A blog of insights from students at Victoria University of Wellington who staff the Adam Art Gallery at the weekend

Saturday 17 December 2011
M. Ashworth

This weekend brings us to the end of the Behind Closed Doors and in camera exhibitions, and the gallery closes its doors until 24 January next year.

2011 was my first year involved with the Adam Art Gallery, and it has taken me from a shy and tentative first-time visitor to a member of the staff and blogger. This year’s two major exhibitions introduced me to some major players in New Zealand’s history of art, and the gallery proved a major asset in my art history studies at the university.

Some of the most enriching experiences for me this year have been the Open Conversations held as part of the gallery’s public programmes. Most recently, a discussion entitled “The Production of Identity” explored the psychology of collecting and cultural value and taste. The topic of conversation often returned to the differing attitudes of children and adults towards art, and what it could mean. Adults approach art making and art acquisition with much more trepidation, hesitation and uncertainty than a child. Perhaps this is due to society’s promotion of art to an esteemed but mysterious position. A child does not feel the same expectation to “understand” art than the adult.

These are interesting thoughts, and throughout my blogging I feel myself returning to the relationship between children and art in the gallery space, particularly pleased when children visit during my shifts. I think we would do well to look into how to preserve the child-like inquisitiveness and confidence into adulthood and in the art world.

Sunday 11 December 2011
R. Kelly

A few collectors came in today, not ones who had works in the gallery but those who clearly felt that that they should have been. Lingering remarks were passed along the lines of “I have a much nicer example of that” and “I have quite a large collection, y’know”. All very harmless stuff I will agree, but I view these comments as the head of the pimple, just the start of a behavioural pattern which seems to underlie the world of collectors an curators; a powerful subconscious weight constantly telling the self that it is not enough, more things, better things than they have, that is what will make this life worthwhile.

This is an ever present force in almost everyone’s daily life in some capacity but in the world of the arts it takes on a different and more vicious form. This is the result of the intense subjectivity involved when assessing the value of literature, artworks or pieces of music, the intrinsic value is often nothing but one piece could mean an immense amount to one individual. The beauty of the sphere of the arts is tied in with this darker undercurrent as people begin to see their own subjective view as if it were a gospel truth and that others are heathens for not appreciating the gift that you have bestowed upon them of knowledge of what is worthy and what is not.

So this is a plea, the monotheistic approach to the value and worth of a creative product is intensely damaging for the artist, the collector and the observer, so let us identify this trait in ourselves and then maybe in time we can allow a more pagan, multifaceted doctrine of appreciation to take hold.

Saturday 3 December 2011
M. Ashworth

Yesterday I found myself in Civic Square with time to myself, so I took the opportunity to visit City Gallery’s Prospect: New Zealand Art Now, the tenth anniversary version of an exhibition ‘dedicated to showcasing and thinking through the work of important New Zealand artists.’ (Prospect exhibition notes).

The exhibition sees works and projects by sixteen artists spread throughout the majority of the gallery, and extending beyond its walls to the screens outside the entrance, and even to the paved surface of Civic Square itself. I had in fact just enjoyed lunch in the sunshine, unaware I was right next to one of these external works, Kate Newby’s Walks with men. This is mostly because the work can be very simply described as “a puddle”. My apparent inability to recognise contemporary art when it is staring me in the face could be a sign that I need to get out to more contemporary shows; or, it could be a sign of the limitations of the gallery’s decision not to label any of the works shown in Prospect. I am undecided when it comes to Newby’s works, finding myself irritated but at the same time clamouring to defend the puddle when I was questioned by my boyfriend about it later in the day.

The entire exhibition left me with mixed emotions, although it’s no surprise that I didn’t love everything in a showcase of so varied a range of artists. The cursory notes I made on my tour around the gallery say things like an underwhelming ‘Cool?’ and ‘Oh that’s cool’ may not be sufficient as a response. Beyond indicating that I need to expand my own vocabulary, these responses show that some of the works in Prospect could barely impress an initial positive reaction upon me, and I was often left unsatisfied.

Perhaps instead I should focus on the art that did satisfy me. John Ward Knox’s grand steel and chain sculpture spanning the width of the Hancock Gallery earned a beautiful, its simple navigation of tension and weight thoughtful and elegant. Fiona Jack’s blown up photograph of Election Day in New Plymouth, 1893 and the accompanying booklet of a transcribed conversation around the photo was pleasingly relevant (RELEVANT) in its consideration of the way images are read, but also of the issues still surrounding feminism today. Peter Trevelyan’s graphite sculptures were terrifying to stand near, and fascinating in concept. I particularly liked the way their spindly lines were mirrored in the many wire stands making up Fiona Connor’s installation adjacent to Trevelyan’s, in the West Gallery.

Prospect is free, but would be well worth an admission charge (more so than Oceania, I think). A second viewing may soften some of my cynicism, or heighten it, but to me maybe the most important thing is that such a large space has been committed to current New Zealand artists’ work, and for such a long time. I would encourage all to see the show, open throughout the summer. No doubt I will return to it again, having learned from spending so much time in the Adam that no work of art really stops having things to say.

Sunday 27 November 2011
R. Kelly

On this particular Sunday, which appears to be defined by sunny zephyrs, all I can focus on is the tumultuous events of the election which occurred last night. Therefore today’s entry will be a symbiotic look at the political landscape and the ways in which the visual medium is used in New Zealand.

Let’s begin with colour; the use of which clearly defines and delineates political perspectives and standpoints. The red and blue of the major political parties presents a spectral divide that most New Zealanders are used to. The bold crimson of Labour harks back to the party’s origins in the unions and leftist opposition, while the strong blue of National is, to me anyway, unnervingly cold and patrician like. Speaking of the patrician class, it seems almost arrogant for Peter Dunne to brand his political party with the hue that in one much earlier democracy only the emperor or a senior magistrate could wear. NZ First’s decision to persevere with black was a clever one, stark and assertive when placed next to the other electoral hues and suiting a party which thrives on opposition and aggravated debate. The Greens never really had a choice but what was interesting was the lime-like intensity of the shade chosen for this election. In comparison with the traditional forest green of their rosettes this striking hue may have been part of their campaign to make people aware of the party as a new force, or it could just be because it shows off Russel Norman’s  eyes, I’m not sure.

