Deputy Commissioner and Curator announced for 2013 Venice Biennale

Massey University’s Head of Fine Arts, Heather Galbraith will be deputy commissioner for New Zealand’s presentation at the 2013 Venice Biennale, and Christchurch Art Gallery Senior Curator, Justin Paton will be curator.

Following the announcement in October of Bill Culbert as the artist selected for 2013, the deputy commissioner and curator appointments were confirmed this week by the Creative New Zealand Arts Council and the 2013 Venice Biennale Commissioner Jenny Harper.

Heather Galbraith brings a wealth of experience through her New Zealand curatorial roles at St Paul St Gallery and City Gallery, and as deputy commissioner for the 2009 Venice Biennale where she co-curated Francis Upritchard’s exhibition Save Yourself.  With her experience at New Zealand’s 2009 Venice presentation and in London, where was she curator at Camden Arts Centre in the early 2000s, Galbraith also has strong international networks. 

Justin Paton, recently announced as the 2012 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, is one of New Zealand’s foremost curators, an award-winning writer on the arts, and a television presenter. His recent exhibitions include De-Building at the Christchurch Art Gallery; Unguided Tours: The Anne Landa Award for Video and New Media Arts at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney; and Outer Spaces, the Christchurch Art Gallery’s current programme of post-earthquake public art and offsite projects.

In September it was announced that a deputy commissioner for 2013 would be appointed to support the work of the commissioner, and gain knowledge and experience of exhibiting at the biennale.

Commissioner Jenny Harper said: “I’m delighted Heather has accepted the deputy commissioner role.  She was a key part of a very successful presentation in Venice in 2009, and her energy and know-how will be central again in 2011. It is crucial that New Zealand builds and expands its pool of knowledge and experience for this and future biennales.”

The curator will support and collaborate with the artist during the development of the new work and its installation in Venice, and will write for the exhibition catalogue, blog and website that will be part of the 2013 presentation.

Jenny Harper said: “As a curator and communicator, Justin is a great addition to the team. Bill was very keen to have him involved, as they have worked together before, and Justin has written about Bill’s work on many occasions.  Justin has a record of working closely with artists on ambitious new works in challenging settings.  His experience as a presenter, editor and writer will ensure the information around and beyond the exhibition is clear and compelling.”

Several venue options are currently being explored for the 2013 exhibition.

“Space is scarce and fiercely competed for in Venice, so we have begun looking as early as possible. There are some exciting possibilities. Bill is an artist who responds very closely to a given space, and we are keen to confirm a venue and allow him to respond directly to it.  Many of Bill’s most fascinating works have appeared in settings that are not traditional white-cube spaces.  It’s exciting to imagine the play-off between his illuminated sculptures and the historic textures and surfaces of Venice,” said Jenny Harper.

The exhibition manager and venue attendant roles will be advertised in early 2012.

Biographies

Prior to becoming Head of the School of Fine Arts at Massey University, Heather Galbraith was Senior Curator Art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Senior Curator at the City Gallery in Wellington, and inaugural Director/Curator of St. Paul St Gallery, AUT University in Auckland.  Galbraith spent 12 years in London where she undertook postgraduate studies in curatorial practice at Goldsmiths College and worked as Exhibitions Organiser for seven years at Camden Arts Centre.

Galbraith has been an external examiner on postgraduate programmes for the School of Art and Design, AUT University and the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland; and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College, both in London.

Justin Paton is one of New Zealand's foremost curators and art writers and between 1999 and 2005 was editor of the journal of arts and letters Landfall.  He has published books on many artists, including Ricky Swallow, Jeffrey Harris, Julia Morison and Jude Rae; and contributed to many catalogues and publications in New Zealand and internationally. In 2006 his book How to Look at a Painting won the Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture category at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.  It later formed the basis of a twelve-part documentary series produced by Desert Road Television and screened on TVNZ7 and TV1.  Paton is a highly respected curator, whose recent exhibitions include De-Building at Christchurch Art Gallery, Unguided Tours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and Outer Spaces, a programme of post-earthquake public art in Christchurch.

2013 Venice Biennale project

It was announced in October that New Zealand born and educated Bill Culbert has been invited to present his work at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.  Selected by a panel of gallery directors and visual arts experts, Culbert is a maker of elegant, poetic and often dazzling sculptural installations that harness the qualities of electric light and make striking use of recycled and repurposed materials.

