Winsome Wild (HUM)One of the key things we want to discuss today are signal events in the contemporary art world, particularly the 2017 Venice Biennale and documenta 14. We’re thrilled to have here today people with exceptional insight into these major international exhibitions.

To start off let’s talk about how artists are selected to participate, as the process of selection for documenta and the Venice Biennale are quite different. Erena and Bridget can you speak about the process of selection for documenta 14 and how your work came to be included? 

WWAnd from an official angle, could you also talk about Hendrik visiting New Zealand, how did that come about?

Pauline Autet (HUM)For those who may not know of it, documenta is a major international art exhibition that takes place in Kassel, Germany every five years. This year’s documenta  is exceptional in two ways, one is that it's across two locations for the first time: in Athens as well as Kassel, and also New Zealand artists are included for the first time.

PAYes exactly, we’ll come back to that... To follow up on selection questions, Alastair could you also talk about New Zealand’s selection process for the Venice Biennale as you’ve been involved for a long time with our national presentations—you started off in your introduction—but can you expand on this point. Who are the artists selected to represent their country in a national pavilion? Is it about showing the best we've got? What are the criteria, and do we consider who went last time? I know the process can change from one Biennale to the next?

Tessa GiblinWell, we do it differently in Ireland, we also submit an application, but you apply as a team.  Ireland changes the way it does it regularly, but this year it was a team, and I think there's a real strength in that, because you're either in it together or you're not together, there's none of this, ‘we select you and you select them.’ But about an artist being ready, I think it's also about as a team do you think that you could build that artist to the point where they're going to make the best work that they've ever made in their life? There's no doubt that's the goal, and that has to be understood.

I think what made our selection quite special in the Irish context was how political Jesse Jones’ work really was. In the interview we were saying strong things about the politics of the work in relation to the patriarchy. Which was important later on when we were at the opening with the Ambassador, who was wedged between myself and Jesse: I'd done my speech, Jesse started doing hers, including reference to the Magdalene Women, and about waking up in Seoul while doing an exhibition when Savita Halappanavar had just died on a hospital bed in Ireland, and not being able to explain to her hosts, how this could possibly happen in a modern country today.

There were wet cheeks all over the room and the poor Ambassador was stuck there in the middle of us. I was thinking, ‘what is he going to do or say?’  But there was also not a shadow of a doubt or fear—have we gone too far, had it been too political, anything like that—because we'd been like that in the interview, we'd said this from the beginning. They chose us with these politics that they're going to see through to the end.  And the Ambassador, to his credit, was magnificent—funny, enlightened and really brilliant. 

PAThat’s a very good point to make and we should come back to this because actually official statements, Creative New Zealand and others, use the word ‘represent’ in relation to the artist. But first can we talk about what your personal experiences were this year being involved in these projects. Mata Aho, what was your experience of installing and showing work in an exhibition like documenta, which is just colossal, and it's such a massive enterprise bringing the work over from New Zealand, what was it like for you on a personal level?

And how has the work been received so far, despite it only being a few weeks, how do you feel the experience of showing at documenta 14 and achieving the international exposure that documenta  brings, would be likely to impact on your practice?

BRI think reception ties in with this representation question, because most of the time if you're a Māori artist, whether you like it or not, you are representing Māoridom and so, this idea of representation we can't get away from, and so we just have to move through it as fluidly as we can. We try to do things to ensure that we are representing our communities and that we keep our own mana intact whenever we work with other people. Those are two integral aspects that we always consider when we show our work.

One of the interesting things, again tied with representation, is that, if it was New Zealand curators choosing which artists go to documenta, it wouldn't have been us and it wouldn't have been Nathan Pohio. We had these conversations with Nathan and we were really, in a way grateful that these curators from overseas came and recognised us for our work and not just for the fact that we can represent being Māori at an international scale.

How it's received, we're not sure, because we're not part of the mainstream arts in New Zealand anyway, so we had to contact a friend who is a writer to then contact Art New Zealand to propose writing about the work we made. Apart from that we got in contact with Mana Magazine to see if they wanted to write about us.  Our comms is us thinking, oh, 'who do we know or who do we want to write about it?'  We also got in contact with Te Ahi Kaa, the Māori Arts Programme, on Radio New Zealand on Sundays presented by Justine Murray and we'll have an interview with her when we get back, but other than that we don't know.