 Whatever the chosen colour the aesthetic use of it also matters, National and Labour went for colour saturation while the more minor parties used it to highlight the borders of their TV spots and billboards, The exception there being Act who forced canary yellow down the throat of any casual passer by.  The treatment of the colour is in the wider picture not particularly important but it does help to establish a sense of branding in the political landscape. Blue and black certainly appeared to be the winning hues this year, let us hope we don’t get too bruised…

Saturday 19 November 2011
M. Ashworth

Today I feel, as an art history student, the need to respond to Rob’s post from last weekend. Whether intended or not, I felt the post bore a slight implication that an individual with or studying towards an art history qualification suffers from a misguided arrogance and short-sightedness when approaching art – or perhaps that you don’t need a degree to understand what an artwork is all about.

Of course, this is true. Young or old, PhD or housepainter, every person is welcome in the gallery, and every person can appreciate and relate to art in their own way. Indeed, today my most enthusiastic visitor was a 3 or 4 year old girl, bounding around the space and declaring “we’re in an art gallery!” Her family were at the doors ready to leave before they realised she had vanished, and then found her happily installed at the end of the Upper Chartwell gallery. She doesn’t know who Colin McCahon is, or what a curator does, but she loves it here.

I suppose to begin with, I am surprised that Rob hasn’t acknowledged it is the art historians who piece together the biographical details of the artists and the stories behind each work, so that one can draw from this information, if they so wish, to fully appreciate the beauty of a work like Muriwai.

Extra-textual details can only take us so far, however; if they are more important than composition, brushwork, colour and so on, how should one approach the work of an artist like Milan Mrkusich? Looking at his 1971 work Painting in the Lower Chartwell won’t be very rewarding if you are simply asking “what is it about? What does it mean?”
By focusing on contextual information, one effectively writes off all non-representative and abstract art. This type of art is often the most challenging to the uninitiated viewer. You’re likely to answer yourself “it doesn’t mean anything! It’s a big black square. Anyone could do that.” Here is where the language of the study of art helps you to understand. Viewing a work of art based on its formal qualities (looking at the work’s form; paying attention to the features of the work itself) is an approach that came to the fore throughout the twentieth century. It forces a new way of seeing that embraces abstract art and gives it more purpose, aiding the viewer on the way to understanding. Look at the colours in Painting, the way the paint both creates depth and plays across the surface. Pay attention to the shapes on the canvas in relation to the shape of the canvas. Mrkusich treats a painting as a two-dimensional, flat surface in much the same way as American Abstract Expressionist artists like Pollock and Rothko.

But like Mark Rothko’s great works, Painting is something more, beyond simple paint on canvas. It is greater than the sum of its parts, and is not just tangible shapes and shades arranged on a surface. Grand-scale abstract works can provide an emotional experience for the viewer; a subjective experience. By using and subsuming art historical frameworks one can overcome the barrier posed by hard-to-read works (or works you come into contact with that aren’t accompanied by extra-textual information) and reclaim a personal understanding.

In this way, a work like Muriwai is moving even if you don’t know what is about, or for whom it was painted. The colours, the shadowy brushstrokes, the lines and composition are all imbued with the values it represents, are telling of loss, of grief, of hope. Art history’s language of formalism is simply a way to articulate the language of painting itself.

Sunday 13 November 2011
R. Kelly

The real pleasure I gain from working at the Adam is the discussions with patrons about our varying perspectives and lenses that we apply to the world around us. I am fascinated by the idea that one collection of atoms is able to possess such different senses of significance for two different people. This fact of perspective applies to almost any situation you could possibly encounter, but nowhere is it more noticeable than in the warped, and often quite bitchy, world of art criticism. I am as guilty of over analysing and possessing ridiculously tenacious opinions as anyone as else, but what I am going to address today is the actual process of identifying the perspectives that are locked up in the mind, arrogantly dictating to the person what opinion it should hold.

I am often asked if I am an art history student and patrons are occasionally shocked that I am not, surprised by temerity to enter a gallery without an MA in impressionistic brushwork. I have a lot of respect for the discipline of art history and I know a lot of my colleagues at the Adam are also currently studying at this particular altar of education; but its lens just doesn’t suit me. I find the personal histories and reactions far more scintillating and robust that any actual detail within a work. While obviously important and informing I find discussion of composition often sounds like a panel of wine judges praising the quality of the manure placed on the base of the vines. I’ve talked about Muriwai before and I’m going to use it again as an example of how my instinctual approach to a work is contextual. The beauty of Muriwai is compounded by the fact that it was a gift for a grieving friend; a recognition of our mortality as well as a reminder of the tenacity of life. In my eyes that is significantly more important than brushwork or the heritage of the artist; it is the informing factors of the subject matter that truly take a work from being just aesthetically pleasing to possessing real beauty.

That’s one perspective I have, the desire to know what informs a work through the context of subject matter. It mingles with my inclination to approach a work from an almost lyrical perspective. How does a work interact with its environment, and how has the marriage of forms been achieved? These are two lenses of mine, when you next venture out into the world try and assess what eyes you are using to see the events, people and locations that surround you; I promise that it will come as a surprise.

Saturday 5 November 2011
M. Ashworth

Ronnie van Hout’s miniature sculpture, Muriwai c.1972, is on show in our exhibition exploring the private nature of collecting, but it also allows for a consideration of another private aspect of art: the artist in the studio. This week I would like to share an assortment of links around this, in particular the moments in which the private creation of art is made public.

Van Hout’s work is an image of an image. He has taken a media photograph of Colin McCahon at work in his studio at Muriwai, originally published in the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly (which I couldn’t find online, sadly) and canonised it in a higher medium. The artist’s tiny figure is contained by the small space the diorama occupies, yet at the same time is unbounded by walls or frame. This seems fitting for McCahon, many of whose works are unframed themselves, and who first worked outside the institutional framework of art in New Zealand (and  I really only say “first worked” because it was his output that was integral in defining that framework in the first place). Van Hout’s McCahon looks as though he is able to stretch up off his bent knee and walk off out of the picture at any moment.

