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Old Media House – Te Whare Ao Pāpāho

3Sep

Detail of one of the ‘prepared’ books. Here Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is given a Christo like wrap.

#oldmediahouse oldmediahouse more to come before 1 December 2024.

Old Media House oldmediahouse

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Auckland show – Islam in dialogue – NorthArt, closes 31 May 2020

22May

Ko rātou, ko tātou | On Other-ness, on us-ness
NorthArt, Northcote, Auckland, Aotearoa | New Zealand

curated by Salama Moata McNamara + Sonja van Kerkhoff

Open now until 31 May 2020
Artists will be at the gallery 12-3pm,
Sat., Sun., and Monday, 12-3, 23-25th May

Left to Right: Wave, custom-made water tank by Jeff Thomson
Vitruvian Angel Man with Spirit Level by Ursula Christel. Courtesy the artist and Mokopōpaki
Pilgrimage to Mecca by Gavin Chilcott.
From the Eros and Psyche series (111) by Joanna Margaret Paul
Two untitled corrugated iron sculptures by Jeff Thomson
(foreground) New Space / Takawaenga (2020) re-purposed wooden table (dia. 118cm), 4 table legs (H: 46cm), vinyl flooring, 3mm acrylic sheets (83 x 83cm), glass chess board (38 x 38cm), ceramic tile (20 x 20cm), composite board (dia. 65cm), jute, LED lights by Ursula Christel.
New Space / Takawaenga is a conceptual assemblage inspired by geometry and the floor plan of the Dome of the Rock. It refers also to a quote by George Dei (2006) – “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists; it is making a new space, a better space for everyone.”
Takawaenga is a process. – Ursula Christel, 2020

Left to Right: Wave (detail), custom-made water tank by Jeff Thomson
Vitruvian Angel Man with Spirit Level (2018) by Ursula Christel. Courtesy the artist and Mokopōpaki Acrylic, gesso, printed perspex, metal lugs, pencil, sealant on board (99 x 61cm), plastic spirit level
(6 x 61cm). Gavin Chilcott Pilgrimage to Mecca Framed pastel on paper.
Arabic text above reads: “first house (avvala baytin)” A4 text below this begins with:
“Indeed, the first House [of worship] established for humanity was that at Makkah
– blessed and a guidance for the worlds”. The Qur’an, 3:96

This is one of 5 texts in Arabic arranged around the first gallery.
More about these texts and the works in the next blog.

still: “Haykal Al Noor” (Bodies of Light), site specific video installation by Narjis Mirza
with the soundscape, “Pamor” by Jessika Kenney
in this short video on youtube which also shows these works:
“Light District,” framed canvas, LED lighting, by John Mulholland;
“Halg” (Throat) video from the series Sokout/Silence, by Azadeh Emadi;
“Ka aroha” (Love), gouache and ink on paper,
by Salama McNamara & Emma Paton;
“Auckland Flowers 15/03/2019,” dried flowers, soil, compost, brown paper, by Java Bentley;
“Love is Blind,” embossed braille on paper,
by Tash Nikora;
“Fabric of Humanity” cast glass with impressions of a hijab pattern based on the hijab worn by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2019 by Layla Walter;
“Fifty-one” an installation incorporating an assemblage of painted stacked cards and texts from Rumi by Michelle Mayn.

artists
Adibah Saad, Wellington
Azadeh Emadi, Iran / Auckland / Glasgow, Scotland
Brenda Liddiard, Auckland,
Carolyn Lye, Karetu, The Far North,
Christina Wirihana, Bay of Plenty
Emma Paton, Auckland
Fiona Lee Graham, Auckland
Gavin Chilcott, Wellington
Java Bentley, Auckland
Jeff Thomson, Helensville
Jessika Kenney, Los Angeles, U.S.
Joanna Margaret Paul, Whanganui
John Mulholland, Warkworth
Layla Walter, Auckland
Lipika Sen, Auckland
Michelle Mayn, Auckland,
Narjis Mirza, Sydney, Australia
Phil Dadson, Auckland,
Tash Nikora, Whangārei
Salama Moata McNamara, Auckland
Sen McGlinn, Kawakawa
Sonja van Kerkhoff, Kawakawa | The Hague, The Netherlands
Tash Nikora, Whangārei
Ursula Christel (Mokopōpaki), Warkworth

Some photos of the exhibition are here: artsdiary.co.nz

Re:configuring @ The Shutter Room, Whangarei

14Apr

Detail of Re:configuring by Sarah Kippenberger and Chris Schreuder

“Re:configuring” by Whangārei-based artists, Sarah Kippenberger and Chris Schreuder in the artist run The Shutter Room gallery and studio space, makes the aesthetic experience mutable and participatory.

Detail of over 80 images on one of the walls.



You are instructed to choose an image and then to find it peeping out of one of the orfices of the stacks of 80 or more banana boxes in the gallery space.

Detail in the Shutter Room gallery, Whangārei

The title of the show refers to the continually changing configurations created by the visitors. While the photographic images by the artists showing snippits of their lives are framed to be looked at, pondered over or recognized, the frames obscure more than they reveal and the installation of nooks and crannies and towers is not only random but temporary.

Detail in the Shutter Room gallery, Whangārei

By removing both frame and label this project blurs authorship which often in the art world is an important part of the artwork’s value or reception. Visitors place and re-position the boxes and so affect the way the images or the boxes are read by the participants themselves as well as later visitor-participants. Not only the medium is blurred (installation, performance or an opportunity to rearrange) but also the usual separation between the art object and the gallery visitor. The risk is that the next visitor, expecting their art gallery experience to be about reading a static arrangement, sees nothing resembling ‘art.’ But like many social practice art projects which blur the borders between life and art, a clear context – here in the form of instructions to find the image – helps the viewer to step inside the magic circle and once engaged in the game there’s space for contemplation.

The banana box itself is a migrant entering the country on the back of trade as well as being the ubiquitous storage system. But I am being too serious, because this exhibition oozes with joy and lightheartedness. The images are light or delicate with not a trace of angst and none of the boxes are overly battered. There is an out of the box sense of exploration and play that blurs the lines of “object making, performance, political activism, community organizing, environmentalism and investigative journalism, creating a deeply participatory art” [1] experience. In another sense the box functions as an enabler of alterity (to reference Spivak whose 1997 Documenta lecture made a huge impact on me), a way of exhibiting the photographic in a divergent space – from the inside of the migrant banana box, with whatever baggage it might have that distinguishes it from a gallery wall.

Footnote: Outside the Citadel, Social Practice Art Is Intended to Nurture, New York Times, 2013

“Reconfiguring” by Sarah Kippenberger and Chris Schreuder,
29 March – 27 April 2019,
The Shutter Room, 9 Rust Avenue, Whangārei
Opposite the public library main door
Wed – Fri 12-4pm, Sat 10-2pm
The Shutter Room Facebook page