We hosted some New Zealand curators in Kassel, from different institutions, because they didn't know, or hadn't met all of us. We knew that they would be around so we shouted them dinner and a beer at a Vietnamese restaurant below where we stayed and you know, we have to do these things because part of keeping our mana intact is that we make those connections and relationships and then it's up to other people whether they want to continue down that path.

Maybe you could all give us some further insight on how it might be received. From our position where we sit within our Māori arts world, within our friends and family, it's had an amazing reception there, we've had huge support from our friends and family.  My mum came over, Erena’s husband Reweti and their two kids are here, they were our main supporters in Kassel, making us cups of tea, making sure we ate, making sure we were getting food, but other than that we don't know.

PAIndeed this European summer of 2017 is huge in terms of international presentation of New Zealand arts in major international events and solo presentations like Luke Willis Thompson whose show just opened at the Chisenhale Gallery in London, Oscar Enberg at Art Basel...

But in particular it is a big year for Māori artists in Europe, Shannon Te Ao has a solo presentation at the Edinburgh Arts Festival in August, Lisa Reihana’s solo project for the New Zealand Pavilion in Venice and the three NZ artists/collective included in documenta are Māori. Is that a coincidence, is that strategy, what do you all think about that?

TBI suppose the only thing I can really add is something I learnt from Marina Fokidis, the Greek curator who's part of documenta’s curatorial team. She would have been out to New Zealand before, and I remember she got in touch with me asking who she should visit.  This would happen all the time when people came out to New Zealand and the first thing I say to them is ‘what do you want to do, what are you working on, what do you want to discover? I'm not going to give you the top names of New Zealand, it's very boring, it would be the same people circulating all the time, so what do you want to find out?’

And she was quite specific, she was saying that they're not ageist, they want to find some really distinct practices that haven't been exposed, but that are potentially not the youngest people on the field.  I focussed her towards certain people in the New Zealand infrastructure—because you know they're going to be hosted by CNZ, you know that's going to be covered.  So I pointed them towards people who I just individually think are crackers, really great curators and Tina Barton was the one at the Adam Art Gallery that I said if there's anybody working on some idiosyncratic bit of research that nobody's exposed yet, it's going to be her.  That's really the only insight I have, I don't think there's a trend, I think that it's just logical, there are some really great artists coming out of this area.

BRErena, myself and Terri, and also Reweti, we all studied Māori Visual Arts through Massey University in Palmerston North and one of the key things of this degree is that it was under Māori studies, which meant that we could go talk to the Treaty lecturer, we had to do te reo Māori classes, we could go talk to any of the experts in their fields, at any time, about Te Ao Māori which meant that we didn't have to be representing in that space of learning, that we could be pushing an envelope and that we didn't have to, I guess, default back to essentialist modes of representation.

So that means that when we do go out into the art world we're not necessarily trying to make identifiably Māori works, but they are conceptually based within mātauranga Māori. I think that's one of our key strengths, that possibly we all have is that, the work itself is founded within this amazing wealth of knowledge that is unique to New Zealand, and it's probably why it's also good.

Of course there are additional challenges, one is that although we're all making really good art, I'm not sure that we have the writers—though Contemporary HUM is really good in trying to mitigate this—but we don't have many writers that can really delve into the concepts of the work without just talking about identity.

We're not making work about identity, we want to move beyond that, but the arts ecology of New Zealand, and hopefully this is changing, but currently there are not many people who can write in-depth on our Māori artworks.

ACCan I make a comment on that, I do note that we are a bi-cultural society, and we have many other cultures as well, but the artists that I've looked at, particularly working for Venice, when they are non-Māori artists they tend to almost deny the State and often protest against it or make work, in the case of Simon Denny in 2015, that is very challenging for the State.

What happens when I'm working with Māori artists is that you realise that you're exhibiting somebody's work who's going to be carried by their entire family, their whānau, and one of the practical questions for this project was actually designing a vernissage experience that would be a elastic enough to cope with all of the people from Lisa’s iwi and her community who rightly wanted to be there to carry her forward.

And that's when having a chef in your life is quite handy, because Peter [Gordon] threw a dinner for 300 people on an island at the end of vernissage week, for many international guests we would not normally have been able to entertain and many of Lisa's community who came.

ACThe biggest challenges had nothing to do with those perceptions of content or presentation of colonialism or one culture or another...they were actually technical.  One of the reasons why this work was such a compelling show for New Zealand to present is that it was radically bold in a digital context. It’s 3.3 trillion pixels, it's 26 meters long, it animates and brings to life 19th Century French wallpaper, it's an astonishing tour de force of art making.

