Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2023 i Art New Zealand

Since Jim's departure, I've been re-reading his extraordinary collection of interviews The Skin of Years, which my partner Pauline and I received as a gift shortly after it was published in 2014. In 2015 Ian Cooke, PhD art researcher, asked me the following question:1 ‘What was my knowledge of minimalist and conceptual art like in New Zealand in the early 1970s?’ In response, I acknowledged Jim as a key arbiter of this knowledge through his 1968 travels in the USA as well as his networking with Kiwi expats, other artists, curators and critics, which is referred to in several chapters of The Skin of Years. Jim's teaching philosophy was focused upon student-centred learning, where students become not only their own researchers and producers of art, but also their own primary…

Auckland Jacqui Colley We played here once Orexart, 6 June–1 July DON ABBOTT In Jacqui Colley's We played here once both heart and mind are on show. Each painting is more than just one thing; the artist's layers of pigment create works that are multifarious and profound. They deal in dichotomies that are, on the surface of things, contradictory. They have backgrounds that are tranquil, washes of colour that create a mood of floaty suspension. Their foregrounds are the result of vigorous brush movements, almost as if the artist has stabbed the canvas, disturbing the pervasive peace she created with the previous layers. Those backgrounds hold an air of intention, of preparation and calculation; those foregrounds speak of spontaneity, a direct connection between hand and soul, a short circuit that…

Sometime in the mid to late 1930s, New Zealand painter Florence Weir undertook an artist's residency at Villa Margaux in the south of France. Surrounded by other artists, and absorbed in the idiosyncrasies of place caught within this transient community, Weir's time here would go on to shape her artistic practice. Material fragments of this practice are brought together in Villa Margaux, running from 26 September–23 October 2023 at Auckland's Sanderson Contemporary. Much like the watercolour depictions of gardens and landscapes included in the exhibitions Garden Tours with Florence Weir and Schemes for Vibrant Living, these works are resplendent with the rich tonal palette of the Mediterranean. Weir's artistic practice brings together a range of media, reflecting the holistic integration of artmaking into her life. This is evident in Florence…

ELIZABETH EASTMOND Watching my step (on crutches, accessory: moonboot, gaze necessarily at floor-level) my first encounter at the Michael Lett exhibit is a waste paper bin. On closer inspection one containing the sad residue of left-over bulldog paper clips. et al.? Of course. What a relief! Great entrée punctuation marker to a major current exhibition. Plus a relief to know, from the title, I am the direct source of truth. We've been looking. For direction. On looking up though, what at first glance reminded me of the 2004 Art New Zealand Autumn cover, which, for once (more relief in retrospect), displayed an object not an artist: a portaloo … was here a giant similarly parodic minimal-like box-shape filing cabinet, also on wheels—but nice red ones. For me, they coincided. The…

Octavia Cook's career has had two main phases. From the early 2000s, in Auckland, she worked under the name of a fictional company, Cook & Co, and was known particularly for brooches in the style of Victorian cameos, often bearing her own profile, sometimes in the guise of historical figures, or those of family members and friends. The pieces were beautifully fashioned, typically in metals (sometimes precious ones) and acrylic, while yielding ideas about value and status that resonate well beyond traditional expectations of jewellery invoked by the Cook & Co brand. In 2012, Cook moved to Dunedin, and around the same time initiated the demise of her ‘company’. Recent work has taken the form of large-scale but still wearable brooches, carrying the camouflage patterns of assorted creatures. These works…

Evan Webb, who died in Christchurch in May, was a major kinetic artist. Kinetic art, which explores the aesthetics of motion, has a long history, including many modernists such as Marcel Duchamp and Naum Gabo. It had an upsurge of popularity in the 1950s and ‘60s, a boom made possible by developments in technology. Museums initially welcomed it, but they soon backtracked because they disliked its tendency to break down and the need for engineering support. Only a few artists such as George Rickey, Jean Tinguely and Rebecca Horn continued to be regularly exhibited. Meanwhile, New Zealand saw kinetic artists such as Phil Dadson (b.1946), Andrew Drummond (b.1951) and Evan Webb. Our forerunner had of course been Len Lye (born Christchurch, 1901). Kinetic work such as Lye's, which often involves…

Throughout much of his career Colin McCahon manifested a great liking for the triptych format—that tripartite art form deriving from hinged medieval altar pieces and ubiquitous in Christian art and western art generally, from Giotto and Simone Martini in the fourteenth century to Max Beckmann and Francis Bacon in the twentieth. There are no fewer than eleven works by McCahon with ‘triptych’ in their titles ranging in date from On building bridges (triptych) in 1952 to Urewera triptych in 1975. His other triptychs, those named as such, were, in chronological order: Northland triptych (1959), Elias triptych (1959), Koru triptych (1962), Triptych: pink and blue (1963), three different Waterfall triptychs (all 1964), Easter landscape: triptych (1966) and Parihaka triptych (1972). In addition to these there are another dozen works by McCahon…