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Contemporary Australia: Women at GOMA

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Contemporary Australia: Women

Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland
21 April - 22 July 2012
www.qag.qld.gov.au

Queensland Government Arts Minister Rachel Nolan has announced the 33 artists and collectives to be featured in Contemporary Australia: Women, an exhibition opening at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) on April 21. The exhibition will present new and recent work by emerging, established and senior Indigenous and non-Indigenous female artists from across Australia, including several major new commissions and a series of performative works by groups of younger generation artists.

The line up includes a number of artists represented in the Chartwell Collection - Gabriella and Silvana Mangano, Rose Nolan, Sally Smart, and Louise Weaver. For more details and a full list of artists, visit the GOMA website.

Image: Rose Nolan | Tunnel/Tent Work - HARD BUT FAIR/POINT LESS, 2009 | Acrylic paint, hessian and cotton thread 2484 x 270 x 100cm Image courtesy: The artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

2011 Jane Scally Artist Award

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Laresa Kosloff who has been announced the 2011 recipient of the Jane Scally Art Award.

"The Jane Scally Award will enable me to realise a project in Russia and Scotland that directly engages with the contexts and ideas that have shaped my practice over the years. This is a terrific opportunity and I look forward to the anticipated and unknown outcomes that it will bring."
Laresa Kosloff

Visit the ACCA website for further details on the award, including past recipients.

Image: Laresa Kosloff, Agility Drill, 2011, single channel high definition video on disc

2011 Chartwell Trust Student Art Writing Prize

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:00:00 GMT

The Chartwell Trust Student Art Writing Prize of $500 is awarded annually for a review or essay addressing an exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery or a work from the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection. The prize is open to all Victoria University students studying Art History, Classics, Religious Studies, Museum and Heritage Studies, English, Film, Theatre, and Media Studies. It is administered by the Adam Art Gallery, VUW, Wellington, New Zealand.

This year's prize was awarded to Sharon Taylor-Offord - below is her winning entry.

High on a green grassy knoll overlooking the city of Wellington stands a close grouping of three interconnected ceramic pillars. From whose hand did these come? What do they represent? People sit beside them. Some may even use them as a back-rest whilst soaking up the suns rays and daydreaming between classes at the university which houses them. Perhaps they were commissioned to illustrate the buildings which surrounded them in their previous position in the quad. Their appearance is reminiscent of the work of the pioneering studio potters working in this country in the mid twentieth century; Mirek Smisek, Roy Cowan, Barry Brickell, Len Castle, Doreen Blumhardt. Their glazes reflect the sky and the earth, and their smooth surfaces ask to be touched. These glazed ceramic forms hold close together for support and comfort, a small family of three.

The work was indeed commissioned, to mark the opening of four new university buildings, and was unveiled in 1979 in the Rankine Brown courtyard. The maker was George Kojis. Not a native New Zealander but an American, who studied ceramics at Temple University in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1976 he became a lecturer in art at Wellington Teacher’s College, and also taught pottery, design and ceramics at Wellington Polytechnic School of Design, and at Victoria University. He later relocated to Whanganui where he taught ceramics at Wanganui Polytech for 25 years before retiring to Turangi to indulge his love of fishing.

So, not a mid-century local potter, but a later import. Why, then, does this sculpture speak to me of Roy Cowan and his New Zealand contemporaries? Are there only a finite number of ways to create a ceramic sculptural form? Is there to be a universality to the work because of the constraints of method of creation, of what can be done with a potters wheel and some clay, a hot fire and slip? We need to dig deeper.

In 1970s New Zealand concerns included falling trade with our major traditional market of Britain due to its inclusion in the EEC, the ongoing energy and oil supply crisis, the Vietnam War, and the stirrings of the Think Big policy. Reassurance could be found via a return to the slow paced craft traditions, in much the same way that the followers of the Arts and Crafts movement of William Morris had found reassurance in the handmade in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. Artists have an inclination to return to the primitive forms of art-making in times of social and emotional stress. Comfort was to be found in the intimate contact with clay and water. The trend toward studio pottery and ceramics was widespread during the 1970s and developed from domesticware to encompass the sculptural as the decade progressed.

In 1978 an estimated 2000 potters were working full-time at their craft in Zealand with another 3000 earning at least a part of their income from potting. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins puts it that studio pottery in New Zealand was reaching a frenzied peak of popularity.¹ The sculptural possibilities of clay in large format was being explored by local potter Barry Brickell who was basing works on trains and the female form. This heralded an opening up of the manner in which fired clay could be regarded. Developments in the American Abstract Expressionist ceramic movement were disseminated here amongst the pottery community and collectors. Peter Voulkos, leader of the Californian Otis Art group in the 1960s, made sculptures famous for their visual weight, their freely-formed construction, and their aggressive and energetic decoration. Works with gouged surfaces, finished with painted brushstrokes.² His work was included in the 1966 exhibition Abstract Expressionist Ceramics. George Kojis’ must have been aware of such freely composed ceramic pieces and his arrival here in the mid 1970s would have assisted in the sharing of information and techniques. Certainly his work contains elements commensurate with the ceramics of his homeland at this time.

If we look at this un-named work from the university collection we can see differences from his New Zealand counterparts. His glazes are more colourful. Gone is the reliance upon muted earth-tones. We have the blue of the sky, the green of the hills surrounding Wellington, and the ochrey yellows and browns which underlie them. The painterly strokes of deep carmine red further enliven the colour palette. The surfaces are not all smooth. They are lively with incisions, grooves, grids. Circular patterns emerge, and vaguely floral forms. There is a feeling of movement as lines curve about the pieces and intersect. Their image alters with the play of light during daylight hours, and their shadows fall to spread out along the base which echoes their forms.