Celebrated in New Zealand, Culbert’s sculptures, photographs and ‘light works’ are also esteemed in Europe, where he resides in London and southern France.  Returning to New Zealand every year to exhibit, Culbert has had many solo exhibitions in public and dealer galleries, among them Groundworks at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 2008; 180 x 2 Whanganui at the Sarjeant Gallery in 2009; and yearly solo exhibitions since 2006 at Sue Crockford Gallery in Auckland. His work also featured in new collection hangs at Christchurch Art Gallery in 2009 (Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection) and the new Auckland Art Gallery in 2011.

He is a regular exhibitor in Australia, with recent appearances in Unnerved: The New Zealand Project at Queensland Art Gallery in 2010; Grey Water at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane in 2007; and the solo exhibition Flat Light at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney in 2009. His most recent solo show beyond New Zealand was Back Light, at Laurent Delaye in London in June this year.

Creative New Zealand's investment in the 2013 Venice Biennale will be $650,000.  This includes the rental and staffing of a pavilion for New Zealand during the 6-month exhibition and a fee for the artist to assist with the costs of making and freighting their work to Venice.  The 2013 Venice Biennale will be New Zealand’s sixth presentation at the exhibition.

Michael Parekowhai's is awarded Premier of Queensland's Sculpture Commission

The Premier of Queensland’s Sculpture Commission marks the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art in December 2011 and 20 years of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2012.

On 23 November, the Premier of Queensland’s Sculpture Commission selection committee met to review the submissions by the three shortlisted artists. At this meeting the committee, made up of representatives from the Queensland Art Gallery, Arts Queensland, the arts community, the Indigenous community, Events Queensland and Tourism Queensland, voted unanimously in favour of New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai’s proposed sculpture The World Turns.

The artist’s proposal comprises three separate but interrelated life—sized sculptural elements cast in bronze: a massive bookend in the form of an elephant tipped on its head; a chair; and a kuril (the local native water rat, which gives Kurilpa Point its name), which looks the elephant directly in the eye.

The World Turns acknowledges the kuril as the caretaker of the site, who upends the elephant with all its cultural and intellectual weight. Visitors may sit on the chair and contemplate the work, with their gaze directed at the kuril.

The selection committee, Chaired by Tony Ellwood, Director, Queensland Art Gallery, praised the work for its responsiveness to the site of Kurilpa Point and its cultural significance.

“The World Turns successfully draws connections between the river, GoMA and the adjacent State Library of Queensland; and is simultaneously contemplative and humorous. The artist’s representation of cultures coming together is at the core of what art galleries aim to do. The committee looks forward to seeing this major public sculpture realised and feels sure that it will become an enormously popular emblem for GOMA and a destination art work for Queensland”.
This project has received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through art+place Queensland Public Art Fund and the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation.

New Zealand Pavilion is now closed

Thanks for your support of the New Zealand Pavilion over the last five months.  Michael Parekowhai's exhibition On first looking into Chapman's Homer has been a huge success with accolades from prominent media, curators, gallerists and in particular the visitors.

Here is just a sample of comments from the three visitor books that have been filled:

• “A strong melange of feelings! Graze” Italy
• “Wonderful piano and a wonderful, inspiring space – so restful. Thank you” UK
• “In New Zealand and Maori culture I found myself... maybe in a previous life I lived there over.. I have not other words. Thank you” Italy
• “Gorgeous! Thank you for making my first trip to Venice unforgettable” US
• “Wonderful, Thoughtful, moving, soothing and powerful...beautiful.  Can’t find superlatives super enough, Thank you so much.” UK artist.
• “Very special and very appealing” China
• “Wow! That’s all I can say” France

Michael Parekowhai’s exhibition will now travel to Paris's renowned musée du quai Branly with three works being showcased at the museum. The two bronze grand pianos, each supporting a cast bronze bull, A Peak in Darien and Chapman’s Homer will be installed in early November 2011 in the grounds of the museum beside rue de l’Université, a key route for pedestrians visiting the nearby Eiffel Tower. Te Papa’s E Tu Ake will still be on at this time and connections may be made with this exhibition of New Zealand work.

In February 2012 the carved Steinway, He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: Story of a New Zealand River will be positioned in the entrance foyer of the museum with

The exhibition will return to New Zealand mid 2012 at Christchurch Art Gallery.  “It will be exciting to welcome this key work back home a year after it opened in Venice, keeping the Biennale heartbeat strong at home as well as overseas,” says Jenny Harper.

You can view a slide show of images of the exhibition in Venice here

55 La Biennale di Venezia 2013

Celebrated New Zealand sculptor, photographer and installation artist Bill Culbert has been invited by the Arts Council of New Zealand, Toi Aotearoa to present his work at the 55^th Venice Biennale in 2013.

