Ocula Conversation Hito Steyerl: How To Build a Sustainable Art World 'A Picture of War is Not War', we read in Hito Steyerl's iconic film November (2004), an essayistic Super 8 film tackling the definition of terrorism constructed around the figure of the artist's best friend Andrea Wolf, who was killed as a terrorist in 1998 in Eastern Anatolia after she joined the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). Mixing documentary...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Michael Lett opened in 2003. The gallery's focus has been on engaged, distinctive practices of both emerging and established artists making new work based (for the most part) within the Australasian region. The gallery represents a core group of artists and practitioners, however the program is also opened to allow opportunities for other artists (including those from Europe and America) on a project basis. In May 2014 Michael Lett moved to a new location. The gallery has two floors of exhibition space and is located in an elegant building, formerly a private bank, built in 1928 in Auckland’s central city.
Gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm and Saturday, 11am - 3pm.
Ocula Report Auckland Art Fair 2019: Conversations Extended 24 May 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula The weather was clement for the annual Auckland Art Fair (2–5 May 2019), which was again at The Cloud on Queens Wharf. This year's edition was a get-together of 41 galleries, mostly from around Auckland and across New Zealand, with 5 spaces hailing from Sydney and the rest from Cook Islands (Bergman Gallery), Hobart (Michael Bugelli Gallery),...
Ocula Report Auckland Art Shows to See: The Lowdown 27 Apr 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula This year, the month of May kicks off with the annual Auckland Art Fair (2–5 May 2019) at The Cloud on Queens Wharf, where over 40 leading galleries from the Pacific Rim will exhibit. A carefully curated selection of talks and exhibitions will accompany the fair, including the 2019 Projects Programme organised by Francis McWhannell titled...
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2019 31 March 2019 'Art Basel reinforces its ongoing commitment to showcasing exceptional art from Asia and the Asia Pacific, with over half of the participating galleries having exhibition spaces in the region. The main sector of the show features 196 of the world's leading galleries presenting the highest quality of painting, sculpture, drawings, installation,...
Ocula Report Melbourne Art Fair: ‘finding its political and global footing’ 9 Aug 2018 : Carol Que for Ocula The fifteenth edition of the biennial Melbourne Art Fair (MAF) (2–5 August 2018), which returned after skipping its 2016 edition, was understated in its ground-level presentation. Forty participating galleries from across Australia, with the exception of eight spaces from New Zealand (including Two Rooms, Michael Lett and Bartley + Company Art) and...
Related Press Must-See Art Exhibitions to Check Out in Auckland This Winter Concrete Playground : 26 August 2019 The weather's a bit shit so you can't go to the beach, you've binge-watched all your favourite shows, and you fear for your safety stepping outside with Auckland's current random tendency for mini tornados and roof-ripping winds. What is there left to do but take in some culture, via Auckland's glorious plethora of warm, dry art galleries?
Related Press The Unmissables: March The Pantograph Punch : 21 March 2019 Auckland Arts Festival has dawned on the city, offering a delicious spread of ways to spend your time this month. However, if you have no idea where to start and prefer a slightly smaller menu of arts offerings then you've come to the right place. This month our review team of art critics Lucinda Bennett, Lana Lopesi and Francis McWhannell has...
Related Press Berlin-based artist Zac Langdon-Pole’s BMW Art Journey takes flight Wallpaper* : 26 December 2018 'My interest in celestial mapping is as a kind of ground zero of meaning-making and storytelling', starts Zac Langdon-Pole. 'Connecting the stars and making constellations out of them often tie to origin stories. In this sense, the journey will look at a plurality of origins, and how they do, or do not, relate,' explains the winner of the next BMW...
Related Press The surprising links between Brexit and Oceania art exhibition New Zealand Herald : 20 October 2018 The Telegraph described it as an "ambitious and astonishing exhibition" while Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones declared he didn't just like the art but wanted to live in the world it portrays. He also speculated that modernist masters like Picasso were more influenced by Oceanic art than we might have previously realised.The opening...
Related Video & Audio Secret languages - Sriwhana Spong Radio New Zealand : 6 May 2018 New Zealand/Balinese artist Sriwhana Spong's new exhibition in New Plymouthexplores a unique language used by a medieval female German mystic and abbess, Hildegard von Bingen. She's added some new elements to the show a hook but no fish, during her time as the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's 2018 artist in residence since it was first shown in London...
Related Video & Audio Sriwhana Spong : ‘a hook but no fish' London Live : 10 January 2018 A new exhibition inspired by a secret 12th-century language created by a German mystic has opened in Battersea. Through her paintings, the artist Sriwhana Spong explores the relationship between language and sounds. Sriwhana Spong : a hook but no fish is on at the Pump House Gallery until April.
Related Video & Audio Making of the Anzac Centenary Print Portfolio – Sriwhana Spong Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa : 8 September 2016 The Australian War Memorial invited five New Zealand and five Australian artists to each create an artistic response to World War I (1914–19). These videos record the responses, thoughts, working processes, and printmaking techniques of the ten artists as they develop their prints in dialogue with Australian master printmaker John Loane.
Related Video & Audio Here is the video for Martin Creed's 'Princess Taxi Girl Part 1' ARTNews : 17 July 2016 Today, the video for Martin Creed’s Princess Taxi Girl Part 1 was released, off of the artist and musician’s newest album, Thoughts Lined Up, which came out last week on Telephone Records. Creed’s balloon-heavy exhibition The Back Door is currently on view at New York’s Park Avenue Armory through August 7.