Indeed, despite depicting an artist in his studio, Muriwai c1972 gives us little insight into McCahon’s behaviour and attitude towards the actual formation of his works. His position in relation to the work laid out on the floor instantly evokes the classic footage of Jackson Pollock at work on his famous drip paintings. (http://youtu.be/7bICqvmKL5s) The closest we get to McCahon and his working methods, I feel, is through the spectacular 2004 documentary “Colin McCahon: I Am” (http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/colin-mccahon-i-am-2004).

A few other videos and images around artists in their studios have come to my attention recently. A major retrospective of Gerhard Richter is currently on exhibition at the Tate Modern in London (how I wish I could go!), and the Tate has shared some interesting content around the exhibition, including footage of Richter at work in his studio, on their blog and online channel. (http://blog.tate.org.uk/?p=8622
and http://channel.tate.org.uk/#media:/media/1212905262001&list:/
channel/playlists/45927933001&context:/channel/playlists).

At the other end of the spectrum from a big gun like Richter, New York street artist Cake was visited by FYeahWomenArtists this week and interviewed for their blog. The interview is candid and insightful, and is preceded by a number of photographs of Cake and her studio (http://fyeahwomenartists.com/post/12303698852/art-gab-with-cake).

Sunday 30 October 2011
R. Kelly

Overdue Vitriol on the Intrusion of Billy Apple
I have spent several blog posts this year looking at the relationship between the senses when approaching artworks in a gallery context, but it’s not yet a subject I feel at peace with. It disconcerts me how little conscious control we have over the way that we interpret the Mandela of swimming coloured sands which surrounds us, especially so in this modern media age. The level of control that we have as consumers of media products is being continually subverted by marketing and simple verbal influences so our individual senses of beauty and clarity are continually altering. This systematic intrusion on one’s taste or sensibility is compounded by a very modern dichotomy in whose shadow we live our tiny little lives; the gap between being a member of a mass market and simultaneously being treated by this market as a privileged individual. The everyman is put on a pedestal, everyone told they can be the epitome of the normal; a contradiction in itself. One of the few areas I feel safe from the tendrils of manipulation, which I would stress are not always intentional or negative, is when placing myself in a dialogue with a piece of art, or simply a moment highlighting itself in the day, a second of peace where I have the ability to simply react; of course, this too is an illusion. As I pointed out in an earlier post the context of the gallery itself impacts upon the way a piece of art can be approached and related to. With the white walled space, the high ceilings, the assumptions about what you are supposed to feel in a gallery, combined with the people you’re visiting with, the weather, and the unsatisfactory nature of your breakfast, objective appreciation never really stood a chance.

This is what really, deeply annoys me about Pop Art, it reminds me that I am being influenced. I know that my opinions are fundamentally affected by the people, sights and sounds around me, when engaging with art I feel like I’m in a safe space and I don’t like having that illusion shattered. Having said this I love a lot of the works from this period and I really dig what they were achieving, I just find some of the works and themes a little rude, making for an essentially jarring experience in a context where I expect beauty and flow.

A prime example of my disposition against the self conscious displaying of the co-modification of beauty in art, was the window piece recently in residence at The Adam. The brightly lit space briefly played host to a selection of works by the ex-pat New Zealand artist Billy Apple.  I hate Billy Apple, and I am not using that word lightly. The works shown here did not mildly annoy me, they made the beast curled away in a cave, deep inside the mysterious organic systems that comprise my human frame, rise up and Roar. I was furious; not just for myself but for the people he had conned and hurt. ‘Lunches ‘, a cruel joke played on a friend, sat next to a series of works where Apple had got someone to pay a trivial bill of his and then framed it accompanying the phrase “The artist has to eat like everyone else”. Well yes Billy, they sure do, there is no denying that. But not everyone who isn’t an artist goes looking for handouts, and they certainly don’t frame the handouts, place them in a public space in order to gloat about how much more intelligent they are than everyone else. This is sheer, rude, arrogance in its purest form. I know I’m supposed to have an open mind when asking the question “what is art”, and I do. I will agree that the works of Billy Apple are artistic, however they are also twisted and sadistic.

Apple offends me on almost every level: I don’t find his work aesthetically pleasing, his use of text is dated and doesn’t fit his selected palettes and he comes off as the worst kind of artist, the one who thinks that they are above the game, above having to work anymore.  To call Apple’s pieces “works” would be an insult to the verb form “to work”. Apple has an idea and places it on paper, I don’t see any kind of thought or process occurring in between these two stages. If there is forethought then it is one based in arrogant and a warped sense of malice.

I can see why he is a popular artist and why he has been successful, but that didn’t stop his pieces from ruining my time at the gallery for a 6 week period. I turn to art as an escape, a perfect idyllic moment. However for 6 weeks Billy Apple was standing there going “This is nice eh?”

Screw you man, leave me be.

Saturday 22 October 2011
M. Ashworth

This week in the Dominion Post I read that Bill Culbert has been invited to represent New Zealand at the 2013 Venice Biennale. The article told me that a former Arts Council chairman had expressed his surprise at the selection, because Culbert has lived in France and Britain for essentially his entire career. I wasn’t surprised to see the “New Zealandness” debate come up; it has plagued the history of New Zealand art and literature, and seems unavoidable in a relatively young and isolated country. Periodically a critic or historian will call for the need for a specific New Zealand identity to be expressed in our creative representation…

It was at this point in my thought process that I looked back at the name of the chap who was making the complaint. Hamish Keith. Wasn’t he the one…? Hamish Keith, co-author of the book An Introduction to New Zealand Painting, the one criticised in 1982 by Francis Pound for forcing the framework of a ‘real’ New Zealand upon the history of our country’s painting. The book values our landscape painters who captured the ‘true’ New Zealand’s harsh clear light, and has little place for painters of other subjects, let alone our expatriates. So it really is no surprise to see that it was Keith dredging up the same sentiment in criticism of Creative New Zealand’s choice.