Otago-born Culbert painted and worked more conceptually before beginning his experimentation with electric light in the late 1960s.  Often associated with kinetic and constructivist art, he also has a strong affinity with Marcel Duchamp and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy through his work with found objects and through a continuing exploration of ideas around light, energy, perspective, social space and politics.

Culbert has sustained a busy exhibition schedule throughout his career, with more than 100 solo exhibitions in New Zealand, England, Europe, the United States and Australia since 1960, and many more group exhibitions and major public art commissions.

Born in Port Chalmers, Culbert studied fine art at Canterbury University School of Art (1953-56), and in 1957 received a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London, gaining a silver medal for painting.  He now works in sculpture, installation and photography, often in combination around the subject of light.  His materials include light bulbs, lampshades, fluorescent tubes, plastic bottles, wine glasses and suitcases. He travels extensively and exhibits widely in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.  He is represented in New Zealand by Sue Crockford Gallery.  He lives and works in the South of France and London.

In 2010 a major new monograph on Culbert written by the poet, novelist and critic Ian Wedde, was published by Auckland University Press.

You can view a slideshow of some of his work here

Keep up to date with what is happening around the New Zealand visual arts scene and looking forward to 2013 via our Facebook fan page or Twitter page

Art Fatigue

One thing to keep in mind regarding the Biennale di Venezia is that one’s experience of it is not limited to exploring the streets for hidden national pavilions, or committing a day or two to exhaustively drink in the many exhibitions at the Giardini or Arsenale.  Part of the charm of the Biennale is that you are in Venice.  I’m not sure it would be as satisfying seeing all this art if you didn’t have to work hard for it (I’m talking here about going round and round in circles trying to find #17 on your map or discovering that certain exhibitions are closed between 1pm-2.30pm because that’s when the attendants have their lunch break.)  Additionally, it’s also about taking in the Venetian way of life – alternating between analysing the complex installation of Thomas Hirschhorn in the Swiss Pavilion with the consumption of delicious gelati or a nice cold spritz (Aperol or Campari) served with patatine (see image). Often visitors to the New Zealand pavilion breathe a large sigh of relief at the serenity of the Palazzo Loredan dall’Ambasciatore with its large lush garden and wide open spaces, complete with the lapping Grand Canal at the feet of Peak of Darien.  They enter the space already at ease after hearing the delightful tones of the piano wafting down Calle dei Cerchieri – many have their fingers dancing in the air along with the pianist, trying to identity if it is Chopin, Bach or perhaps a New Zealand composer like Douglas Lilburn.  Frequently they are suffering from what I like to call ‘art fatigue’ – after having seen so many incredible artworks with typically complex concepts, they have become almost like zombies in the face of new artworks and are merely walking from palazzo to palazzo ticking off landmarks on their maps.  However it seems that this exhibition kick starts their enthusiasm and they start to appreciate what they are witnessing firsthand... It’s amazing what a bit of music and Kiwi warmth can do! 

 

Acqua alta

Rose Campbell watches the changing seasons in Venice

Its my lunch break and I'm sitting by the water's edge observing the first signs of the acqua alta high tides that will fill the low lying parts of Venice with water over the next month. The water is at the level of the floor of the wooden jetty of the palazzo so definitely a good idea to be de-installing our exhibition on 23rd October or I would be playing in my gum boots!

The temperature has dropped a little over the last week with  heavy rain and thunderstorms  but its hotting up again in the afternoons.

Today we had a visit from Te Waka Toi Chair Darrin Haimona's travelling companions to Greece. I farewelled them from the venue with Dorothy Buchanan's version of Hine e Hine. There's been a steady stream of New Zealand visitors through over the last week - hurrying through before we close, some of their comments follow:

"The exhibition is stunning, intelligent, haunting, b****y huge and I was so proud of Michael and to be a New Zealander."

"We have just visited the pavilion which made us feel very proud to be New Zealanders. What a magnificent exhibition."

One of the highlights of my day has become a chocolate brioche and a small black coffee at the bar of the local pastry shop. Because of all the walking and the sweeping with my friend the witches broom (see pic) you can eat lots of pastry and not be the size of a barge here.

That's my theory anyway.

