DAN ARPS

Michael Lett is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Dan Arps titled After Hobson Gardens. In 2011 Arps presented an exhibition titled Hobson Gardens, taking its name from an apartment building near the artist’s home. The postcard invitation depicted the car park entrance with the words ‘Hobson Gardens’ in all-caps, bold Helvetica text, above a three-meter high electronic gate and stark surroundings of a busy one way street heading to downtown Auckland. At the time the artist was drawn to the euphemistic quality of the name - one that could apply equally to a prison, retirement home, or mental institution.

Since 2011 the Hobson Gardens apartment building has been subject to a series of events that have meant it now stands as an exemplar of the current political and economic spectrum. Having been forever 'leaky' as a result of shortcuts taken during its erection, in 2012 the original construction company, Mainzeal, was contracted for a sum of $15 million to make the building watertight and replace damaged roofing and cladding. On the 6th February 2013 Mainzeal was placed in receivership, and work on the building came to a halt.

After Hobson Gardens sees the artist return to this site as a starting point for an investigation of Auckland’s urban aesthetics. Conceived as a sequel, After Hobson Gardens invokes the idea of evolution - not in the sense of things getting better but rather things simply surviving and continuing. After Hobson Gardens will present a re-imagining of a post-apocalyptic Auckland. It is an anticipation of the numerous crises (ecological, financial, social and environmental) that are approaching this city, and others like it around the world, with a particular focus on the current political debates surrounding housing and lifestyle choices in Auckland.

Dan Arps (born 1976) lives and works in Auckland. His work explores, and responds to, the contemporary urban environment fusing architecture, public space, nomadic structures, politics, philosophy and history, while expanding on Modernist traditions of abstraction, alienation, and the everyday. Recent exhibitions include; Vision Mixer (group) 2013, Suter Art Gallery, Nelson; Local Knowledge (group) 2012, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt; Abstracts and Vision Statements, 2012, Neon Parc, Melbourne; Hobson Gardens, 2011, Michael Lett, Auckland; Michael Lett, Frieze Art Fair, 2011, London. Arps was the recipient of the 2010 Walters Prize and in 2011 Affirmation Dungeon, a major monograph focused on Arps’ work was published in association with Clouds and Michael Lett.