Geometry, science fiction and appropriation of ancient forms collide in the multi-faceted sculptural work Earthcraft by Australian artist Mikala Dwyer. Victoria Wynne-Jones reviews. Trembling slightly, an immense crystalline form hangs before a window. Cool winter light catches its facets and its glasslike surface glows white. In barely...
Eavesdropping and State of the Union These two shows at the Ian Potter Museum delve back through the centuries but find a strong contemporary relevance. Protests have always made use of urgent and eye-catching design, and that's in full effect at State of the Union, which looks at the relationship between unions and artists with striking...
New Zealand artist Billy Apple seems to have always been in the right place at the right time. In the early 1960s, he moved from Auckland to London and worked alongside artists who would become leading figures in the Pop Art movement, including David Hockney and Pauline Boty. After that he moved on to New York, and in 1964 he collaborated with...
Auckland Art Fair puts the spotlight on this city as a place to see the best in contemporary art from the Pacific Rim. Dionne Christian asks some of the artists what 'place' means to them — in particular the space they work in.
Art Radar takes a look at some of the highlights from the exhibition featuring more than 100 works and ephemera from the museum's collection and beyond. Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990s, on at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) until 1 October 2017, explores diverse cultural phenomena. Ranging from grunge to techno, identity...
'Just as museums of Europe must now be littered with Neo-Expressionist "monstrosities", so too might there be in ten years' time a little patch of Grunge, fouling up the air in the back lots of public collections across Australia,' Jeff Gibson wrote in his 1993 essay Avant-Grunge.
Photography, objects and antiques come together for the National Gallery of Victoria's, Melbourne, encyclopaedic display Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition. The New Zealand born artist is fascinated by the process of categorisation, his work suggesting that meaning can be found in the accumulation of items.
A sculpture in the bathtub, a horse on the couch and a disco in the loo are just some of the ways artworks have been exhibited at what is emerging as Melbourne’s most exciting art fair. The Hotel Windsor is, once again, about to be transformed by SPRING 1883, a high-end contemporary art show to be held as part of Melbourne’s Art...
Without question one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most remarkable artists, Billy Apple is nearing 80. His lengthy, and still ongoing, career has encompassed direct involvement in some of the most crucial phenomena of postwar and contemporary art, from Pop to Conceptualism, body art to institutional critique—sometimes all together. While...
With its official opening last Saturday morning, the latest transmutation of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is now open for public inspection, alongside its dazzling new neighbour and partner (by virtue of sharing the same director), the Len Lye Centre. New Zealand Aotearoa’s art communities will watch Simon Rees with interest as he...
Yes! After months and months of speculation, prayers, and rumors, the Venice Biennale has released the artist list for its 56th edition, “All the World’s Futures,” which is being curated by Okwui Enwezor. At a quick glance, it looks like a thrillingly eclectic list, counting among its participants giants like Bruce Nauman, Adrian...
Since 2007 the Asia New Zealand Foundation has run a programme of residency opportunities in Asia for emerging and mid-career New Zealand artists. An exhibition of works by artists who have benefited from these residencies will be opened at Pataka Art + Museum in early 2015 as part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s 20th anniversary...
Artist Mikala Dwyer’s sculptural work 'The weight of shape', 2014, was revealed yesterday as the greatly anticipated 2014 Artist Commission, by the Melbourne Art Foundation. Created especially by Sydney-based artist Dwyer, it will be on display at the Melbourne Art Fair from Thursday 14 August until Sunday 17 August 2014, and...
As 2013 comes to an end, BLOUIN ARTINFO Australia takes a look back at the year that was and has picked 10 of the most memorable Australian artworks to have emerged during 2013. In no particular order, the top 10 most memorable Australian artworks of 2013 are: “Skywhale,” 2013 by Patricia Piccinini Commissioned to celebrate...
We are warned by Amanda Rowell, in the text that accompanied 'Indoor Gardens', the exhibition of Kathy Temin's latest works, that here 'the animal qualities show themselves. Minimalism is combined with sentimentalism.' The show was indeed a strange, synthetic pleasure garden, a 'cosy nook' where Modernism slipped off its shoes and went walking on...