In the best tradition of abstract art we are free to make our own personal associations. The viewer may look to the ancient headstones below and imagine a correlation, or to the movement of our notorious wind in the flaxes beyond as clouds scud across the sky above creating shadow play. In their original site they were within sight of Fred Grahams commissioned kauri and totara carving Tane and Tupai, 1975 (Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington Collection) sited in the library foyer. Tane is holding up the sky to let the light in while holding the three baskets of knowledge in the form of a diploma-like scroll.³ Considered together these works give us both the buildings which house the learning process and the end result.

Prior to the arrival of the European in New Zealand there had been no Maori work in clay. The new settlers quickly discovered the abundance of clay deposits which they utilised initially to make bricks and drainpipes, later expanding to an abundance of domestic ware. Export tariffs in later years encouraged continuation of this industry. By 1978 some New Zealand potters had been working to break free of the constraints of their Anglo-Oriental influences to make work with a local flavour and identity personified within it. Barry Brickells Untitled, n.d. (Manchester Collection) is very similar in construction to piece just inside the doors to the William J. Scott Education library at the Teachers’ College where Kojis worked.⁴ Roy Cowan and Juliet Peter are photographed by Marti Freidlander for the New Vision potters calendar of 1967 with one of Roy’s large lantern pots (Wellington, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa). Whilst these works are in pot format still they are not on a domestic scale, or able to be used in any manner apart from the decorative.

George Kojis has described his work as a search for the indigenous vessel-one that incorporates both cultural and traditional influences.⁵ He has created forms particular to the place of their making. The substance of their being is the soil upon which they stand. Kojis’ three 1.5 metre tall forms are purely sculptural, exemplifying the progression of this genre. The use of more organic forms, and of local minerals to glaze allowed a ‘signature of place’ to be translated into strongly textured stoneware with muted tones, with renderings of landscape as form or surface.⁶ The wandering lines of Kojis’ obelisks may evoke the fault lines beneath. Kojis blends his American influences with those of his new home, and the potters with whom he would have been in proximity via his teaching roles.

These roles must have led to his choice as commissioned artist. The university now wished to add elements other than the painted canvas to its collection. The purchase committee decreed that funds be set aside from the building budget to commission substantial works of art. This was the only work resulting from that policy.⁷ Christina Barton writes that Victoria’s art collection fulfills the ambitions of the university to add a visual dimension to the cultural life of the campus, and that works such as these were chosen not only in terms of their artistic merit, but also with an eye to withstanding the testing conditions of a student environment.⁸ The chip on one corner and the residue of a sticker on this ceramic suggest close encounters with the student body. Although it has not proven to be from the hand of one of our well known studio potters it is a valued collection item, familiar to many because of its outdoor locales. Originally it stood quietly in a corner of the quad by a stair, and blended into its surroundings. It now stands as sentinel, providing a visual link between the towers of learning beyond and those of commerce below.

References
1. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design, Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2004, p.243-244.
2. ‘Otis and its influences' by Garth Clark, www.karaartservers.ch/collections/fred.marer/clark-gb.html; and http:/Wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Voulkos, accessed 4 November 2011.
3. William McAloon (ed), Victoria’s Art: A University Collection, Wellington: Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, 2005, p58.
4. This piece is not referenced in the Collection PDF.
5. http://www.digitalnzgeoparse.tripodtravel.co.nz. OpenCalais-person-George Kojis, accessed 21 October 2011.
6. Moyra Elliott and Damien Skinner (eds), Cone Ten Down: Studio pottery in New Zealand, 1945-1980, Auckland: David Bateman, 2009, p.133.
7. McAloon, 2005, p.21.
8. Mcaloon, 2005, p.93.

Bibliography
Barrowman, Rachel, ‘The Creative Edge, 1999, http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly, accessed 21 October 2011.
Christchurch Art Gallery Collection, ‘Otamatea Platform Series’, http://www.digitalnzgeoparser.tripodtravel.co.nz/pencalais/person/george-kojis, accessed 21 October 2011.
Clark, Garth, 'Otis and its influences’, http://www.karaartservers.ch/collections/fred.marer/clark-gb.html, accessed 6 November 2011.
Elliott, Moyra and Damien Skinner (eds),Cone Ten Down: Studio pottery in New Zealand, 1945-1980, Auckland: David Bateman, 2009.
Henry, Gail, New Zealand Pottery Commercial and Collectable, Auckland: Reed Books, 1985, 1999 edition.
http://www.adamartgallery.org.nz/collection/inventory, accessed 21 October 2011, 6 November 2011.
Lloyd Jenkins, Douglas, At Home A century of New Zealand Design, Auckland: Random House, 2004.
McAloon, William (ed), Victoria’s Art: A University Collection, Wellington: Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, 2005.
'Peter Voulkos', http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Voulkos, accessed 6 November 2011.
Smith, Judy, ‘Creative Clay Group, Taupo’, http://www.nzpotters.com, accessed 21 October 2011.

Sharon Taylor-Offord returned to study in 2009 and has just completed her third year studying art history at Victoria University. She chose to write about the George Kojis ceramic work for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s new and more prominent position out in the open above the city seemed noteworthy. Large scale ceramics interest Sharon because of the collaboration that is involved in their making. Kiln firings of such works as the Kojis became events, often attended by noted potters such as Barry Brickell, Roy Cowan and Juliet Peter. She felt that the parameters of the writing brief offered a chance to explore this artwork in depth. As she says: “The opportunity to structure research of a more personal nature appealed to me, as did the chance to write an essay in which I could set my own questions to answer. That little resource material was available added to the fun. That the essay was successful in winning the prize was completely beyond my expectations. I am very grateful to the judges for their kind words, and for the prize, and I am very pleased that this lovely triptych of clay forms may now merit more than a perfunctory glance from passersby”.

