Te Tuhi hosts the first long-term commissioned artwork by Julian Dashper (1960–2009). One of New Zealand's most prolific contemporary artists, Dashper exhibited regularly throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. Throughout his practice, Dashper brought a healthy degree of humour to his reworkings of abstraction, conceptualism and minimalism. One of his early insights was that characteristics of the reproduction of international art, such as a flattening-out and a simplification of form, provided formal solutions to gauge the efficacy of a reproduced modernism. As art historian Christina Barton states, his local context then provided “the unique perspective of attending to an internationalist art history from a distance, enabling him to devise strategies to work around his geographical isolation whilst simultaneously articulating its effects.” Dashper travelled extensively. This commission is part of a series, influenced by encounters with the late American minimalist artist Fred Sandback during visits to Marfa, Texas. In homage to Sandback, Dashper created linear works that toy with the idea of a permanent art acquisition through the use of materials that are at once accessible, and intrinsically susceptible to erasure.
Press release courtesy Te Tuhi.
13 Reeves Road
Pakuranga
Auckland, 2010
New Zealand
www.tetuhi.art
+64 9 577 0138
Open daily
9am − 5pm
Closed Public Holidays