Calendar
Calendar
The HUM calendar features exhibitions & events by New Zealand arts practitioners working or living abroad.
Ruth Buchanan: Dead Marble
Artspeak, Vancouver, Canada.
09 June —
28 July 2018
In 1958, weaver Ilse von Randow was commissioned to produce a major work of woven curtains for the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in New Zealand. Her ‘Auckland Art Gallery Curtains’ became the largest piece of hand weaving created in New Zealand. In her first presentation of work in North America, Ruth Buchanan’s exhibition ‘Dead Marble’ revisits von Randow’s curtain, and the newly designed Auckland Art Gallery sculpture court (1953) in which they were hung, as a departure point to reconfigure the complex relationships between gendered representations, institutional hierarchies and the burden of inherited legacies.
‘Dead Marble’ is an installation that stages a series of performative provocations drawing attention to the ways in which both people and architecture determine the experience of the institution. Through an audio guide, several characters—all of whom have a distinct relationship to the sculpture court—will “inhabit” the space. Each week for the duration of the exhibition, the tone of the installation will shift through the scripted audio presence of one of the seven characters: the Visitor; the Weaver; the Plinth; the Cleaner; the Director; the Piano; and the Architect. ‘Dead Marble’ takes shape through the subjectivities of these characters, who essentially become custodians of the space of Artspeak as they set up the embodied conditions through which we experience and encounter the works within the installation.
In 1958, weaver Ilse von Randow was commissioned to produce a major work of woven curtains for the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in New Zealand. Her ‘Auckland Art Gallery Curtains’ became the largest piece of hand weaving created in New Zealand. In her first presentation of work in North America, Ruth Buchanan’s exhibition ‘Dead Marble’ revisits von Randow’s curtain, and the newly designed Auckland Art Gallery sculpture court (1953) in which they were hung, as a departure point to reconfigure the complex relationships between gendered representations, institutional hierarchies and the burden of inherited legacies.
‘Dead Marble’ is an installation that stages a series of performative provocations drawing attention to the ways in which both people and architecture determine the experience of the institution. Through an audio guide, several characters—all of whom have a distinct relationship to the sculpture court—will “inhabit” the space. Each week for the duration of the exhibition, the tone of the installation will shift through the scripted audio presence of one of the seven characters: the Visitor; the Weaver; the Plinth; the Cleaner; the Director; the Piano; and the Architect. ‘Dead Marble’ takes shape through the subjectivities of these characters, who essentially become custodians of the space of Artspeak as they set up the embodied conditions through which we experience and encounter the works within the installation.
Bridget Reweti and Shannon Te Ao at Or Gallery
Or Gallery, Vancouver, Canada.
12 May —
02 June 2018
Being in Place brings together four artists from territories an ocean apart who tell stories about place. Installations by Māori artists Shannon Te Ao (Ngāti Tuwharetoa) and Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) unravel colonial histories and express guardianship using performance and experimental moving image. The works of these artists from across the Pacific, from Aotearoa New Zealand, will be seen through and alongside the local voices, images and narratives of xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) artist Debra Sparrow and Vancouver-born Métis/Cree/German filmmaker, Kamala Todd. What is generated by bringing together the work of artists from two distinct places and putting them in dialogue? How do we relate to land and place as both a host and a guest? Stories contain – and storytelling expresses – Indigenous knowledge. These stories are not simply representative of, but constitutive of relationships between peoples and places. As such, they express Indigenous ways of being and offer powerful commentary for considering a variety of relationships to our environment. The exhibition is curated by New Zealand curator Paula Booker.
Being in Place brings together four artists from territories an ocean apart who tell stories about place. Installations by Māori artists Shannon Te Ao (Ngāti Tuwharetoa) and Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) unravel colonial histories and express guardianship using performance and experimental moving image. The works of these artists from across the Pacific, from Aotearoa New Zealand, will be seen through and alongside the local voices, images and narratives of xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) artist Debra Sparrow and Vancouver-born Métis/Cree/German filmmaker, Kamala Todd. What is generated by bringing together the work of artists from two distinct places and putting them in dialogue? How do we relate to land and place as both a host and a guest? Stories contain – and storytelling expresses – Indigenous knowledge. These stories are not simply representative of, but constitutive of relationships between peoples and places. As such, they express Indigenous ways of being and offer powerful commentary for considering a variety of relationships to our environment. The exhibition is curated by New Zealand curator Paula Booker.