Certainly in contrast with some of our previous ambassadors to the Venice Biennale, Culbert is a less obviously “New Zealand” choice. This year’s representative, Michael Parekowhai, is immediately identifiable as a New Zealand artist, starting from his name. His works make use of recognisable icons: a Kombi van, pick-up sticks; and quote the most canonical artists of New Zealand history, like McCahon and Walters. Parekowhai checks all the boxes of what the everyday New Zealander expects a New Zealand artist to be.
But some of New Zealand’s favourite artists have made their best work overseas. We’ll happily claim Frances Hodgkins and Len Lye, and even Billy Apple only returned to New Zealand in 1990 after 30 years in London and New York. Culbert is no less suitable to represent New Zealand than any other artist, particularly given his regular exhibitions here and his presence in many of our major cities by way of public sculptures. Any lack of specific “New Zealandness” in his works is not due to a specificity to any other nation; instead, perhaps, his ability to be at once a New Zealand artist and a global artist is what our country most needs to demonstrate our capacity to hold our own on the world stage at the Venice Biennale.

Sunday 16 October 2011
R. Kelly

Sundays at The Adam are as a rule extremely relaxed. Small groups of visitors drift in and out at their pleasure, usually having the gallery and its offerings uniquely at their disposal. This can be very rewarding from a staff member’s perspective because it allows the time and space to engage with patrons and their impressions of the works on offer. There is a popular fallacy in existence that asserts that we process art with our eyes. The visual aesthetic component is only a small part of the immersion which can create an emotional connection. Conversing and debating over the intentions or attitudes of a piece of art breathes life into the work and allows it to define itself.

Muriwai is one work at this gallery that haunts me on a regular basis. It’s not because of its appearance, although that certainly has an effect, but rather because of its context and my own background. It took me a while to reach speaking terms with McCahon’s work, it didn’t grasp the attention of the ocular sense like some of its more flamboyant companions on the whitewashed walls. But through discussing it with others and building dialogue around the work it has come to mean a lot to me; an old friend waiting patiently for me week after week. It’s title and original subject lend it a meaning in a very simple fashion by grounding the work in New Zealand and within a brand of spirituality peculiarly unique to Aotearoa. The beach at Muriwai is where, according to Maori mythic traditions, the dead souls let go and swirl away with the wind towards Hawaiiki. McCahon made this work for a friend who was grieving the death of his wife. This context is inherent in the work, it is reminder of the value of an individual as well as the sheer power and beauty of the world that surrounds us. The sombre beauty of the piece is reinforced by its new context in a gallery, encased by space and natural light, allowing this work to breathe. Everyone who enters the gallery on a Sunday has something to say about it, and each week I feel like I understand it more and more as I become able to approach it though various and diverse viewpoints. This is only one isolated example, if you come up to the gallery on a Sunday please corner me with a difficult question or an outrageous hypothesis; I’ll l be forever in your debt.

Saturday 8 October 2011
M. Ashworth

‘The Victorian Album, the Feminine and the Personal’ is the latest in camera installation, transforming the Kirk gallery into a serene room of sepia-toned faces looking out from history. Sandy Callister, a visual historian, has investigated the charmingly personal world of the carte-des-visites for Victorian women in New Zealand.

What strikes me about these images is how they are located in the incredibly distant past, yet their subjects are evocatively present. If it weren’t for the faded monotones, the short focus and the archaic dress, these girls could be taken from any 2011 lecture theatre. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that we are the same species as we were in the nineteenth century and are likely as not related in some way to the women pictured. But the limited photographic material available from the era results in expansive natural landscapes, towering peaks, struggling surveyors and tiny coastal settlements making up our impression of that period. History before photography is seen through the frames of painters and printmakers, idealising their subjects every which way, so it is refreshing to come into contact with such rarely-seen images from such a faraway era.

Of course, it’s naive to talk about photography as realism in opposition to painting’s idealism. Callister points out the efforts made by Victorian women to present themselves in different ways through the images taken of them, and the incredibly staged nature of the photographic studio. The ‘behind the scenes’ prints, of photos ruined by wriggling babies, are comical and at the same time pleasingly real, providing a sincere and spontaneous insight into life in the nineteenth century, contrasting with the stiff posed women on the other walls. And again, this makes a period which we have no motion-picture record of seem that much closer.

The most remarkable image in the exhibition to me is the young Maori woman shot by Carnell, staring directly out of the picture. Her traditional feather cloak is blurred and out of focus, juxtaposed against her assertive gaze from beneath her very European be-flowered hat. To me she is the quintessential nineteenth century Maori girl, living very firmly in two worlds, without exhibiting any outward anxiety about where she belongs.

Wednesday 5 October 2011
L. Jackson

The changing display in the front window of the Adam has attracted a lot of attention over the course of Behind Closed Doors, as anyone who takes as many coffee breaks as I do can testify. Over the last week, however, I’ve noticed a spike in this attention, as three small works have taken their places behind the glass. The number of passers-by who stop to look at these new additions has really taken me by surprise, but I suppose it shouldn’t, as these are three stand-out pieces by Francis Upritchard.

Upritchard seems to have been following me lately. I suppose that this is the nature of the intimate size of her works, that every viewing feels like a deeply personal encounter, and perhaps this is why I find seeing other people encounter these same pieces so surprising, let alone the fact that these are owned by someone else. Of course, Upritchard was one of New Zealand’s entries for Venice in 2009, and her work has also found me at the Govett-Brewster, at Kate McGarry in London, and, most recently, twice here in Wellington. Last week I encountered these three works which now sit in the Adam’s window on their ‘home’ tabletops, elsewhere in the city. What this series of meetings has led me to wonder is about the different lives of artworks, in private or public spaces, and our different experiences with them.