Paul Cullen publication r/p/m + Senior Fullbright Award

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Paul Cullen who has been selected for one of the 2012 Senior Fullbright Awards.

Paul will be based in the Architecture Department at Auburn University in Alabama where he will work with landscape architects to develop a site-based outdoor sculpture project. In parallel with this he will be researching experimental site-based art projects in various locations around the US including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Marfa. He will return to NZ via Germany for Documenta 13 and to carry out further research in Munich and Berlin.

Jane Sander Art Agent Newsletter >

Photos: Asumi Mizuo. Courtesy of S/F.

Auckland project space and bookshop split/fountain also launched his new book, r/p/m, last night. r/p/m includes essays from Richard Dale, Melissa Laing, Tessa Laird, and Ruth Watson.

"In a time when there are plenty of attempts to highlight the ‘uniqueness’ of the book as an endangered object – to play-up its arty capabilities – to foster home-groups for the crafty book arts (which are not without their charms for anthropologists of the present) – here is a publication project which knows how to place the idea of the book-object precisely within the materialities of print history, while also letting it float on the currents and eddies of digital waterways. Shadowed by the virtual, and flecked by drifting data, r/p/m Paul Cullen enacts the knowledge that printed matter is all about organizational specifics, and particularities of effect. It relativizes the shuffle of text and image between the formats of magazine, catalogue, book, inventory, dossier. Propelled as it is by hypotheses, models, tests, charts, cross-sections, circulation systems, and theatres of scientific research, Paul Cullen’s art is well served by this publication, which dissects the book as object and distributional event through its adoption of the exposed spine and interchangeable, differently coloured, gatefold covers." (Allan Smith)

See the split/fountain website for further details.

View Paul Cullen's works in the Chartwell Collection >

Thumbnail image: Paul Cullen, r/p/m, published by split/fountain, photographed by Asumi Mizuo. Courtesy of S/F.

Michael Parekowhai shortlisted for Asia Pacific Triennial 7 public sculpture

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Update: We're happy to report that Michael Parekowhai's proposed sculpture, The World Turns, was awarded Premier of Queensland's Sculpture Commission. You can read more details about the work and the commission on Creative New Zealand's NZ At Venice blog.

Following his success in Venice, Michael Parekowhai has been selected as one of three artists shortlisted to create a $1 million public sculpture in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7). Parekowhai was nominated alongside Huang Yong Ping and Rirkrit Tirevanija, with the winner to be announced in November. The winning sculpture will be unveiled on the banks of the Brisbane River at GoMa's eastern corner in December 2012.

Visit the Queensland Art Gallery's APT webpage to read more about Triennial, and the news story here for more information about the public sculpture project. You can also view Michael Parekowhai's works in the Chartwell Collection.

Thumbnail image: Michael Parekowhai, They Comfort Me, 1992, enamel paint on wood

2011 Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Video: Slide show of works in the Chartwell Collection

Chartwell would like to thank the Arts Foundation for awarding us the 2011 Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage.

"Chartwell is delighted to receive an Award for Patronage from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which is doing so much to raise awareness of the value of private charitable support for the arts in this country. Through such agency new possibilities for the human imagination, grounded in thinking via all the senses becomes possible, along with expectations of expanding support from Central and Local Government. In this way, our New Zealand cultural life will be enriched, resulting in expanded pride and understandings of ourselves and others."
Rob Gardiner

From The Arts Foundation:
The Trust was awarded this honour for its extraordinary commitment to the visual arts. The sixth annual recipient of this prestigious Award, the Chartwell Trust joins previously honoured philanthropists Denis and Verna Adam, Dame Jenny Gibbs, Roderick and Gillian Deane, Adrienne, Lady Stewart and Gus and Irene Fisher.

Robert Gardiner ONZM established the Chartwell Trust in Hamilton in the 1970s to assist the visual arts in New Zealand. Forty years later, the Chartwell Trust has provided substantial funding to galleries, projects and visual artists. Chartwell has also established one of the most important collections of New Zealand and Australian art in New Zealand.

Robert Gardiner said "I believe in the power of the visual arts to deepen our life experiences and to enrich and inspire us. I am pleased to be able to help connect New Zealanders with the benefits the visual arts can bring to our lives".

"The Chartwell Trust's impact on the New Zealand art world is profound" said Arts Foundation Chair, Fran Rickets. "The Trust's philanthropy is strategically implemented so that the arts can flourish under their own momentum with the only 'interference' being 'inspiration'. The Chartwell Trust's philanthropy is world class."

To celebrate the Award, the Arts Foundation gave the Chartwell Trust $20,000 to donate to artists or arts projects of their choosing. As with previous recipients, the Chartwell Trust doubled the amount for distribution with $20,000 of their own and announced that they would make four donations of $10,000 each.

The donation recipients are:

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki - for the inaugural project commissions on the Edmiston Sculpture Terrace; The University of Auckland - to support a new programme that promotes a deeper understanding of the arts and their role in creative thinking; Christchurch Art Gallery - for outreach activities that take art out into the community in the wake of the 2011 earthquakes; and artist Fiona Connor - towards production costs for New Zealand exhibition projects in 2012, with a particular focus on her Dunedin Public Art Gallery Residency Exhibition.

The Award for Patronage ceremony was held at the recently re-opened Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The event also celebrated the establishment of the Chartwell Gallery on the fourth floor of the Auckland Art Gallery.

