OPEN CONVERSATIONS
THURSDAY NIGHTS, 6-7PM
Adam Art Gallery
Victoria University of Wellington academics speak with art practitioners working in the field and the collectors involved in the exhibition Behind Closed Doors: New Zealand Art from Private Collections in Wellington.

14 July: Public/Private
Art writer, critic and collector Sue Gardiner discussed how the public display of private art collections questions our preconceptions of what is private and what can be made public in the production of cultural knowledge. Anthropologist Brigitte Bonisch-Brednich’s research informed the conversation.

8 September: Market Forces
Economic theorist Morris Altman and art auctioneer Ben Plumbly reviewed the factors that have informed the secondary art market recently, debating whether its exponential growth can escape the inevitable boom and bust of the economic cycle.

13 October: Telling Arrangements
Spatial design theorist Margaret Petty and journalist, writer and collector Rosemary McLeod’s conversation considered the politics at play in the presentation of art and other objects at home. Chaired by Roger Blackley, Senior Lecturer in Art History.

Tuesday 13 December: The Production of Identity
Cultural psychologist Ronald Fisher and art dealer Robert Heald teased out the notions of cultural value and social taste that underpin the cultivation of the collector. Chaired by David Maskill, Programme Director, Art History.

DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENINGS
TUESDAY LUNCHTIMES, 12NOON
Kirk Gallery
12 July: Herb and Dorothy, dir. Megumi Sasaki, 2008. 87 mins.
23 August: Ydessa, Les Ours et etc, dir. Agnes Varda, 2000. 44 mins.
4 October: For Love or Money, dir. Shirley Horrocks, 1996. 46 mins.
15 November: Cinemania, dirs. Stephen Kijak and Angela Christlieb, 2002. 80 mins.

NIGHT TALKS
FRIDAY NIGHTS, 6-7PM
Kirk Gallery
3 June: Artist’s talk
With an investigative eye artist Marcus Moore elucidated on the recent iteration of the Retreat; an installation of art works from the collection of g. bridle.

12 August: Curator’s talk
Curator Laura Preston offered insights into the conceptual framework for the project (A Film Called) Ellipsis, which presented collecting as a process of sorting and assembling in time.

26 August: Critic’s talk
Sharing her knowledge of contemporary art in Moscow, art writer and curator Claudia Arozqueta placed the photographic work of Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov in context by presenting a screening of recent video art from Russia.

7 October: Researcher’s talk
Visiting Scholar at the Stout Research Centre, Sandy Callister gave insight into her research on Victorian women’s creative deployment of the carte-de-visite photographic process.

18 November: Students’ talk
Students in the Art History programme shared their knowledge of the histories that have informed their presentation of the ‘almost exhaustive’ archive of Len Lye’s photograms. The Chartwell Student Art Writing Prize was also announced.

DISCUSSION SERIES
Adam in the City Art Forum Series 2011
A new series of discussions designed to engage key topics that are galvanising thinkers and practitioners.

3. Rehearsal
Wednesday 17 August 2011, 5.30-7.30pm with a drink to follow
Adam Auditorium, City Gallery Wellington

Why are so many contemporary artists treating acts of rehearsal as the basis of their practice? Why has there been a re-examination of performance art histories recently? What is the relationship between the repeated act and an ultimate act? Could the interest in rehearsal be a reflection of online modes of communication, where the self is continually performed and identity perpetually edited?

Speakers included: Artist Alex Monteith, theatre theorist David O’Donnell (Victoria University of Wellington), curator Helena Reckitt (Goldsmiths, University of London). Chair artist David Cross (Massey University Wellington).

4. Re-Locate
Tuesday 29 November 2011, 5.30-7.30pm with a drink to follow
Adam Auditorium, City Gallery Wellington

As the final forum in the series, this discussion brought the conversation closer to home. Reviewing the fervent interest in community driven endeavours and creative pursuits, this discussion questioned if ‘the local’ did indeed ever leave us. What are current understandings of the local, and how does the re-instatement of this term respond to the politics of globalisation? Is the return to the local an opportunity for post-colonial theories to be re-called? What are the economic drivers and environmental factors that are influencing this ethos?

Speakers included: Law theorist Tai Ahu (Victoria University of Wellington), art historian Peter Brunt (Victoria University of Wellington), artist Fiona Jack and art writer Damian Skinner. Chair curator Robert Leonard.

For further information and readings related to the Art Forum Series 2011 review here

The Art Forum 2011 series is a collaboration between the Adam Art Gallery and the City Gallery Wellington.