In Behind Closed Doors, the array of works from various private collections across the city encounter each other and the public in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t do when at ‘home’. I wonder, though, about the encounters from the other side of the glass – of the passers-by looking in through the front window. Why have Upritchard’s works stood out so much for so many visitors? Is it the bright turquoise colour of one, or the eyes of the other two? Or have other people been having these same personal encounters with Upritchard, recognising them from elsewhere? Whatever the individual reasons are, encounters with artworks from the other side of the glass certainly offer a different perspective on the way in which we encounter the artworks from private collections both in the public space of the gallery, and in the public outdoor space of the courtyard.

Sunday 25 September 2011
R. Kelly

For the last month or so the Adam has played host to a visitor from the Arctic Circle, the Russian installation project Private Moon. The premise takes the form of a visual poem telling the tale of a man who finds the moon on the earth after having fallen from the heavens. He nurtures and encourages the moon in a series of photographs, based on dreamlike pencil sketches, with the moon represented by a large light in the shape of a sickle bearing a close resemblance to the illustrative conventions of the moon in children’s storybooks. The images on the wall are complemented by the ambient glow of the titular object itself, poised unassumingly in the corner of the room. The ensemble of the gallery pushes those who enter it to question how the dichotomy between being one unique individual and the safety of being a member of a pack or herd. Everyone on the planet has a relationship with the moon because it features in every physical and cultural space because of its position in the sky. However, accompanying this group awareness of the heavenly orb is a distinct sense that the moon is shining for you, that you have a unique, almost intimate connection crossing the boundary of space between you. Private Moon very clearly illustrates this dichotomy by placing images framed in a very tender light of one individual with the moon figure, placed on a wall next to an image of the moon interacting with a vast cityscape.

The effect of these images is compounded as the exhibition travels around the world as each place it visits is incorporated into its narrative. The last haunting image of the exhibition features the rise of Mt Rangitoto shrouded in dusk with the moon figure shining out towards it over the water. The barriers we create around ourselves are broken down by this installation as it deconstructs our preconceptions of what constitutes private, intimate space. As well as this though, Private Moon is reflective, pretty and enchanting. Morgan said in her last post that it would be impractical to place in a personal home, I tend to disagree. This is a concept which is both malleable to its surroundings and profoundly impacting upon them. Private Moon steals into our minds and out again, in a similar fashion to its namesake, passing in and out of our collective and private imaginations.

Saturday 17 September 2011
M. Ashworth

Robert talked about the ‘Market Forces’ talk in last week’s blog post, but another issue arose from the dialogue from that night that I think is worth addressing: the issue of collecting contemporary art. New Zealand’s art market fluctuates, but always sees a consistent turnover of valuable, and for the purpose of this blog, what one can describe as “quality” New Zealand art. Ben Plumbley, an auctioneer, emphasised the distinction between the secondary market of art auctions versus the primary market of new work from artists, often through dealer galleries – work that has not been for sale before. It is this primary market that seems to face the larger challenge of the two, as it comprises new and contemporary art, and cannot rely on the presence of twentieth century “traditional” paintings from established artists, which will always circulate in the auction market.

A list of key- or buzzwords that we are used to seeing in relation to contemporary art highlight this challenge: conceptual, performance, time-based, site-specific, large-scale, subversive, project- or research based, installation, owner-specific. These terms describe works of art that cannot comfortably be purchased, taken home and hung on the wall or displayed on a plinth, and yet describe much of the work one can find on display in public galleries across the country (and the world). Art of this nature traces its roots all the way back to Dadaism at the beginning of the twentieth century, and has had a firm place at the forefront of contemporary art since the early performance-based explorations of Marina Abramovic, and the post-object output of our own Jim Allen and Len Lye, as seen in Points of Contact at the Adam earlier this year.

Art of this type is undoubtedly important to the history of New Zealand art, and of interest to New Zealand collectors, but is also unquestionably difficult to collect. Jim Allen’s artworks displayed in Points of Contact dated from 1969, but had to be reconstructed for the 2011 exhibition as the original works had never been kept for either collection or posterity. It is only now, 40 years later, that some of these works will enter the national collections of New Zealand at Te Papa, despite Allen’s  long-recognised position as a significant figure in the navigation of post-object art. And indeed, only an institution like Te Papa has the capacity to collect a large-scale piece like Small Worlds or Space Plane.

A brief survey of other contemporary artists exhibited in the Adam this year reinforces the difficulties contemporary art poses for the personal collector. Louise Menzies’ Letters to the Students of Radiant Life comprised a film installation, hanging banners, a small brochure, a performative lecture and a larger publication (which Clouds Publishings’ website still lists as ‘under development’). Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov’s Private Moon, currently in the Kirk Gallery, includes a set of drawings, photographs, and the large illuminated moon herself. In neither of these cases is it possible to divorce any aspect from another, or even to consider any one more or less peripheral than the others. But a performance cannot be collected in itself, and although Private Moon could physically be possessed in its entirety, it poses a challenge for easy integration into a home space.

Sunday 11 September 2011
R. Kelly

On Thursday evening this week the Adam held the second of its Open Conversations which was titled ‘Market Forces’ and made an effort to address the financial and behavioural patterns underlying the buying and collecting of artworks in New Zealand. Economic Theorist Morris Altman and art auctioneer Ben Plumbley spoke well and fielded a diverse range of questions leading to a slightly halting yet insightful hour’s discourse on the role of money in the art world of Aotearoa. The one point which caught my wandering attention was a short discourse on the buying of art as an investment portfolio.

Looking back to Thursday now I feel terrifically naive but that conversation was the first time I had ever thought to view art similarly to a set of shares, a trust fund, or even property ownership. I knew that the price of art is incredible for a product with such a highly subjective value, but it had never crossed my mind that art collectors were doing what they did in accordance to their budget and tried to collect works which spoke to them specifically. I am still convinced that this is the way most private collectors operate but I was unsettled by this categorisation of art as a commodity in the same way that we view oil, coal or timber. It’s not unreasonable to treat an art collection like a portfolio, it’s the peak of financial speculation as your profits or losses ride on the backs of trend, fad and media attention. For the art investor the risk is high but so too is the reward as can be seen here: http://www.worth.com/index.php/component/content/article/2112

My issue with this approach is ideological and maybe unreasonable but it’s too deep seated now to start altering the lens with which I view imaginative creation. To me an artwork is not a commodity; neither is a piece of music or a delicious meal. In my eyes these sensory activators have value, but not as dictated by the market. I will never be able to afford Paul Cezanne’s The Bridge at Maincy, but it still captivates me and will always continue to do so.