"The Award for Patronage provides an opportunity to highlight the importance of philanthropic support for the arts through the celebration of philanthropists who have made a significant impact on the arts", said Fran Ricketts. "It is also an occasion to acknowledge donors that give at all levels and to further inspire people to give to the arts."

Visit the Arts Foundation's website for further information >

Christchurch Art Gallery blog post >

Otago Daily Times clipping - $10,000 for Dunedin project (PDF) >

Chartwell + Clinton Watkins art download project

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:00:00 GMT

The video work by Clinton Watkins presented by Chartwell in conjunction with the artist and Starkwhite for Auckland Art Fair is now available to download free directly from our website. The video is an M4V format and is compressed as a .zip file.

Click here to download video (4MB) >

Since 1994 Clinton Watkins has produced artwork that investigates affects that combinations of sonic and visual information can have on an audience. The key conceptual issues of his work are drawn from an interest in constructing immersive experiences through the use of sound, colour and scale of installation incorporating video projection, television monitors and custom-made audio and video hardware. The visual and sound base of his work focuses on the characteristics, structures, phenomena, and processing of sonic and visual material through the exploration of repetition, distortion, colour, duration and form via a minimalist sensibility.

Reason and Rhyme at ST PAUL St

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Reason and Rhyme

ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland
30 September - 28 October
www.stpaulst.aut.ac.nz

Chartwell are proud to support Reason and Rhyme, a two part collaborative trans-Tasman exchange project between ST PAUL St Gallery and Gertrude Contemporary. New Zealand artists included in the project are Julian Daspher, Richard Frater, Maddie Leach, Simon Morris, Campbell Patterson, with the Australian artists Damiano Bertoli, Starlie Geikie, Hanna Tai, Mimi Tong and Jake Walker.

The exhibition at ST PAUL St Gallery opens on September 29 and runs until October 28. It will be an evolution of the earlier exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary, and will see the launch of a catalogue with documentation of the exhibition, artist pages and other reference material, and commissioned essays.

Images: Reason and Rhyme, 18.03.11 – 16.04.11, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia

"Bringing together ten leading contemporary artists from Australia and New Zealand Reason and Rhyme investigates the urge to structure and channel creative production through systems, grids and frameworks.

The artists in Reason and Rhyme are connected through their use of manifestos, seriality, diagrams and systems, with the exhibition exploring the points where creativity tangles with these parameters, coursing along the edges of grids, and submitting to the regimens of form and the statutes of regulated patterns.

The exhibition will explore the urge to locate oneself within the map or the doctrine, and to impose rules and structures across creative practice. It will investigate how these systematic devices both contain and channel creative enterprise, as well as plotting and contextualising it. Reason and Rhyme investigates how these parameters offer something from which to push up against - a structure to rebel from – when there is nothing left to rebel against.

Through applying ‘objective’ systems over creative processes each of the artists in Reason and Rhyme distinguishes, articulates or uncovers their content. Whether this pull towards systems and frameworks is a by-product of the reduced status of the object in contemporary art, or a result of the general tendency towards deconstruction within creative practice, each of these artists enlists a rigidity to give form to their ideas."
Gertrude Contemporary - Reason and Rhyme >

Amy's Column 04 - Interior designing the gallery: light and shadow, wall texture, and chandeliers in Los Angeles

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Theatre Objects
The joy of the much talked about and repeatedly reviewed William Leavitt retrospective Theatre Objects, which recently ended at MOCA – was a brazen simplicity coupled with a deep sense of strangeness. Leavitt’s work investigates the alien in the everyday by contemplating the objects, narratives and images that are endlessly rearranged in order to construct the idea of ‘everyday’.

The specific everyday which has been the subject of Leavitt’s consideration, over a career spanning from the late 1960s to the present is Los Angeles. Los Angeles inside and out – his works depict scenes set in the domestic spaces of the city as well as its vast exterior spaces and the fantasy architecture that punctuates the sprawl. Examples of living rooms and private social settings are seen next to depictions of wacky monumental landmarks such as the UFO inspired restaurant at LAX.

Leavitt is most expert when dealing with the zones that border these two sets of spaces. The patios on which private lives open out to fresh air, or views of the facades of modernist houses, with the drama inside hidden by glare as the sun reflects off large picture windows. A further category of spaces explored by Leavitt are those that might be taken as domestic given their content – chairs, curtains, lamps, veneered surfaces – yet have had any real privateness deleted from them through the catalogue-esqe manner in which they are rendered. The settings become ‘types’ rather than individualised places. The private realm of the mid-century Californian living room is show to be deeply impersonal, a space constructed in the commercial realm through the promotion of certain stylistic trends over others.

This retrospective exhibition presents work in a broad range of media, charcoal and pastel drawings, photographic montages with text panels, paintings and sculptural set-like installations. Many of the installations have paintings enveloped within them such as Planetarium Projector 1987, a work which epitomizes Leavitt’s approach –combining set-like elements around an image he has produced himself.

The painting in Planetarium Projector depicts the projector, a complicated piece of equipment with a mass of metal parts transplanted from the planetarium and layered, collage-like, in front of a scrubby desert scene where dusk is descending and streaking layers of red cloud give way to a sky pierced with stars. This setting is the type of place one might imagine the real night sky residing, while viewing a simulation of such a sky from inside a planetarum. In the painting, the desert landscape can only be seen by actively looking past the projector. The purpose of this mechanism is to illustrate a mapped version of a natural phenomenon. The logic required to view the painting therefore mirrors the logic of viewing in a planetarium where the mechanics that are used to produce the viewing content must be actively overlooked, despite their prominence in order for the representation to be successful.