Learn more about Acqua alta here

Two Degrees of Separation

The last time I was in Venice I was an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection - a wonderful museum filled with significant pieces of 20^th century art housed in an unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal.  As the only New Zealander amongst a group of about 20 interns from all over the world, my accent and colloquialisms were met by laughter and I was badgered constantly with questions about sheep, whether we had electricity and our “close” physical proximity to Australia.  Thus it is a great contrast to work at the New Zealand pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia – visitors to the Palazzo Loredan dall’Ambasciatore often lighten up when they realise I am a New Zealander (“Oh, we just love New Zealand!”; “I loved visiting New Zealand in ‘83”; “Kia ora!”; “Go the All Blacks!”) and enjoy dishing all their memories and feelings towards our small country.  Sitting at the entrance to the exhibition while Ariana plays beautiful tunes on il pianoforte, sometimes in battle with the ringing church bells, it is tricky to gauge the nationalities of visitors – whether to greet them with ‘Buon giorno!’ or a ‘Hello!’ My technique now is to start with italiano and hear their response – often a rather disjointed ‘Bon-gi-orno’ rather than a purring ‘Buongiorrrno’ – and then introduce the exhibition in the appropriate language. The same goes for Kiwi visitors, who relish the opportunity to announce they are from New Zealand and go on to talk about where they’re from and what has brought them to the lagoon.  All visiting New Zealanders have gushed at how fabulous the exhibition is and burst with pride when they tell me that this is the best pavilion they’ve been to in the Biennale.  Recently we had a visit from a group of Kiwis which included Ron Alcorn, who was once a restaurant pianist in Wellington.  One evening it transpired the Hungarian-born pianist Lili Kraus (see picture) was amongst the diners – the same Lili Kraus who purchased the Steinway piano which is on display in the exhibition in a different form as He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu, with Māori carvings and paua inlays.  As the story goes, Ron was playing a piece and Kraus herself stood up and said something along the lines of 'I think you'll find it goes like this' and sat down at the piano and completed the tune.  Ron is pictured above playing Bach’s Partita No. 1. Coincidentally, another pair of Kiwis came in yesterday and talked about how Kraus had once performed at Hamilton Girls' School (Kraus had become a New Zealand citizen following World War II).  Much like in New Zealand where everyone is connected by two degrees of separation it is incredible to have such a link occur at this exhibition. This palazzo has certainly turned into a meeting house, of sorts. 

Poetic Doggy Tales

Rose Campbell, our final piano attendant, blogs as she prepares to leave Wellington for Venice.

On Friday the 16 September I will be leaving Wellington for Venice to play the piano in the final shift at the biennale exhibition.

This morning Jake (the Muss) and I took our usual dawn walk round the Wellington waterfront rugged up against an icy southerly. As  we loitered around the tree area Jake did  his usual sniff around - checked his  pee-mails and 'Liked' some other dogs’ messages. We also had time to take in the poetry along the way…Bruce Mason outside Circa…Robyn Hyde in front of the Te Papa garden…We like to stop on the wooden planking as the sky lightens over the harbour and read the James K  Baxter lines which sit partly submerged in the reflecting pond beside Te Papa.

I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees.
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of mussels and paroa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.

For a moment I was reminded of Lilburn’s ‘Seascapes’ work that I’ll be playing in Venice next week, of  Keats’ poem and of Michael Parekowhai in his overalls.  This time next week I hope to be sharing some early morning poetic reflections with Socrates - the Palazzo house dog.

Ariana Odermatt blogs about experiencing a little bit of the South Pacific in Venice

From Ariana Odermatt – piano attendant

The last thing I expected to experience while I was in Venice was attending a film premiere at the Venice Film Festival especially a screening of the Samoan film “O Le Tulafale” (The Orator).  Taking the vaporetto to Lido, where the film was being premiered, our surroundings were transformed on arrival by the sounds and images of Samoa  - temporarily whisking us back to the South Pacific after being surrounded by 17^th/18^th century Venetian architecture and Italian, French, German and English languages all day. 

The story is about a villager who has to defend his land and family in a powerful tale of honour, courage, love and redemption and was beautifully shot (by Leon Narbey) on the island of Upolu, Samoa.  You could pick out the Kiwis and Samoans in the audience as their laughter was distinctly identifiable in the funnier moments, collectively identifying with our South Pacific thumbprint which seems so far away from this floating city of Venice.  A particular highlight was watching the rugby coach encouraging his team, pumping the knapsack that was on his back and spraying weeds, while talking about his time playing rugby in Auckland! 

