Artspace Aotearoa Announces the Artists to Premiere in 2025
This year, the non‑profit gallery will organise four exhibitions centring the question, ‘Is language large enough?’ Save to My Ocula
Steered by Ruth Buchanan, Artspace Aotearoa’s annual programme is underpinned by a different question every year. In 2024, its exhibitions were organised around the query ‘Do I need territory?’, and included Andy Butler, Kerry Deane, Charlotte Posenenske, and Peter Robinson.
In 2025, the non-profit gallery will ask, ‘Is language large enough?’ The four-part exhibition programme will feature the work of important international artists alongside that of established Aotearoa New Zealand artists, as well as new commissions by emerging voices. Audiences in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland will be invited to explore the impact of language on various domains of life, including contemporary society and art.
The prompt was inspired by a drawing British artist Lubaina Himid made on the walls of London‘s Tate Modern in 2022, in which she asks: ‘We live in clothes, we live in buildings—do they fit us?’ Himid became the first Black woman to win the Turner Prize in 2017, at age 63. Her work often focuses on overlooked or marginalised histories, figures, and cultural moments.
From 1 February to 17 April, Himid’s work will be exhibited along that of Michael Parekōwhai, who represented New Zealand at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Parekōwhai is known for his sculptural and photographic work that challenge preconceptions about culture, identity, and art.
Other international artists to be represented in the programme are Martha Atienza, Ethan Braun, Lina Grumm, and Yee I-Lann, who work variously across the fields of video, photography, weaving, sound, and graphic design. Artists working in Aotearoa New Zealand include Darcell Apelu, Heidi Brickell, Erika Holm, Ngaroma Riley, and Tarika Sabherwal.
Last year, the non-profit concluded its programme with Permissions, an exhibition that considered the fluid role of the term ‘emerging artist’ in the art world, featuring Auckland-based artists Yana Dombrowsky-M’Baye, Dayle Palfreyman, and August Ward. —[O]
Main image: Michael Parekōwhai, The Indefinite Article (1990). Wood and acrylic. 24.89 x 60.96 x 3.56 cm. Courtesy Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Chartwell Collection, purchased with generous assistance from Jim Barr and Mary Barr, 2009.
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