This painting hangs on a wall which is painted sandy beige. The colour defines the area of the installation with the edges ending in expressionistic rolls. Also within this space sits a fake tree, a section of protruding wall on which a narrow curtain hangs, a small silver lamp sitting on the floor casting shadows on to the painted portion of wall, and a small pile of sand which is positioned as though it could have trickled out of the painted desert and onto the gallery floor.

The logic of the installation – a tracing of the construction of theatrics followed by an enjoyment in engaging with a theatrical space – is seen again in the edges of the Planetarium Projector installation. The domestic realm is differentiated from the rest of the gallery’s white walls through a subtle colour zoning. It is at the paint’s rolled edges where the illusion of a separate space dissipates, and it is here that a further layering occurs. Due to the light projected from the small silver lamp, the shadows of a fake tree fall on a fake domestic wall. The objects are fake, but the shadows are real. Leavitt invites the viewer to enter into the narrative of the space and to fully imagine scenarios of what might occur there, while continuing to understand that the space is an illusion.

In the Night Gallery
Most things look good in the Night Gallery. Whether I like the work or not, each iteration of what is shown there, by virtue of being pulled out from the space’s black textured walls by bright spot lighting, seems purposeful and precise. This look, coupled with the initial conceit behind the space – a gallery that is open from 10pm until 2am, and situated next to a late night taco stand – continues, a few dozen shows down the track, to be an engaging alternative to other white cube art spaces. The Night Gallery’s walls are textured with plastered stucco or maybe sprayed concrete, always painted black. The interior brings to mind other sites that art inhabits beyond the white cube – the repurposed industrial space or shop front, the screening room or the cinema.

The swing of day/night – black/white is extended in the recent group show Los Angeles – Switzerland, in which the various works together suggest a sense that the entire galley has had its axis slightly tilted. Tire marks, which are usually only spotted beneath the feet, appear on wall-hung canvases, while a floor slab curves up the wall, rough grey concrete leaning on a rough black.

Leavitt’s concerns with what a stage set might mean in a city full of sound stages and studios seems relevant, especially to the show’s title work, a video piece by Walter Benjamin Smith in which Hollywood celebrity and general Friend of the Arts James Franco stands in front of a blank backdrop reciting a monologue. Franco delivers the part theoretical, part whimsical text in a zonked out manner, oscillating between relaxing and overacting with the flickering eyes of a villain. He frequently nods forward wearing an ‘I’m about to kill you’ grin.

Franco’s delivery, while seeming to withhold any straightforward understanding of the text, conjures up a general feel of captivating theatrics as he asserts that “Recuperation is not to be confused with sustainability”, or when he speaks of the “absorption of a rich variety of trauma” while the viewer stares at his cheek slashed with a fake scar rendered in what looks like lipstick.

In a scene I find strangely memorable from the original Wall Street film (1987), the blonde love interest, a budding interior designer, introduces a layer of ‘hipness’ to a stock broker’s sterile apartment by hanging ‘brick’ wall paper with fake texture in order to bring loft living taste to Downtown. From such an episode it is possible to note that redefining the texture of walls has long been a tactic by which to signal how the parameters of a space can assert to a broader culture how the inhabitants of that space wish to act, or the manner in which they wish their artistic gestures to be read.

Batman: Digital Justice, 2011, Tobias Madison, installation view, The Vanity, Los Angeles

Vanity Box
Walls are also at the centre of the gallery’s character in the new space The Vanity - a space so small that once the door has closed behind you, those with a claustrophobic tendency will feel the walls are closing in. The real life version of the theatrical stage set is the domestic space which has been highly choreographed through interior design, and Tobias Madison’s Batman Digital Justice is a show that blends the hyperbolic tone of the superhero with interior design touches.

Batman Digital Justice is concerned with what was once a new breed of super hero style, the first Batman comic to be computer generated in 1990. Hanging in the center of the room, and taking up almost all of the small space is a home-made chandelier constructed out of different colored bulbs, candy striped twine, planes of plastic, and collaged panels from the Batman comic. The slap dash aesthetic of the construction recalls a style of decoration seen in a child’s tree hut. The space has a general sense of a juvenile wonderland, perhaps the type of place an eight year old might sneak into in order to be able to read their Batman Digital Justice comic over and over again.

As well as the chandelier and posters for Batman Digital Justice which have been plastered directly on to the wall, the small space is filled by thick Swiss accents coming from an audio soundtrack on which the text of the comic is read out in its entirety by a cast of the artist’s friends. The release of Batman Digital Justice marked a cultural turning point where comic books were increasingly passed over for video games with their heightened interactive quality. Seeing the printed-out comic panels while listening to the amateur audio captures the clunky beginnings of this trajectory.

William Leavitt’s strategy of repurposing the melodrama of Hollywood to represent isolated examples of celebritised domestic space in set pieces that can be installed inside the institution can be seen as an interesting precursor to the current trend in Los Angeles exhibition staging –where places of late night gatherings and domestic settings, traditional sites for narrative drama, have become the starting points for exhibition spaces. The walls of The Night Gallery and The Vanity are more charters than props.

Amy Howden-Chapman is an artist and writer born in 1984 in Wellington, New Zealand. She has exhibited widely in Australasia, Europe and the United Stated, and her writing has appeared in publications including, Landfall, Sport, and Natural Selection. In 2011 she graduated from California Institute of the Arts with a Master in Fine Arts. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Auckland Art Gallery Opening

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Chartwell proudly invites you all to come up to level 2 at the newly opened Auckland Art Gallery, to visit the Chartwell Gallery and see the project installations by Peter Robinson, Dane Mitchell and artist collective et al. There are Chartwell works featured throughout the galleries on all levels so enjoy the adventure in art. The opening ceremonies were moving and it was wonderful to see such a huge crowd turn out for the first public day.