Saturday 3 September 2011
M. Ashworth

It was unrealistic of me to expect that I could make it through winter without being struck down by some sort of seasonal illness, and sure enough, on the very last day of August I succumbed to our good friend the ‘flu’. Today at the gallery I am experiencing the world through a slight fuzz induced by cold pills and keeping a formidable distance between my germy self and both the visitors and the artworks.
Being sick has me thinking about comforts, looking forward to a bowl of soup when I get home, and sipping on the ubiquitous yellow Fresh Up. Can the gallery, by right a clean and blank space in order not to detract from its art, offer comforts?

Jason Post’s newly installed Sirens greets visitors welcomingly after the first sliding door, despite the wall text telling me it can offer a potentially uncomfortable experience. After having sat at the desk listening to its ambient drones all day, with several trips to the entranceway for closer contact with the work, I’m prepared to say Sirens is pleasantly comforting. This may be due solely to the fact that the music belongs to the same genre as the band Stars of the Lid, which I listen to every night while going to sleep. I’m going to go ahead and say that ambient music can only improve any situation or environment, so I welcome Sirens. Perhaps next week when I am feeling healthier and more capable of having original and intellectual thought I will spend some more time between the glass sliding doors and subject myself to the uncomfortable experience the installation may induce.

The second comfort I’ve found here today is the lovely moon propped up in the corner of the Kirk Gallery. She will always evoke children’s stories, and the darling pen drawings and large-scale photographs do little to evade this romanticism. Can a darkened room with little but the moon to keep you company be anything but reassuring? I suppose it’s little surprise that the comforts I’m finding in the gallery today have much to do with sleep. For healthy visitors, though, these works can still be comforting, enchanting, and magical.

Sunday 28 August 2011
R. Kelly

The nature of our current exhibition, Behind Closed Doors, links clearly to the private emotional world of the individual. While it is generous to bring works with such personal and precious genealogies into a gallery setting it invites along with them a scary sense of insularism. This exclusivity inherent in this exhibition is compounded by the relatively small catchment area the works have been drawn from. The objects from private collections are from the Wellington area exclusively, as a far as I have been told, which gives this public exhibition a particularly intimate quality. There’s an adage in my family that Wellington is a city too small in which to have a successful affair. However morally dubious this statement may be it does reveal the habit this city has of pushing people, families, ideas, and creations up next to each other cheek by jowl, often leaving very little room in which to breathe.

Almost everyone who comes into the gallery at the moment has a distinctly personal relationship with at least one of the works loitering on the whitewashed walls. I have a cousin who is in a relationship with the son of one of the portrait subjects, a lady who came in today used to be in a school orchestra with Woollaston’s daughter, in which she played the cello, and many of those who wander through the doors on the weekend are coming to view their colleague’s or close friend’s work as it sits in the gallery. The nicest instances of this peculiarly personal mass relationship with our art is when patrons realise that works owned by their friends are hanging out in a gallery and fluff up with a very cheerful sense of confidence that they live in ‘the artistic set’. The reality of all these encounters is that Wellington is a small setting and also one which is draped with art making it almost impossible to escape its folds. These two characteristics of this tiny but well meaning city are succinctly summed up not just by the exhibit itself, but also by the patrons who are currently frequenting it.

Friday 26 August 2011
L. Jackson

A small room is lit by the light of a crescent moon which sits alone in one corner. This is, of course, the Kirk Gallery, where Marcus Williams’ installation of Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov’s Private Moon resides until 2 October as the third incarnation of in camera: a project series around and about collecting.

The moon in the corner itself is the very same that features in Williams’ own image in Private Moon – created in Auckland and exhibited here alongside the other images in the series. As such, this ‘private moon’ has followed us here to Wellington, and sits, watching over Friday night’s opening of the show as well as over every visitor who will make the trip into the Kirk Gallery over the coming weeks. This resonates with the story of Tishkov and Bendikov’s Private Moon: the man finds a moon that has fallen from the sky and decides to stay with it. He takes the moon everywhere with him, and finds it everywhere he goes. The darkened settings in the images (a moon only visible at night?) closely echo the darkened space of the Kirk Gallery, where the moon now sits, in the corner, waiting for her man.

On Friday night, however, there was another, competing light in the Kirk Gallery, as critic Claudia Arozqueta projected contemporary video art from Russia onto the adjacent wall, providing context for this post-Soviet photographic project. The selection of films Arozqueta showed provoked a lively discussion amongst the gathered crowd about our understanding of culture in Soviet and post-Soviet states. One video in particular stood out for me, in which a group of men and women, young and old, stand on a line of identical stools of differing heights in a light snow. The varied heights of the stools result in every participant appearing to be the same height, and also, in their physical structure the stools appear unstable – likely to topple of break at any moment, such is the Soviet state. Alongside this visual is a striking soundtrack of three versions of The Internationale – first the Billy Bragg version in English, followed by the Russian version, and finally an instrumental. In the first instance, we understand the communist anthem’s lyrics, and see that the group stand united and steady on their stools. As the Russian language version begins, the snow sets in more persistently than before and the participants shift uncomfortably on their unsteady stools, until finally they decide to leave the stools and resume their individual lives, accompanied by the instrumental version.

The style of humour and poetic tone of this video resonates with Tishkov and Bendikov’s Private Moon, as well as reminding us of the context of their creation in post-Soviet Russia. And through all this, the crescent moon still sits in her corner, watching over the ensuing debates of Friday evening, wondering where she will go next.