Director, Tusi Tamasese received a standing ovation from the audience at the end of the film and we left with stunning imagery of green islands and a little taste of home as we rode back down the Grand Canal to our own little piece of the South Pacific at the NZ Pavilion. Tofa ia soifua

Read an interview with Tusi Tamasese from Venice
Read an Italian review of The Orator

Watch the official movie trailer for The Orator

Background

This is the first time that Samoa was represented at the Venice Film Festival and saw a return for New Zealand after a 4 year absence (the last film shown at the festival was Cargo). The film was entirely shot in Samoa, in the Samoan language, with a Samoan cast and story.  Congratulations to writer/director Tusi Tamasese,  Producer  Catherine Fitzgerald ('Rain of the Children', 'Two Cars One Night'),Cinematographer Leon Narby ('Dean Spanley', 'No 2', 'Whale Rider') and Associate Producers Maiava Nathaniel Lees and Michael Eldred.

Dusty Projects

 Welcome to our final art attendant, Sophie Keyse blogging for the first time from the Pavilion.

It is a bit surreal returning to Venice in late summer after leaving its water-filled streets in early 2010 during a very high acqua alta (high water) with piles of old snow clustered in the corners of the tiny streets.  What has truly captured my eye during this stint in Venice is the constant presence of dust in La Serenissima.  Everywhere you go the streets are covered with a thin powder coating: the crumbs of disintegrating walls and walkways whipped up into clumps of ochre and burgundy in the crooks of the narrow calle.

It reminds you that this is a very old city, with the streets and bridges constructed over hundreds of years since the early fifth century. Unlike New Zealand’s constantly re-tar sealed roads and repaved pathways, these cobbles have weathered many a foot over the decades.  It is this aging dust which consistently coats the sculptures situated in the palazzo and il giardino– a light layering of history which manages to burrow its way into the tiniest of crevices. 

As a Venue Attendant part of my job is to ensure the artworks are well cared for and damage-free, so every morning Ariana and I lovingly dust and clean the bronze sculptures and carved piano with specialist conservation tools.  As a result one gets to know the sculptures quite intimately – brushing away the cobwebs from inside the delicate nostrils of a bull or sweeping away the dust from the collar of Kapa Haka. 

It brings to mind Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (c.1939) where dust is used as a metaphor for the lack of dreams in the ‘modern’ world – no longer intangible but instead so banal and obsolete they resemble the greyness of this inevitable by-product of society. In Benjamin's opinion, dust invades in-between spaces and coats supposedly redundant objects, thus condemning them to stillness and decay.  However, Parekowhai manages to halt this disintegration and instead encourages constant movement – the fatal enemy of dust – by welcoming pianists to play the carved piano and allowing visitors to get up close and personal with the bronze bulls.

These sculptures, particularly He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu, are the manifestations of dreams – a challenge to European art history with their use of traditional materials and reference to historical concepts but profoundly Kiwi subject matter.  On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer is not composed of static artwork despite their obvious palpability and weight but rather come alive by the touch of the pianist’s hand or the footsteps and shadows of captivated visitors.  This dust is not a death sentence but rather a pleasant reminder to visitors of this city’s incredible history.

Water Works II

Amy Mansfield continues her analysis of the exhibition and visitor reaction to it.
Read Water Works I

Parekowhai’s exhibition, and specifically He Kōrero Pūrākau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: Story of a New Zealand River, distinguishes itself further: it is fluid, responsive - ultimately, it is human. It talks. It thinks. It feels.

The work changes according to the mood of the pianist, her decisions about what and how to play, and to requests of the visitors who strike up a conversation with her, to their moods and collective energy, their personal musical canons. The difference in visitors’ experiences of it, in its all-important details if not in the broader conceptual sense, is not someone absent other’s design, strangely, not even Parekowhai’s.

The detail is the repertoire, about which Parekowhai was puzzlingly non-prescriptive. The pianist, whoever she may be - and she may have just walked in off the street - decides. When Catherine plays Bach or slow movements of Mozart sonatas, people keep moving, walking through the palazzo through to the portico or the garden. For the Romantics, Chopin, Mendelssohn or the Russians, they sit.  In this sense, there is a kind of programming at work, but what is programmed is the visitor rather than the work. The music is as controlling as Kapa Haka, whose bronzed body language viewers can’t help but mirror, and as the bull in A Peak in Darien, who beckons you to walk around him to study his impressive parts, but only ever clockwise. Like a river, though, you can’t always see the undercurrents, or know what will come to the surface when you sit on its banks and watch, and listen, or dive in and talk to it, work on it, and let it work on you.   

A big thanks and goodbye to the über-talented Catherine, whose music and company I’ve had the pleasure of over the past four weeks, and a big hello to Ariana, who takes over from Catherine from today, along with her friends Satie, Bach, Psathas, Nyman and, yes, ABBA.

Ariana Odermatt recording original NZ music on harpsichord.