I Spy NZ Art

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Chartwell is happy to announce the upcoming release of I Spy NZ Art, to be published by the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki on occasion of the opening of the new gallery on September 3. The book features works from the Chartwell Collection, and was written by Hanna Scott and Julia Waite with Rob Gardiner, Sue Gardiner, Caroline McBride and Christa Napier-Roberston.

"I Spy NZ Art matches works by 26 artists to the letters of the alphabet to create New Zealand’s first art-based ABC book. ‘Our idea was to encourage young readers to look for items and ideas within the illustrations that begin with a letter of the alphabet,’ says project coordinator Julia Waite. ‘We developed this book with support from the Chartwell Trust who are committed to bringing children and art together. The Gallery’s programmes for children and families, plus the new Learning Centre, all help young people foster a love for art.’"

Chartwell has donated copies of the book to 47 Women’s Refuge Centres around New Zealand; Starship Hospital Education and Play Specialists teams and Ronald McDonald House; Kidz First Hospital Education and Play Specialists teams, Middlemore, Auckland; The National Library Service and Auckland Art Gallery’s Education Services and the Centre for Refugee Education, School of Languages, AUT University, Auckland.

For more information visit www.aucklandartgallery.com >

Review - bookrapt.org.nz >

News story - 'Hospital gets kids books' from Howick and Pakuranga Times >

Rohan Wealleans' Doomsday Horogami (detail), 2006, in I Spy NZ Art

Basil Sellers 2012 Finalists- Melbourne, Australia

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Several artists in the Chartwell Collection are included as finalists in the 2012 Basil Sellers Art Award. Just announced in August 2011, the list includes:

Brook Andrew (new acquisition), Richard Bell, Lauren Brincat (new acquisition), Jon Campbell, Eugene Carchesio (Chartwell acquisitions), Greg Creek, Louise Hearman, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano (Chartwell Collection), Pat Macan, Simon Perry, Kerrie Poliness, Patrick Pound (Chartwell collection), Sangeeta Sandrasegar and Christian Thompson.

David Aspden at AGNSW

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:00:00 GMT

David Aspden: the colour of music and place
Art Gallery New South Wales

24 July - 4 September

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Recently opened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales is a show exploring the work of David Aspden, an Australian painter whose 1986 work 1 Hour 28 Minutes is part of the Chartwell Collection.

"For Aspden, painting was as much about the process as it was about the subject matter. Stimulated by music or perhaps the play of light on water or through trees, his creations are all-encompassing colour environments.

His early work was influenced by colour field and hard-edge painting – two approaches to abstract art that emerged in the mid 20th century (the former, characterised by large expanses of colour; the latter, by cleanly-defined forms and flat colour). In Aspden’s painting, this gave way to a more nuanced and lyrical abstraction, while still emphasising colour and his remarkable facility for tone."
David Aspden: the colour of music and place at AGNSW >

John Kaldor Collection at AGNSW

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Australian collector John Kaldor has given the Art Gallery of New South Wales almost his whole personal art collection which is displayed currently in the new John Kaldor Family Gallery, a space converted from AGNSW behind the scenes storage space to house the collection- which includes works by Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Sol le Witt and NZ born artists Daniel von Sturmer and Daniel Crooks.

Kalder is quoted as saying "I started to collect in my 20s, [and] I decided I wanted to share my excitement about art with the public."

On the gallery wall, within the exhibits, Kaldor makes a statement about collecting:

"To me collecting is not an end in itself but rather an outcome. It is a form of connection to the artist, a glimpse into the creative process and a way of sharing in the world of art."

(Thumbnail image: Daniel von Sturmer's work installed in the gallery 2011)

An installation view of the new Kaldor Family Gallery, AGNSW, Sydney, Australia, www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Opening of Auckland Art Gallery

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMT

The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki re-opens on Saturday 3 September 2011. Since construction began in 2008, the gallery has been operating solely from their Khartoum Place venue so the much anticipated re-opening means a fresh start for the gallery in many ways. There is the contemporary extension on the main gallery site, with new contemporary galleries, education centres, members facilities, outdoor sculpture terraces and openings to Albert Park. The historic gallery buildings have been earthquake strengthened, expanded, restored and re-opened, most particularly the East Gallery, a 1916 day light gallery which for decades has been hidden from view through its temporary use as a storage space. The Wellesley Gallery has also been upgraded and renamed the Grey Gallery. Numerous spaces along the west face of the building have been re-aligned and restored to create five inter-flowing spaces named the Robertson Galleries which will show, for the opening exhibition, the 15 Promised Gift works from the Julian and Josie Robertson Collection. The Chartwell Gallery is on level 2.

The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki during final construction phase, June 2011.

Media Launch, East Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki, June 2011.

Catching Trucks at Gertrude Contemporary

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Catching Trucks
Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne

10 June - 16 July 2011

www.gertrude.org.au

Sean Bailey, Peter Kennedy, Richard Maloy (NZ), Elizabeth Newman, Lisa Oppenheim (USA)

Curated by Amita Kirpalani

"Bringing together work by five artists from Australia, New Zealand and the USA, Catching Trucks chases the impossible - highlighting artists’ attempts to reveal through processes of concealment. With the works functioning as obstructions, blockages or visual impasses each artist draws attention to something through obscuring it.

