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...
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.
An 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.
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) and...
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 small...
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 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 Press Artist's New Year honour: 'We don’t value the arts highly enough' Stuff : 30 December 2017 Julia Morison didn't need to give much thought to whether or not to accept her latest accolade. The Christchurch artist has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours, arguably the highest recognition of a 40-year career.'Anything that promotes the arts is a really good thing,' she said.'We have so much but we...
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).