Saturday 20 August 2011
M. Ashworth

It’s really, really difficult to express in words the wonder of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s performance at the Adam Art Gallery on Saturday night. Hildur is a cellist from Iceland, known for her involvement with band múm and Icelandic music collective Kitchen Motors as well as stunning solo album Mount A. Performing with her was Wellington act Seth Frightening, this time as a two-piece.

The gallery is a somewhat unconventional location for a musical event, but Saturday proved the astoundingly resonant space to be the perfect venue. The audience was seated in the Congreve Gallery, the main space you encounter when you first enter the gallery. A seated audience was the intention, though I should say; so many people arrived that we spread across to the top of the stairway and down the first few steps. Arriving late (it’s very unusual for a show to start on time, ok) I found myself standing at the top of the stairs with absolutely no view of Hildur at all. The gallery came to my rescue, however, and delivered the sonorous music right to me. The cello soared to fill the space, the main performance after Chris Prosser and his violin’s opening act several weeks ago. I didn’t need to see a thing, and indeed like many other people in the audience I found myself closing my eyes. What I really wanted to do was run down to the Lower Chartwell, lie on the floor and absorb everything, but being an adult I had to behave myself, and stay where convention kept me.

Hildur made her cello act at times like a voice, at times like a rhythm instrument, but at all times like an instrument with something to say. Every plucked note, every looped drone had a purpose. Her songs don’t have any boring bits or filler. The cello danced around melodies in unexpected ways, landing on surprising notes until they eventually resolved in the most reassuring, beautiful way.

And then she sang! Her haunting voice is hard to describe – not angelic, but definitely magical. The cello became the male counterpart of the duet, particularly for a hypnotic rendition of a traditionally Icelandic hymn.

I really don’t think I am doing Hildur any justice, so I will end this with these lovely videos Rachel Brandon took of the performance.

Hildur Guðnadóttir performs an Icelandic Hymn at the Adam Art Gallery 20.8.2011 [youtube] 

Hildur Guðnadóttir performs Erupting Light at the Adam Art Gallery 20.8.2011 [youtube]

Sunday 14 August 2011
R. Kelly

From the Mouths of Babes
I was having breakfast with a friend recently and we were talking over things we enjoyed about our workplaces and about halfway through she asked me what it was like to work in a conventional gallery. This threw me a little as I don’t tend to think of the Adam as the most traditional place in the world and made me consider my own assumptions about what a galley is and how that conditioning affects the way in which I view art. The Adam has white walls with works generally hung on them or positioned nearby, and exhibits possess curatorial direction and usually follow some form of narrative. In this regard the Adam is a conventional gallery and the works placed inside it are affected by that context.

When Chris Prosser’s installation Found was in full swing an interesting dichotomy between different codes of culture was created. While essentially an installation concerned with an approach to music it also held a charming minimalist aesthetic making it feel like a dystopian fairytale. The addition of the visual aspect should have been a complement to the musical context but because it was in the confines of a gallery generally dedicated to visual art all the lines were blurred. I was talking to Chris in his neo-gothic studio when a boy who would have been about 10 years old burst in exclaiming “Is this it? Is this art too?” This epiphany on his part reveals the way in which we are subconsciously conditioned by our surroundings when using our senses in a constructed environment. The walls were just being constructed in this child’s mind but for most of us they’re heavily entrenched; the phrases “that’s not art” and “that’s not real music” are the extreme examples of these barriers.

I am deeply grateful for this reminder as it is easy to forget and dismiss the idea of these walls appearing in my own mind, exhibits like in camera serve to remind us of the entrenched preconceptions we have in relation to certain cultural forms.

Saturday 6 August 2011
M. Ashworth

People do not exist in isolation. One’s identity is defined by a past and present of actions, reactions and interactions with everything they come in contact with. It is this body of experience that causes artists to think and create the way they do, and determines how gallery visitors respond to the art we share with them.

It seems absurd to think one could extract oneself entirely from this web of influence, but what happens when you try? Chris Prosser has explored this idea musically, with the prelude to his current residence in the Kirk Gallery being the thousands of brief melodies he wrote in isolation in London in 1996. Removing yourself from the bombardment of present experience is difficult enough, but the more you retreat from the world around you, the deeper you find yourself in your own thoughts and memories. The soaring strains heard from Prosser’s violin throughout the gallery are not objective phrases, devoid of influence, but the product of a pure bond between one man and his instrument.

Having been locked away for fifteen years, the scores of Chris’ ‘Found’ project are distant memories to the artist, unknown yet strangely familiar. His undertaking to re-engage with these works over his two weeks at the Adam locates him as both artist and audience. For him, the melodies are a collection, like a photo album, a mediated way of accessing the Chris Prosser that once was. His 1996 act of isolating and writing is a piece of performance art that both gallery visitors and Chris revisit together.

Prosser’s part of in camera is not solely a personal endeavour, however interesting it must be for the artist. The work is complicated further by his presence in the gallery, the encouraged interactivity forcing the audience to consciously consider and express their reaction to the installation. In my personal discussion with the artist and a number of patrons, it becomes apparent that each person’s understanding of the installation is very different, dependent on their interests and personal histories. The musician visitor discusses the acoustic qualities of the gallery with Prosser, or the concept of involving time-based constraints with how music is written or shared. Fine art students are fascinated by the way Prosser’s setup acts aesthetically as a sculptural installation. Many visitors seem reluctant to interact, out of what I can only guess to be fear of interrupting something they don’t understand. A pity, considering how rare and privileged it is to have the artist right there and able to explain what his work means to him!

Sunday 31 July 2011
R. Kelly

This Sunday I was kept company in the gallery by the eclectic yet charming Chris Prosser as he works on his interactive installation downstairs in the eerie gloom of the Kirk Gallery. The concept behind this exhibit is the relationship of the artist with the works over a period of time as opposed to a snapshot of finished product. In 1996 Prosser locked himself inside a small room on Church Street in north London and wrote over 200 short piece of music. Short in fact may be overstating it, mostly they are two systems long, comprising one musical idea rather than a fully fledged piece. This aspect makes them quite haunting, isolated, and vaguely gothic as they bounce off the walls and high ceilings. It’s been a very quiet day visitor wise so I’ve been walking around in the music. It feels like a futuristic form of folk music, the soundtrack to some form of twisted modern western. The almost lyrical quality of Prosser’s pieces makes them feel slightly dislocated in a gallery setting but this adds to their airy and mournful quality.