New Zealand artist Richard Maloy physically ‘clots’ the Front Gallery of Gertrude Contemporary, constructing an amorphous cardboard sculpture that wraps around the interior of the gallery. Taking its form from the room’s contours the structure creates its own volume, and in doing so it denies the volume of the space it inhabits."

Richard Maloy
Green Structure
2011
cardboard, paint, tape, staples

Elizabeth Newman & Nicki Wynnychuk - room for plan B at Australian Experimental Art Foundation

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Elizabeth Newman & Nicki Wynnychuk - room for plan B

Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
20 May - 18 June 2011

room for plan B is the first artistic collaboration between Elizabeth Newman and Nicki Wynnychuk. Taking their inspiration from similar historical cues and phenomena and a complementary sensibility towards materiality, the act of exchange and interaction has become the stimulus and challenge for this project. By working together the artists have also opened a new opportunity to work on a large scale, and create an ‘experience’ within the gallery: part discrete modernist object, part post-object interaction and installation.

Elizabeth Newman, born 1962, studied Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts in the 1980s and has since participated in many solo and group shows both in Australia and internationally including projects at: Ocular Lab, Melbourne; TCB, Melbourne; Starkwhite, Auckland; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; and the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Most recent exhibitions include: solo show Lights On at Neon Parc, December 2010; and an exhibition with German artist Esther Klaes, at Spazio A in Pistoia, Italy, February 2011. In July, Newman will exhibit with Maria Cruz at Galleria Duemila, Manila. Elizabeth Newman’s work is represented by Neon Parc gallery in Melbourne.

Nicki Wynnychuk, born 1977, is currently relocating from Melbourne to Madang PNG. Wynnychuk received his BFA from Canterbury University, Christchurch and Masters from VCA University of Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney; Conical, Melbourne; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; West Space, Melbourne; and High Street Project in Christchurch. Recent group exhibitions include: The Barber Shop, Lisbon: Waikato Museum, Hamilton: The Dowse Museum, Wellington; Margaret Lawrence Gallery, University of Melbourne; and The 4th Amsterdam Biennale. Nicki Wynnychuk has been a recipient of a Gertrude Contemporary Artist Studio, Melbourne.

room for plan B is the first artistic collaboration between Elizabeth Newman and Nicki Wynnychuk. Taking their inspiration from similar historical cues and phenomena and a complementary sensibility towards materiality, the act of exchange and interaction has become the stimulus and challenge for this project. By working together the artists have also opened a new opportunity to work on a large scale, and create an ‘experience’ within the gallery: part discrete modernist object, part post-object interaction and installation.

Elizabeth Newman, born 1962, studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts in the 1980s and has since participated in many solo and group shows both in Australia and internationally including projects at: Ocular Lab, Melbourne; TCB, Melbourne; Starkwhite, Auckland; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; and the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Most recent exhibitions include: solo show Lights On at Neon Parc, December 2010; and an exhibition with German artist Esther Klaes, at Spazio A in Pistoia, Italy, February 2011. In July, Newman will exhibit with Maria Cruz at Galleria Duemila, Manila. Elizabeth Newman’s work is represented by Neon Parc gallery in Melbourne.

Joseph Herscher - La macchina botanica

Sun, 01 May 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Joseph Herscher - La macchina botanica

MICROCLIMA, Biennale Gardens, Venice
June 3

La macchina botanica is the first work commissioned for MICROCLIMA, a new series of site-specific projects in the Greenhouse of Venice's Biennale Garden that use contemporary art as a means for exploring the connections among human beings and the natural world. La macchina botanica is a 12-metre-long Rube Goldberg machine comprising ten modular panels. Each panel contained a set of interacting objects that triggered subsequent movements—such as rotating gardening forks that knock wooden balls—with the sequences of all ten panels connecting to form a continuous chain of motion. The final panel consisted of mechanisms forcing several pitchers to tip, one after another, to pour water over various plants.

The machine was built over the course of five days, from 2pm to 6pm, at the rate of two panels per day. The construction was overseen by Herscher, according to his design, with the help of forty local kids and two assistants / translators. The children learn many techniques for working with everyday found items to produce whimsical, captivating, functional creations. There was a strong emphasis on pacing, scale and repetition to form a clear narrative. On-the-spot problem solving was encouraged. The final demonstration of the fully-functioning machine took place in front of the Greenhouse on June 3 at 4pm.

Joseph Herscher is a kinetic artist specializing in Rube Goldberg machines. His work has been viewed by millions of people worldwide, and featured in The New Yorker online, as well as numerous television and radio shows. He has led highly successful workshops in Brooklyn, Boston and New Zealand, and lectured at Parsons The New School For Design in New York.

Article - 'Who Says Machines Must Be Useful?' from The New York Times >
Article - 'Madcap machine work goes viral' from Stuff.co.nz >

Christchurch Earthquake

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:00:00 GMT

The registration staff at Auckland Art Gallery have reported that all works from the Chartwell Collection on loan to Christchurch Art Gallery are safe after the Christchurch earthquake.

Pictured: Max Gimblett, Cerulean Blue - to Len Lye, 1981, acrylic polymer on canvas. Christchurch Art Gallery, Blue Planet exhibition, 2010-2011.

Alex Monteith - Chartwell Red Expression Session

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Alex Monteith - Chartwell Red Expression Session, 2011
Chartwell are proud to be supporting Alex Monteith's live performance intervention which takes place during The Association of Surfing Professional Women's Pro Tour, 26 April - 1 May, TSB Bank Women's Surf Festival Taranaki, 2011.

17 Pro Surfer, 17 custom red rash vests, 40 minute surf contest with ASP judges.
Free to the public
Venues: Back Beach, Fitzroy Beach or Arawhata Rd, Taranaki
Weather/surf dependent during the ASP Pro Tour proceedings
Date and time to be announced online - check our and the Govett-Brewster's web sites.

