better venue for Bell, with time in the programme for guest commentators to generate discussion? The candidates for this are endless and reach well beyond the art mob. Or even TV, crazy idea I know but that really would be wild.

4th Auckland Triennial

Richard Lewer at the Waikato Museum

Richard Lewer
'I must learn to like myself'
Waikato Museum
Until 15 August 2010

Alison and I had a coffee with Richard just before the show opened and before he jetted off to New York to take up the Wallace Award residency. This exhibition celebrates the work of a Hamiltonian who has gone on to develop a significant reputation both in New Zealand and beyond. His work is intensely personal and auto biographical, bringing up often painful memories of childhood and adolescence in medium sized town, New Zealand. From the huge charcoal wall drawing of his Glenview, Hamilton childhood home, to the pegboard confessions and the partially obscured family portraits, Richard speaks cathartically of who he is and where he has come from. If at all possible make the trip to this show at the Waikato Museum,  you won't be disappointed.

Underwater Collective :

Following their show at Ramp Gallery in Hamilton last year we roped these dynamic and extremely energetic artists into a project with Tamahere Primary School. Where local artists were invited to inspire the students and create works together, it really was a blast.
You can see their collaborative drawings performed live along side visiting American graffiti artist Eric Orr in Sharing Space.
At: Qubic 154 – 160 Broadway, Newmarket, Auckland
March 19, 6pm

Portraits in Auckland

After the success of our Portraits exhibition in Hamilton last year we are taking it to Auckland for a Friday evening and Saturday exhibition. A slightly different premise for a show, in that none of the works are for sale, instead the intention is to introduce the artist’s works and inspire you to commission your own personal portrait by painter Meredith Collins, photographer Mark Smith or sculptor Anton Parsons.

A date for the diary -
Preview : Friday 23 April and Saturday 24 April
To be hosted in a private home in St Mary’s Bay, Auckland.

Recent Visits to Australian Galleries

National Gallery of Australia
New Gallery space does Ned Kelly paintings proud:

The new gallery space, recently completed for the permanent display of Sidney Nolan’s famous Ned Kelly paintings is a triumph. They have created a wonderful place to immerse yourself in these powerful, iconic and truly Australian paintings. On my recent visit to the NGA I ended up skipping the blockbuster show of heavy weights such as Cezanne and Van Gogh, and opted instead for the modern and contemporary collections (a decision driven partly by the length of the queue that snaked across the vast foyer and out the front door). Since I only had a precious three hours (sans kids) to look at art, I certainly wasn’t going to waste it standing in line. This turned out to be a great decision as I revisited some truly wonderful works in the collection, in galleries so quiet they really were like temples. There were many standouts - like just how great Jackson Pollock really is and how his painting Blue Poles manages to look better and better every time you see it. However, the highlight was probably seeing Nolan’s Ned Kelly series in their new home. The semi circular gallery provides a great rhythm and pace to experience the story of these paintings.

Nolan first exhibited his Ned Kelly series in Melbourne in 1948. As an artist he was captivated by the story of the Ned Kelly Gang of outlaws in the Australian bush. Inspired by Kelly’s own words and his blend of poetry and political engagement he was drawn to the overarching notion of the power of a person's actions to incite change. Technically they are raw and rather brutal, using simple brightly coloured enamel house paint, and drawn from his admiration of the 19th Century artist Henri Rousseau. Nolan himself describes the works as more than a simple narrative, rather it is a story bound to the landscape. “A story that began in the bush and ended in the bush”  So, if for any reason what so ever, you find yourself in Canberra make sure you drop into the National Gallery of Australia to see this masterful display of iconic Australian paintings.



Liyen Chong:

While exploring the Modern and Contemporary collection exhibitions at the National Gallery of Australia I was interested to see they had included four New Zealand artists. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for these inclusions, the labels did state the artists were from New Zealand, but otherwise they were nestled among the Australia story of contemporary art with no further explanation. There was a work by Colin McCahon (not surprising) Gordon Walers (ditto) and among the living, a big bold and beautiful Shane Cotton painting that surely confirmed his standing as one of our greatest painters today. More curious and intriguing however was the small and highly refined work by Liyen Chong, a skeleton embroidered in her own hair. It is amazing for such a young artist to be included in such a prestigious and very grown up collection, but there she was. Following the NGA I was also able to see Liyen’s latest works in Sydney at Martin Browne Gallery where she was showing in Strangelands with two Australian artists. Her work for this was even more extraordinary and I’m guessing it won't be long before those Australians are claiming her as their own. See the Liyen Chong works that we presented on our exhibition page of our web site http://www.katealison.co.nz/




Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney Until April 11 2010

On a recent trip to Sydney, Alison and her two sons aged twelve and seventeen happened upon this quirky installation 'War and Peace and In Between' by Tatzu Nishi as part of the 19th Kaldor Public Art Project. Nishi's project takes two well-known public sculptures, which sit on either side of the Art Gallery’s entrance, and rescues them from the invisibility that over familiarity can bring. The public can enter two elevated rooms via a ramp from the steps of the gallery, finding themselves in a living room on one side and a bedroom on the other. Everything seems completely normal except that parts of a giant bronze horse and rider are wedged into the coffee table in the living room or that wade through the disheveled bed.