Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev , was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York 's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
Ocula Insight 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...
Two Rooms is a contemporary art exhibition venue located in a converted warehouse in Central Auckland, New Zealand. Opened in August 2006, Two Rooms presents a program of residencies and projects by leading International and New Zealand contemporary artists. The building houses two exhibition spaces, the Project Room and the Long Room.
Read MoreAn important focus of the gallery is a residency program, supporting ambitious new projects and facilitating the exchange of ideas between New Zealand and international artists. A converted warehouse two doors down from the gallery is available as a studio for invited international artists to stay for a period of up to 3 months. Visiting artists to Two Rooms have been Bridget Smith (UK), Runa Islam (UK), Kevin Appel (LA) Isaac Julien (UK) Basil Beattie (UK) Joachim Bandau (GER) David Thomas (AUS) and Cornelia Parker (UK) Sarah Lucas (UK) and Darren Almond arriving late 2011.
The director of Two Rooms is Jenny Todd, previously of Todd Gallery London. The exhibition program will be developed through the director and supplemented by invited international and local curators.
![Head[case] working drawing 11 by Julia Morison contemporary artwork](http://d3rtf5gv0re40d.cloudfront.net/anzax/70/700b636a-097f-4dfb-845e-40fd89987905_300_400.jpg)
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 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)...
Ocula Report Auckland Art Exhibitions: The Lowdown 22 May 2018 : Anna Dickie for Ocula The time is ripe to galvanise New Zealand's public to more fully support its visual arts. With New Zealand-born artists like Simon Denny , Michael Stevenson and Francis Upritchard continuing to gain international acclaim, and a Turner Prize nominee in Luke Willis Thompson , the international art world is beginning to take notice of this...
Related Press Paper work – the British Museum shows off its collection of contemporary drawings Apollo Magazine : 4 November 2019 Anish Kapoor, Louise Bourgeois, Rachel Whiteread, Gerhard Richter. These may not be names that spring to mind when you think of the British Museum, but they all have work filed away in its extensive archive of prints and drawings. 'Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now' lifts a lid on a lesser-known collection at a museum renowned...
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...
Related Press Basil Beattie Drawings at Two Rooms, Auckland EyeContact : 16 August 2018 Senior English painter and ex-Goldsmiths teacher, Basil Beattie, has had a couple of shows already at Two Rooms. This new display in the narrow upstairs gallery presents twenty works on paper, using oil paint and paint stick, rendering symbolic climbing devices like ladders (he uses flattened loops as rungs) and staircases (diagonally stacked up...
Related Video & Audio Cornelia Parker in conversation with Jonathan Watkins Alan Cristea Gallery : 4 November 2015 Artist Cornelia Parker talks to Jonathan Watkins, Director of Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, about her career and biggest print projects to date, One Day This Glass Will Break and Thirty Pieces of Silver (Exposed) .
