Kate Newby, Cold Water, 2025. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation with the support of Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. Installation view Sharjah Biennial 16, Kalba Ice Factory, Kalba. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation. Photo: Ivan Erofeev

Writing

Kate Newby in Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry

09.04.2025

Contemporary HUM speaks to Aotearoa-born, Texas-based artist Kate Newby about Cold Water (2025), her new commission for Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry. Newby discusses her process of responding to the sea-side site in Sharjah, and the influence of its elemental characteristics—light and space; sun, water and desert—on the work.

Project

Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry

In February 2025, Contemporary HUM was on the ground during the opening week of Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, co-curated by Aotearoa curator Megan Tamati-Quennell with Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Natasha Ginwala and Zeynep Öz.

Sharjah Biennial 16 convenes under the title “to carry”, a multivocal and open-ended proposition that connects stories and traditions across generations and cultures. The five co-curators of Sharjah Biennial 16 present their projects both individually and collectively, gathering under the rubric of a single proposition: What does it entail to carry a home, ancestors and political formations with you?

Megan Tamati-Quennell’s project assembles a significant number of artists and practitioners from Aotearoa New Zealand: Albert L. Refiti, Ana Iti, Fiona Pardington, Kate Newby, Mara TK, Saffronn Te Ratana, Luke Willis Thompson, Michael Parekōwhai and Te Matahiapo Collective, whose projects collectively speak to themes of place, space and whakapapa (genealogy).

Kate Newby, "Who tells everyone what really happened" (detail), 2024. Stoneware, glaze 96 x 96 x 4.5cm. Courtesy of Fine Arts, Sydney

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Kate Newby, Live near friends

02 November —
20 December 2024

Fine Arts, Sydney, Gadigal Lands Sydney, Australia

Kate Newby's work for "WHO IS THIS SONG?". Courtesy COOPER COLE

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Kate Newby, WHO IS THIS SONG?

21 September —
09 November 2024

COOPER COLE, Tkaronto Toronto, Canada

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Kate Newby, Hours in wind

29 August 2024 —
04 September 2025

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Gadigal Lands Sydney, Australia

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Kate Newby, anything, anything

09 June 2024 —
27 April 2025

Klosterruine, Berlin, Germany

Kate Newby, 'Smaller than some bigger than most', 2019. Brass, silk thread, hand spun wool, lichen. Dimensions variable. Courtesy Cooper Cole

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Kate Newby, The Way We Live

09 April —
10 May 2024

Conceptual Fine Arts, Milan, Italy

Kate Newby, 'My question', 2024 stoneware, glaze, glass, H 58 x W 74 x D 6 cm. Courtesy Kayokoyuki

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Kate Newby, Very active weather

17 February —
24 March 2024

Kayokoyuki, Tokyo, Japan

Kate Newby, 'What's the worst that can happen #3', 2018. Porcelain, found glass from sidewalks. Dimensions variable. Courtesy COOPER COLE

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Kate Newby, Gravity Model

27 January —
02 March 2024

Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada

Kate Newby installing 'Do it Tired'. Photo: Jen Bootwala/Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts

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Kate Newby, artist talk

12.00PM — 12.45PM
02 February 2024

Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, USA

Kate Newby, ‘us, call us’, 2023/2024 et ‘always, always, always’ 2023/2024. Photo credits: Nacása & Partners Inc. / Courtesy of Fondation d’entreprise Hermès

Calendar

Kate Newby, Dialogue 2: Ephemeral Anchoring

16 February —
31 May 2024

Ginza Maison Hermès, Tokyo, Japan

Kate Newby's work in 'Our Ecology', Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2023-24. Courtesy Michael Lett Gallery

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Kate Newby, Our Ecology

18 October 2023 —
31 March 2024

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

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Kate Newby, Intimate confession is a project

27 October 2023 —
10 March 2024

Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, Texas, USA

Kate Newby, 'Lasting Sounds', 2022, Porcelain, glaze, screws, 128 x 4 x 2.75 inches per line (max height), 325 x 10 x 7 cm

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Kate Newby, The path guides the meaning

11 August —
09 September 2023

Rebecca Camacho, San Francisco, USA

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Kate Newby, Respiration

21 July —
02 September 2023

Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada

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Kate Newby, miles off road

29 June —
19 August 2023

Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia

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Kate Newby, What a great year for music

05 May —
15 June 2023

Marfa Book Co, Marfa Texas, USA

Kate Newby, 'Wild was the Night', 2019. IAC Collection, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes. Photo: © Blaise Adilon

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Kate Newby, Danse Céleste (Celestial Dance)

25 April —
24 June 2023

Théâtre de Privas, Privas, France

Tim Veling, Dad, Pete, Opa (Lisbon: XYZ Books, 2022). Image: XYZ Books.

Writing

Reading Artists’ Books with Interjections from a Daphne on Pete’s Front Step

By Hamish Petersen

21.02.2023

HUM’s Senior Editor considers the unique capacities of artist books by exploring three Aotearoa artists’ international projects from recent years. They learn how the intimate encounter between page and reader relies on finely tuned elements to realise some kind of sovereignty over the artist’s story or recognition in their reader.

Glass inscription by Kate Newby. Courtesy of Laurenz Space

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Kate Newby, Handover

31 December 2022 —
31 January 2023

GUIMARÃES and Laurenz, Vienna, Austria

Courtesy of Kate Newby and the Sunday Painter.

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Kate Newby, So close,come on

25 November 2022 —
21 January 2023

The Sunday Painter, London, UK

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Kate Newby, We are such stuff

07 September —
22 October 2022

Laurel Gitlen Gallery, New York, USA

Kate Newby, The edge of the earth (detail), 2022. Bricks, mortar, produced with the support of Rairies Montrieux (Les Rairies). View of the group exhibition "Reclaim the Earth", 2022, Palais de Tokyo (Paris). Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept

Writing

Chance and Impermanence

By Daria de Beauvais, Kate Newby

27.07.2022

Texas-based Aotearoa artist Kate Newby talks to Palais de Tokyo curator Daria de Beauvais about Reclaim the Earth, traversing the ecological questions at the heart of the exhibition, Newby's collaborative process of art making, and her new works commissioned for the exhibition.