Video
Writing
Betty Collings and 'To Begin, Again: A Prehistory of the Wex, 1968–89'
By Dan Munn
07.04.2022
Aotearoa artist and curator Betty Collings acted as Director of the Ohio State University’s Gallery of Fine Art from 1974 to 1980, amassing during that time a significant collection of then-contemporary artworks. With many of these works showcased at the recent exhibition To Begin, Again: A Prehistory of the Wex, 1968-89, Dan Munn looks back to Collings’ influence as a Director and her own, long-running artistic career.
Writing
Reimagined Futures
By Johanna Bear
23.03.2022
Featuring work from Aotearoa artists Edith Amituanai, Brian Fuata, Christina Pataialii, Shannon Novak and Shannon Te Ao as well as collaborators from Aotearoa in the project Kā Paroro o Haumumu: Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions, this piece from writer and curator Johanna Bear considers the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial’s celebration of Indigenous futures, collaborative and community-based practices, and new ways of understanding the world around us.
Project
Kunst Kopfüber / Art Upside Down
Partnership
The Goethe-Institut New Zealand and Contemporary HUM present a series of portraits about New Zealand artists who have found a new physical - and artistic - home in Germany. Kunst Kopfüber / Art Upside Down invites six international writers and curators to look at the practice of six contemporary artists from Aotearoa working across a variety of mediums, from video art to painting; large-scale installation to poetry. The written portraits about contemporary painter Sam Rountree Williams and poet Hinemoana Baker kick off this collaborative series.
Calendar
Xin Cheng, SO CLOSE / SO FAR
12 August —
15 August 2021
Hyper Cultural Passenger, Hamburg, Germany
Calendar
Sione Tuívailala Monū, Leitī
30 July —
10 October 2021
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, Australia
Writing
Talk, Protest, Revolt
By Frances Loeffler
06.08.2021
In the 2021 documentary Revolt She Said, filmmaker Louise Lever traces the histories and critical concerns of feminist movements in Aotearoa. Frances Loeffler reflects on the complex questions raised by the film and the impact of recent feminist movements in the art world.
Calendar
Len Lye, Movement Making Movement
23 April —
26 September 2021
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
Calendar
Jen Valender, Played as they lay
19 March —
21 April 2021
Spier Light Art Festival, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Writing
Charting the Constellations of the Oceans, Rivers, and Islands
By Julie Nagam
09.07.2021
As the inaugural Artistic Director for Nuit Blanche Toronto (2020 and 2022), Dr Julie Nagam is interested in forging new relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, in Turtle Island (North America) and internationally, and in the use of digital and new media to express shared experiences of colonialism. Here, Nagam introduces several recent projects undertaken in collaboration with artists and curators from Aotearoa and the new global partnership The Space Between Us, emerging from these cross-cultural exchanges.
Calendar
Darcy Lange, Faraway, So Close
10 May —
16 June 2021
e-flux film series, Online
Writing
Some Kind of Travelogue
By Esther Lu
18.06.2021
Aotearoa-based artist Sorawit Songsataya’s practice explores the many tangents that connect and redefine our understandings of subjectivity and ecology. Songsataya was invited to participate in the group show, The Turn of the Fifth Age, at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Bandung, Indonesia, earlier this year, where they exhibited their work Jupiter. Here, co-curator Esther Lu responds to that work.
Calendar
Sriwhana Spong: Ida-Ida at Spike Island
06 April —
16 June 2019
Spike Island, Bristol, U.K.
Calendar
Len Lye: Motion Composer
23 October 2019 —
26 January 2020
Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
Calendar
Len Lye Film Animations at Tate
02 December 2019 —
17 May 2020
Tate Britain, London, U.K.
Calendar
Lisa Reihana : In the shadow of Venus
19 February —
04 October 2020
MARKK Museum Hamburg, Germany
Calendar
Lisa Reihana at Palais de la Porte Dorée
26 February 2020 —
03 January 2021
Palais de la Porte Dorée, Paris, France
Calendar
Noho Mai at Berlin's Zebra Poetry Film Festival
19 November —
22 November 2020
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, Germany (Online)
Calendar
Len Lye in Anticorps
23 October 2020 —
03 January 2021
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
Writing
Music from the End of the World
By Sharmini Aphrodite
28.01.2021
In September 2019, Joseph Michael's installation Voices for the Future lit up the United Nations, General Assembly and Secretariat buildings in New York ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit and global school strikes. Sharmini Aphrodite talks to the artist about his process of recording the icebergs featured in the artwork and reflects on the dissolution of the spatial and aural boundaries between Antarctica, New Zealand and New York.