I’ve been interested in the course of this exhibition with the effect that other senses have on the act of using sight to process a piece of art. At the beginning of the exhibition’s tenure here there was a video piece which carried with it a soundtrack of ambient flowing techno, heavily sedated club music. Looking at works of art with that in the background gave certain reference point for how the art is to be viewed without the spectator being aware of its influence. The best example of this that I have noticed is Colin McCahon’s work Muriwai. With the ambient flow of sound this work was interesting and striking but also felt a little like it was on the wall of a too trendy for its own good cafe. However with Prosser’s violin informing me today I got a very different impression of the work and of the artist. It was reflective and wistful, a sense of looking back at a world that had been lost. Sound heavily affects the way we process the images around us and today was a lovely opportunity to assess that link.

Saturday 23 July 2011
M. Ashworth

This Saturday the weather is decidedly grim, and the level of attendance to the gallery has reflected accordingly. Inside, the high walls are lit with a warm yellow light in contrast with the torrential downpour outdoors – making a snug haven for the people who do make it this far, but one understands the journey can be off-putting. Visitors head for a bench upon arrival, acclimatising to the space and collecting themselves before engaging with the exhibition.

It is definitely the case that weekend visitors are a different sort to the weekday patrons. Students are more likely to pop in during the week when they have a break between classes, often surprised to discover such a wealth of amazing art situated right in the middle of the university bustle. In the weekend we meet those working during the week and people who have time to dedicate an afternoon to exploring our art on offer. The freedom to browse Behind Closed Doors at one’s leisure completely alters the experience. This exhibition is so broad and comprehensive that upon successive visits one continues to discover and learn new things. For any student who pops in for a brief ten minutes before a class, I would strongly recommend returning for a second look.

The weekday/weekend division also brings to mind the solo/group visit dichotomy. Alone you can lose yourself in a work, exploring the earthy tones in Toss Woollaston’s landscapes and staring at Michael Smither’s diver until it becomes a work of formal abstraction. But visiting with family or a friend allows for a dialogue of ideas and the sharing of personal responses to the works. Last weekend, my family visited and I joined them as they experienced the Adam Art Gallery for the first time. The most interesting and stimulating thoughts that came out of this were mostly from the mouth of my twelve-year-old brother.

“It’s not a very good painting,” he said in response to Colin McCahon’s Painting for Luit—Not to Solve the Problem, prompting a discussion about the different functions and definitions of art and the relativity of a concept like “good”. We talked about the painting in comparison to View from Mrs Neame’s Old House at Mahau, titled retrospectively by Woollaston after McCahon discarded the work: “This one’s much better.” Mum added that Woollaston’s Bayly’s Hill, painted almost thirty years later, echoes his friend’s landscape compositionally.

After a study of Rita Angus’ fish (“Which one’s your favourite, Dad?”) we looked at Richard Frater’s installation in the Kirk Gallery and contemplated the stages of “art”, curation and collecting that it evoked. Contemporary art often requires a different approach to the strict paintings that we first looked at and the Modernist works on display in the lower galleries. I think I’ll save my thoughts on in camera for another week.

The Lower Chartwell’s offering is probably the most fun for the casual gallery visitor. Its often bright and quite varied contents invite visitors to speculate upon the place of works such as these in the homes of collectors. Hammond’s screen is functional, Weallean’s bulbous Loaf is fun and Jeffrey Harris’ sad woman seems as though she might overwhelm a living room in quite the wrong way. One can’t help but play the game; which piece of art would you choose to have in your home?

Sunday 17 July 2011
R. Kelly

The current exhibit in the Adam, Behind Closed Doors, deals with the relationship between private art collections and the public eye as well as providing a chance for the general public to see items normally hidden away. In my time over the last month or so engaging with the exhibit I have been fascinated mostly by the art itself, finding myself mesmerised by Hotere and Hammond as well as being introduced to the auburn hued glory of Toss Woollaston. But this week I was reminded that there is a lot more going on with this exhibit than simply the art on the walls, we are placing ourselves in the hands of a different culture, that of the private art collector.

On Thursday evening the gallery hosted the first of its series of Open Conversations, a format where an interaction between two experts in their own fields is observed by an audience which also interjects creating a collective third party in the conversation. The subject on this particular occasion was one of the relationships between public and private art collections. Once the fourth wall had well and truly broken down and the audience was now part of the discourse I was made well aware of the difference between private and public collection by the people who spoke, and the immense sense of ego which can accompany private collection.

Although Sue Gardiner was lovely, demure and extremely objective, given her background in both public and private fields of collection, there was still a sense of entitlement shining through which came from her private collecting practice. The main culprit of the unbridled ego however was an older man, wearing a pink shirt and tweed. The debate that he took part in was mostly friendly and well mannered, a concerted effort to try and create some insight regarding the Gordian knot of ownership and obligation in terms of art that we were attempting to unravel. However our salmon hued compatriot was treating it like a battle, wielding his untamed egotism like a sword in order to cut down anyone who would dare to disagree with him, to disagree with such a distinguished man. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at this unbridled arrogance and decided instead to attempt to discern where it came from.

A certain degree of confidence is required to be able to assert yourself in any form and I see no reason why the cultural world would prove an exception. The thing to watch is how far you allow the confidence to stretch. It is important to note I have met many of the collectors responsible for this show who are lovely, humble and extremely interesting people. The confidence necessitated by involvement in this field infects everyone and I too am guilty of letting the ego take precedence over reason on occasion. It is important to remember that what we know is often quite different to what we think we know and what we assume others don’t. This can be a real trap in the world of galleries and museums and is often quite damaging so I would advise to watch out for it in others and most importantly in the self.

The art doesn’t care what you say behind its back, but the collector well might! What are your thoughts regarding ownership of anything, not just art? Does it give you rights over the discussion of that material?