Alex Monteith has developed a performance project in the form of an expression session surf contest for the Aotearoa NZ leg of the Association of Surfing Professionals Subaru Pro 26 April-1 May 2011. The actions of the project are a live surf contest with red custom rash vests judged by accredited surf judges. The Chartwell Red Session Expression Session involves the top 16 women pro surfers in the world and will take place during the TSB Bank Taranaki Women's Surf Festival 2011. The top 16 pro surfers, plus a wildcard entry into the pro tour, will make a total of 17 competitors in a 40 minute expression session surfing contest. Expression sessions are contests where the rules are more open compared to ASP competition rules and their longer format of 40 minutes allows the surfers to pick the waves they want; a context in which the most radical and progressive surfing can emerge. The winning competitor will collect a $2000 NZD prize, sponsored by art patrons the Chartwell Trust, and this will in turn be donated to the New Plymouth Surfriders Club Coastal Renewal environmental projects.

The competitors for both the Subaru Pro and the Chartwell Red Session Expression Session are: Stephanie Gilmore (AUST), Sally Fitzgibbons (AUST), Carissa Moore (HAWAII), Silvana Lima (BRAZIL), Sophia Mulanovich (PERU), Chelsea Hedges (AUST), Coco Ho (HAWAII), Melanie Bartels (HAWAII), Paige Hareb (NZ), Rebecca Woods (AUST), Jessie Miley-Dyer (AUST), Laura Enever (AUST), Tyler Wright (AUST), Courtney Conlogue (USA), Jaquline Silva (BRAZIL), Pauline Ado (FRANCE), Alana Blanchard (HAWAII) and wildcard Sarah Mason (NZ).

The time and venue for the Chartwell Red Session Expression Session will be at either Fitzroy Beach, Back Beach or Arawhata Rd weather and surf-dependent during the contest period (26 April - 1 May), and will be announced onsite via the TSB Bank whiteboard for the daily programme.

The Chartwell Red Session Expression Session event will be webcast to the "live" tab at ASP event site: http://www.nzsurffestival.co.nz/

Project updates will appear via: The Govett-Brewster facebook blog: http://www.facebook.com/govettbrewster?sk=app_2309869772 The Chartwell Trust website: http://www.chartwell.org.nz www.alexmonteith.com

Supported by The University of Auckland, the Chartwell Trust and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

Yesterday in gale-force conditions Sarah Mason (NZ) won the TSB Bank New Zealand Women's Open, thereby qualifying as the wildcard entry for the Subaru Pro and the associated Chartwell Red Session Expression. During the TSB Bank New Zealand Women's Open surf competition (26 April 2011), the surfers compete for the NZ Open women's title and a chance to compete in the Subaru Pro through collecting the wildcard entry. Alex Monteith also competed in the NZWO, in an attempt to make the wildcard entry into the expression session, but was knocked in round one, heat three and was not able to progress.

The competitors for both the Subaru Pro and the Chartwell Red Session Expression Session are: Stephanie Gilmore (AUST), Sally Fitzgibbons (AUST), Carissa Moore (HAWAII), Silvana Lima (BRAZIL), Sophia Mulanovich (PERU), Chelsea Hedges (AUST), Coco Ho (HAWAII), Melanie Bartels (HAWAII), Paige Hareb (NZ), Rebecca Woods (AUST), Jessie Miley-Dyer (AUST), Laura Enever (AUST), Tyler Wright (AUST), Courtney Conlogue (USA), Jaquline Silva (BRAZIL), Pauline Ado (FRANCE), Alana Blanchard (HAWAII) and wildcard Sarah Mason (NZ).

The time and venue for the Chartwell Red Session Expression Session will be at either Fitzroy Beach, Back Beach or Arawhata Rd weather and surf-dependent during the contest period (26 April - 1 May), and will be announced onsite via the TSB Bank whiteboard for the daily programme.

The Chartwell Red Session Expression Session event will be webcast to the "live" tab at ASP event site: www.nzsurffestival.co.nz

Project updates will appear via the Govett-Brewster Facebook blog, the Chartwell Trust website, and www.alexmonteith.com.

Supported by The University of Auckland, the Chartwell Trust and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

Chartwell Collection - News RSS

Contemporary Australia: Women at GOMA

Contemporary Australia: Women

2011 Jane Scally Artist Award

2011 Chartwell Trust Student Art Writing Prize

Paul Cullen publication r/p/m + Senior Fullbright Award

Michael Parekowhai shortlisted for Asia Pacific Triennial 7 public sculpture

2011 Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage

Chartwell + Clinton Watkins art download project

Reason and Rhyme at ST PAUL St

Reason and Rhyme

Amy's Column 04 - Interior designing the gallery: light and shadow, wall texture, and chandeliers in Los Angeles

Auckland Art Gallery Opening

I Spy NZ Art

Basil Sellers 2012 Finalists- Melbourne, Australia

David Aspden at AGNSW

David Aspden: the colour of music and place Art Gallery New South Wales

John Kaldor Collection at AGNSW

Opening of Auckland Art Gallery

Catching Trucks at Gertrude Contemporary

Catching Trucks Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne

Elizabeth Newman & Nicki Wynnychuk - room for plan B at Australian Experimental Art Foundation

Elizabeth Newman & Nicki Wynnychuk - room for plan B

Joseph Herscher - La macchina botanica

Christchurch Earthquake

Alex Monteith - Chartwell Red Expression Session

David Aspden: the colour of music and place
Art Gallery New South Wales

Catching Trucks
Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne