Interviews
Writing
HUM live from the 2024 Venice Biennale
16.04.2024
From 16–21 April 2024, Contemporary HUM will publish live coverage, exclusive images and videos from the opening week of Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, The 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Click through for coverage of the Aotearoa New Zealand artists presenting work in the curated section of the Biennale, as well as in other events held off-site.
Writing
“To see us on our best day.”
By Dávvet Bruun-Solbaak
15.12.2023
Offering a glimpse at the wide range of emotions and encounters that Aotearoa-based artist Maungarongo Te Kawa and Northern Sámi activist Dávvet Bruun-Solbaak share in their multifaceted experiences at different edges of the globe, this conversation takes Te Kawa’s recent residency and touring exhibition in Norway and Sámi territories as a departure point.
Writing
A Film Glossary
By José B. Segebre
29.11.2023
After a conversation with Frankfurt-based, Waipukurau-born artist Juliet Carpenter, José B. Segebre shaped the ideas discussed into this experimental glossary. The entries highlight the ways in which Carpenter’s practice is informed by film and theatre history, and is deeply engaged in the friction of contemporary politics and technologies.
Writing
Mataaho Collective at the Dhaka Art Summit
By Pauline Autet
21.04.2020
We finish our first series focusing on the Asia region with Contemporary HUM Editor Pauline Autet interviewing Mataaho Collective on their participation in the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh in February 2020, where they partook in panel discussions and practised a type of waiata (song) called a pātere.
Writing
An interview with Yuki Kihara
By Contemporary HUM
24.05.2022
In the opening week of the 2022 Biennale di Venezia, HUM sat down with the artist representing Aotearoa, Yuki Kihara, to discuss her exhibition Paradise Camp, and what it means to bring a Pasifika, Fa'afafine voice to the international audience of this major event.
Writing
An interview with the curators of 'Paradise Camp'
By Contemporary HUM, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Natalie King
24.05.2022
In the opening week of the 2022 Biennale di Venezia, HUM sat down with the Aotearoa New Zealand pavilion’s Curator, Natalie King, and Assistant Pasifika Curator Ioana-Gordon Smith, to talk about bringing Yuki Kihara’s Paradise Camp to Venice.
Writing
Caretaker to Caretaker
By Bopha Chhay, Paula Booker
18.01.2022
In Part One of this interview, Vancouver-based Aotearoa curators Paula Booker and Bopha Chhay talk about Chhay’s work as director of non-profit artist-run initiative Artspeak, the meaning of care in a curating role, the relationship between writing and art, and the place of artist-run initiatives in Canada and Aotearoa.
Writing
“Don’t Learn Anything More!”
By Connie Brown
26.10.2021
Writer Connie Brown pays a visit to Virginia Leonard’s studio, encountering the artist’s “fugly” ceramics and talking with her about recent and upcoming international exhibitions, her process into ceramic-making and the resistance her work offers to traditional notions of wellness, pain and the body.
Writing
An interview with Joel Kirkham
By Catherine Dale
22.10.2020
Based in Japan for the past ten years, Joel Kirkham founded Goya Curtain in Tokyo with fellow artist Bjorn Houtman in 2016, and has since been running the gallery. Together with Catherine Dale, he discusses the project space, the exhibitions it has hosted since opening, including Anoushka Akel's recent show (RED LEGS) HOT HEAD, and the future direction for Goya Curtain.
Writing
Always in Transit
By Aaron Lister
18.09.2019
A conversation with Yona Lee about her new site-specific installation, In Transit (Highway) (2019), presented at the 15th Lyon Biennale, her training as a cellist, and the development of this ongoing project. With an introduction from Daria de Beauvais, Senior Curator at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Co-Curator of this year's Biennale.
Writing
Screaming Strawbears and other Strange Engagements
By Tessa Laird
05.07.2019
From Morris dancing to costume making, Berlin-based artist Matthew Cowan and arts writer Tessa Laird discuss Cowan's interest in folklore, the function of tradition in the modern world and the influence of surrealism on his practice. Cowan's exhibition The Scream of the Strawbear opens at Kunsthalle Giessen in Germany on 7 September 2019.
Writing
An interview with Dane Mitchell
By Contemporary HUM
24.06.2019
HUM's editorial team sat down with artist Dane Mitchell to discuss his work for the New Zealand Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, Post hoc. The work, both ambitious in scale and subject, has sparked discussions on global climate change and meditations on what has truly disappeared from the world.
Writing
Feminist Hieroglyphics
By Louise Lever
25.06.2018
A conversation with London-based artist Sriwhana Spong about Spong's practice and in particular her recent video work A hook but no fish, 2017, originally presented at the Pump House Gallery in London, which speculates upon a secret language invented by a mystic 12th century abbess, Hildegard of Bingen.
Writing
An interview with Bruce Barber
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM's series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk with Bruce Barber about his work Party without Party (2017), included in the exhibition Personal Structures: Open Borders at the Palazzo Bembo.
Writing
A New Commonwealth Internationalism
By Aaron Lister, Damian Skinner
01.03.2017
Writer and curator Aaron Lister talks to art historian Damien Skinner about the 'New Commonwealth Internationalism', a moment of post-WWII postcolonial internationalism in the British art scene, and its influence on British and New Zealand art history.
Writing
Caretaker to Caretaker
By Bopha Chhay, Paula Booker
18.01.2022
In Part Two of this interview, Vancouver-based Aotearoa curators Paula Booker and Bopha Chhay talk about Chhay’s work as director of non-profit artist-run initiative Artspeak, the challenges of maintaining a space during COVID-19, what decolonisation in art institutions can be like and working on unceded territory, and curating recent projects around the relationship between art and writing.
Writing
We See the Same Stars
By Gabriela Salgado, Sabine Casparie
16.11.2021
In this interview with Gabriela Salgado, former Artistic Director of Te Tuhi, Sabine Casparie sits down with the curator to discuss her new London-based project, Southern Stars, a platform connecting artists from the southern hemisphere. Casparie and Salgado discuss how the European art world is responding to new, Indigenous voices, and Southern Stars’ first exhibition, Golden Daughters of the Sun, featuring Aotearoa artist Salome Tanuvasa.
Writing
Treatise as Exhibition
By Amira Gad
10.08.2020
In Part Two of this two-part conversation, curator Amira Gad and artist Simon Denny discuss Mine, an exhibition at MONA in Australia for which Denny created a 3D model of a proposed worker’s cage for Amazon; Proof of Work, Denny's 2018 curatorial project at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin; as well as his participation in Vaudeville, a theatrical journalism experience organised by the Financial Times.
Writing
Treatise as Exhibition
By Amira Gad
20.07.2020
In the first piece of this two-part conversation, Aotearoa artist Simon Denny speaks about his recent projects, including his 2020 solo show at Altman Siegel in San Francisco which included former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's scarves and 'Tech-Bro' Patagonia vests, and about corresponding with Peter Thiel after he came to see Denny's show at Michael Lett Gallery in Auckland in 2017.
Writing
Design solves problems and art creates problems
By Eleanor Woodhouse
23.04.2019
A closer look at Biljana Popovic's 12-month Visual Arts Residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, and how her previous work as a commercial designer informs her current visual arts practice by integrating elements of interior design and architecture.
Writing
An interview with Dame Jenny Gibbs
By Pauline Autet
05.04.2019
As the commissioner of the New Zealand Pavilion in the years 2001, 2003 and 2019, Dame Jenny Gibbs has unparalleled knowledge on the history of New Zealand at the Venice Biennale. HUM's Editor Pauline Autet, speaks with Gibbs about the forthcoming biennale and about Dane Mitchell's project for the prestigious international exhibition.
Writing
999, Alchemist Trauma Centre / Power Centre
By Jorge De Hoyos
11.07.2018
Berlin-based Jorge de Hoyos first experienced Alexa Wilson's current project 999: Alchemist Trauma Centre / Power Centre when both artists were auditioning for a Masters in Solo Dance Authorship in Berlin. In this part-essay, part-interview, they discuss the work, which is due to be performed in London, Berlin, India and NZ later this year, and exchange their views on feminism and challenging binary perceptions.
Writing
An interview with Martin Basher
By André Hemer
16.03.2018
A conversation between two offshore New Zealand artists: Vienna-based André Hemer and New York-based Martin Basher. Their chat touches on producing art in Trump-era US, display-based practice, Basher’s doctorate, and living in NYC as a New Zealander.
Writing
Judy Millar: The Sinew of Space
By Jodie Dalgleish
12.02.2018
Jodie Dalgleish considers Judy Millar's exhibition Swallowed in Space at Galerie Mark Müller in Zurich (2017), reflecting on the way Millar's affective paintings can activate space to create a 'bodily-felt' experience and extensively draws on a dialogue between the writer and the artist evaluating 'what painting does to us'.
Writing
An interview with Lisa Reihana
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM’s series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk to Lisa Reihana, New Zealand's representative at the Biennale about her experience in Venice.
Writing
An interview with Kāryn Taylor
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM's series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk with Kāryn Taylor about her work Field Notations, included in the exhibition Personal Structures: Open Borders at the Palazzo Bembo.
Writing
An interview with Francis Upritchard
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM’s series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk to Francis Upritchard about her work in the Biennale.
Writing
An interview with Paul Handley
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM's series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk to Paul Handley about his practice and his work Déplacement (Smuggling Pod) (2017), included in the exhibition Personal Structures: Open Borders at the Palazzo Bambo.
Writing
An interview with Gregory Burke
By Mandy Alves
10.06.2017
Canadian writer Mandy Alves talks with New Zealand curator Gregory Burke about his role as CEO and Executive Director at the Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.
Writing
An interview with Jennifer Flay, Director of FIAC
By Pauline Autet
18.03.2017
In this two-part interview, HUM's Editor Pauline Autet speaks with Jennifer Flay, Director of FIAC in Paris. In Part 2 we look back at Flay's departure from New Zealand 36 years ago and her initial years in France, before she became involved with FIAC. We ask how she was introduced to the gallery world, and about operating her own gallery in Paris, from 1991 to 2003.