SOUNDCHECK

iiii Festival !!!! presents
WELLINGTON INTERNATIONAL MOST FAMOUS ORCHESTRA OF MIRACULOUS DELIGHTS and The NOT QUITE QUIET CHOIRAdam Art Gallery
Tuesday 8 November 2011
7pm

Graphic scores, alternative notation and conductions for large ensembles; this event explored music making through a wide variety of composition and notation methods. The orchestra interpreted found systems of code as scores such as lotto cards, cookbooks, and advertising leaflets to create unheard of music in the acoustically luminous environment of the Adam Art Gallery.

Featured: Amos Mann, Claire O’Neil, Nell Thomas, Chris Prosser, Erika Grant, Bek Coogan, Sascha Perfect, Chris Wratt, Bridget Kelly, Kate Telford, Zazie Rae Taylor, Daniel Beban, Gerard Crewdson, Phill Dryson, John Bell,  Josh Rutter,  Reuben Derrick, Cor Fuhler, Rod Cooper, Richard Nunns, Hermione Johnson, Simon Cummins, Simon O’Rorke, Reece McNaughten, Noel Meek, Alex Bartley Nees, Jeff Henderson and more.

Also featured:
MING
Campbell Kneale and Ellen Rodda play amplified cymbals

Campbell Kneale has operated for the better part of a decade under the moniker Birchville Cat Motel, and under this name has toured throughout Japan, America, Europe and Australia. His music has become synonymous with ear-shattering volume and over the last 15 years he has cultivated an extensive international following for his particular methods of systematically reassembling the hearing range of audiences.
http://www.iiiimusic.blogspot.com/

Jason Wright
JUKEBOX
Adam Art Gallery
Opening Tuesday 15 November, 5-7pm
16 November – 18 December 2011

JUKEBOX draws attention to the loudspeaker as an entity as important to music reception as any other technology that has informed its construction. The music played through the installation will be an assemblage of material collated from participants at the opening night event. The JUKEBOX installation will serve to highlight the loudspeaker as an instrument that plays an integral role in how we perceive sound and music. Presented between the sliding doors of the Adam Art Gallery until the end of the year.

Jason Wright is a sound artist and musician currently undertaking the Masters of Music Arts at the New Zealand School of Music. His current research sees him looking at tactile applications for the loudspeaker and the psychoacoustic effects of the object, using it not only to re-produce, but also to generate new sounds and music.
http://jwcomposer.bandcamp.com/

Jason Post
SIRENS
30 August – 13 November 2011

The primary concern of this sound based work was the space it inhabited. The space between the sliding doors of the Adam Art Gallery usually goes unnoticed. Its qualities as a threshold are masked by its functionality as an entrance way. This work aimed to draw visitors in and to entice them to take notice of their immediate surroundings, however momentary and seemingly incidental. As one walks through the speaker array, human voices replace the soft sine tones, and may follow them as they pass through. The space becomes a siren-like trap as the beauty of the harmony motivates the listener to stay. This may also make for a potentially uncomfortable experience.

Jason Post is a Wellington-based composer and a recent graduate of the sonic arts programme at the New Zealand School of Music. He is currently undertaking an honours degree in this same field. This work is the third in a series of four sound installations he has produced that attempt to engage with space as the primary compositional material.

Altmusic presented a performance by Hildur Guðnadóttir
with Seth Frightening

Saturday 20 August 2011, 8pm
Adam Art Gallery

Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir (b. 1982) is a cellist and composer based in Iceland. Best known for her collaborations with múm and guest appearances with Pan Sonic, she has a rich catalogue of collaborations and varied projects behind her, the most recent being the critically acclaimed album Mount A (Touch 2010).

“Her themes and melodies are simple, rarely more than a few bars, but the way she overlaps and combines them or pits them against long held tones, gives her music a tension between restless activity and quiet stasis, as well as an intuitive, almost improvised feel” – Dusted magazine.

Guðnadóttir explores the nature and movement of sound, and often turns her experiments into sound and visual installations. She recently co-composed a live soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s 1980 film In The Shadow of The Sun with legends, Throbbing Gristle in Austria and London. Guðnadóttir is also a member of Storsveit Nix Noltes (The Nix Noltes Big Band); a rotating cast of Icelanders playing traditional Bulgarian and Greek dance music. The group has toured the United States twice supporting Animal Collective. As a composer she has written music for plays, dance performances and films, pieces for chamber orchestras, various instruments, voices and electronics.

Altmusic is a programme administered by the Audio Foundation.