Writing
Social Imagination
By Lance Pearce
20.11.2020
Xin Cheng's Seeing Like a Forest, made during her study at HFBK - University Of Fine Arts Hamburg from 2017-2019, focuses on issues such as sustainability, communities, and resourcefulness. Artist and writer Lance Pearce discusses these themes and their relevance to a world in the midst of a pandemic.
Writing
Time and Water
By Maya Wilson-Sanchez
03.09.2020
Presented earlier this year at Oakville Galleries in Canada, Shannon Te Ao's two-channel video and sound installation Ka mua, ka muri recently opened at Remai Modern, Saskatoon. In this part essay, part dialogue, writer Maya Wilson-Sanchez examines Te Ao's new project, and meditates on the relationships between indigenous populations in colonised nations.
Writing
Odysseus escapes the cyclops
By Zoe Crook
10.06.2020
A review of Invisible: a collaborative exhibition between the Detroit Cranbrook Academy of Art, Wellington’s Massey University and the Wrocław Academy of Art and Design. Held at BWA Gallery in Wrocław, Poland, in February 2020, the second iteration of Invisible includes New Zealand artists Kerry Ann-Lee, Simon Eastwood and Lisa Munnelly, Lee Jensen, Angela Kilford, and Jason O’Hara.
Writing
The Near Side
By Jon Bywater
13.05.2020
The 22nd Biennale of Sydney opened on 14 March 2020 and unfortunately had to close its doors only nine days later due to Covid-19. Prior to its closing, writer Jon Bywater managed to visit NIRIN, looking in particular at participating artists from Aotearoa including Emily Karaka, Elisapeta Heta & John Miller, Lisa Reihana, Kulimoe’anga ‘Stone’ Maka, and FAFSWAG.
Writing
Between Light and Memory
By Sharmini Aphrodite
23.03.2020
In the first essay in our new series focusing on New Zealand arts activity in the Asia region, writer Sharmini Aphrodite reviews André Hemer's show, Images Cast by the Sun, at Yavuz Gallery in Singapore in 2019. Finding parallels between the paintings location in Singapore and their creation in Vienna, Aphrodite articulates their visceral qualities, and ability to transcend materiality.
Writing
Stirring Motion
By Stefanie Bräuer
20.02.2020
Art Historian Stefanie Bräuer takes us through Museum Tinguely’s recent comprehensive exhibition of New Zealand artist Len Lye, exploring Lye’s international life, his move from film to kinetic sculptures and the relationship between the museum's namesake, fellow kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely.
Writing
Moana, Unimagined
By Millie Riddell
08.01.2020
The 16th Istanbul Biennial, titled The Seventh Continent, had a thematic focus on the large garbage patch currently occupying 3.4 million square kilometres of ocean, near Hawaii and Japan. Despite focusing on this area, Pacific artists were not present at the Biennial. Writer Millie Riddell explores the omission of Pacific artists, and what it means to not address or include the people most affected by environmental pollution and climate change.
Writing
The Discreet Charm of Chance
By Jari Niesner
23.08.2019
In her recent exhibition Following the Rubber Trails, at Frappant Galerie in Hamburg, Germany, Xin Cheng addresses the politics, history and philosophy of rubber, in its varying forms. Writer Jari Nieser explores the artist's performance, film and installation.
Writing
“Nothing consoles you like despair”
By Boaz Levin
22.03.2019
The work of Berlin-based artist Richard Frater addresses the devastating impact of climate change on our environment, and the despair and human complicity felt in this global phenomenon. In this essay, artist, writer, and curator Boaz Levin unpacks Frater's recent exhibitions in Germany and New Zealand.
Writing
Test Run
By Jennifer Thatcher
13.12.2018
We hear from three artists who, over the last three years, have completed, or are completing, a three-month residency at London art centre Gasworks. Sriwhana Spong in 2016, Katrina Beekhuis in 2017, and Hikalu Clarke, who is half-way through his, all share their experiences and thoughts on this important opportunity.
Writing
Hotel Jaguar
By David Lillington
11.10.2018
HUM commissioned David Lillington to review Amanda Newall's recent project at Exposed Arts Projects in London, which occupies an old Jaguar car dealership. Newall's site-specific response, called Hotel Jaguar, encompasses an eclectic range of works and collaborations with other artists, on topics ranging from Jaguar and Brexit; Trump and witches; social dreaming and murders.