BILLY APPLE

Billy Apple introduced red and green as his corporate colours in London when he established his art brand back in 1962. He changed his name and had two photographs taken of himself, front-and-back-of-head shots with red and green backgrounds respectively. This manouvre was a self-branding exercise and the brand was on its way. Fifty years later, Billy Apple® has become a registered trademark with the ability to apply his art brand to other things - ‘A brand looking for a product’ - produced under his art umbrella.

Apple uses visual aspects of his brand identity - colour, font, logo and so forth to generate artworks. He has extended the symbolic usage of red and greens to his art and in this exhibition he presents a suite of works that capitalise on the port/starboard meaning.

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, since the 1990s, Apple exhibits regularly in dealer, public and artist-run galleries, and his works have been included in major international and national touring exhibitions. These include: Toi Toi Toi: Three Generations of New Zealand Artists (Kassel & Auckland, 1999); Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin (New York, 1999); Kronos + Kairos: Über die Zeit in der Zeitgenössischen Kunst, (Kassel, 1999); Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture (Frankfurt & Liverpool, 2002-3); American Supermarket (Pittsburgh, 2002); Art of the ‘60s from Tate Britain (Auckland 2006); Remix (Virginia, 2011) and the upcoming Gold (Vienna, 2012). In 2009, a second major survey exhibition of Apple’s work was staged in two parts at Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (Billy Apple®: A History of the Brand and Revealed/Concealed). In New Zealand aspects of his career have been reevaluated in exhibitions such as Billy Apple: New York 1969-1973 (Wellington 2009).

Located in New Zealand on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, Starkwhite presents a programme of artists’ projects, solo shows by represented and invited artists, independently curated exhibitions and occasional forays into new music and other interdisciplinary practices.

Please contact the gallery for further information and images.