So we actually were very attracted to this piece because we knew no one was doing this and we'd certainly not presented any digital work.  So I see this as a contemporary artwork that showcases astonishing digital practice.  All the reviews internationally are talking about that highly immersive magical experience that Lisa creates.  And I think it's because of her practice actually. Then of course, the moment you get figurative or narrative work where human beings are involved people immediately see themselves in it. Abstract art is far less controversial, because you can just dismiss it if you don't get it.  But if you think you're in it, as the Government sometimes does about the art, they can get offended, and I think also people, in this work there are over 150 characters acting in the wallpaper, they do represent moments in history, but Lisa doesn't set out to actually create a historical record, she's really presenting a series of contacts.

There's one thread that runs all the way through and that's Captain James Cook and the colonisers. Then there are groups of people that they meet, including a group that don't exist, Lisa calls them the Turtle Tribe, she just made them up, because she liked their costumes when she saw them in Cambridge, these beautiful turtle shells. So when we asked her about the Turtle people, she said, ‘oh I thought they were really cool; so I had James Cook go and visit them as well.’

So it's an artwork with a whole lot loaded into it and we were able to engage a lot more people from London, the Royal Society being the original grant maker for Captain Cook's voyages—they joined us and it was very powerful.  We also have the Royal Academy presenting Lisa’s work as part of their summer show 2018, for their 250th anniversary.  Knowing that we have that heft behind us up here was helpful, but you don't very often get artworks that go right back to the original DNA of the second visitors to your country.

WWThinking about how these international events impact the artists and their artistic practice, Tessa, could you talk about how participating in the Biennale might impact Jesse Jones' practice, what does it mean for her as an artist to be presenting in Venice? Then we can look at Lisa Reihana and Mata Aho too.

EBI agree, for us it was the first time we'd seen our work on the international stage mirrored with other artists, so initially we were quite apprehensive and wondering how do we fit in, how our work is going to be received.  It was suggested that we stay with the work for the first two days, so we took shifts and hung around so we got to see a lot of people see the work, and that was really lovely. Although sometimes they thought we might have been attendants, asking for directions to other areas of the museum, we had some beautiful moments and some people, yes, they could read the work, they didn’t even need the wall text.  I know that Bridget and Sarah had a beautiful moment with an elderly gentleman who walked in, walked around the work and came straight to them and said ‘are you the artists?’ They said yes and he said, ‘I get it, water, New Zealand’ and he had tears in his eyes.  So there were those beautiful moments when you think, oh yes, this fits in this space.

After the opening we were able to see other works around documenta  in the other venues. We were really fortunate in our venue to have a lot of space around our site specific work. documenta 's huge, 100’s of artists are crammed in because they want to show as much work as they can.  Bridget, you want to add anything?

ACI think the outcomes for every artist chosen that I'm aware of, in the history of New Zealand at Venice to make an exhibition, have been fantastic.  There is a period when they have a nervous breakdown and then their practice goes to a whole new level.  And where they practice and what they do depends somewhat on the choices they make about where they spend their lives.

Michael Parekowhai has recently made this incredible work on the end of a wharf in the Auckland harbour, alluding to Captain Cook and the housing crisis, it's an absolute knockout.

Lisa Reihana's practice is not widely represented by dealer galleries, and she doesn't generally make small work, this is a monumental piece, that’s come out of the Auckland Art Gallery, been developed to an international standard, for an international audience and it's going to go to the Royal Academy and Musée du Quai Branly and I expect that her future will be working with significant museums and institutions, because that's the style of practice that now she's working with.

Michael Stevenson stayed in Germany and the last time I saw a show of his, he had inserted a light aircraft into the attic of an art gallery on the River Main in Frankfurt and turned the entire building into a camera obscura. So he was doing huge technical physical work.  They're all right, where they do it and how they do it, well who knows, they're artists.

Francis Upritchard came back to the Biennale because she was chosen by the curator this year and that's not to be sneezed at.  We picked her as a very young artist and she made a show with Judy Miller for the New Zealand presentation and six years later she's in the main exhibition.

TGBefore I moved to Edinburgh the first thing I did was ask my artist if I could apply for the job.  Jesse said ‘go for it Tess’.  So I applied for this job in Edinburgh and in the interview I was saying, if I come, I'm coming with the Irish Pavilion, and I'm actually aware that the Talbot Rice Gallery is collaborating on the Scottish Pavilion, so how's that going to go down? There were a lot of stroking of chins around the table and then, credit to the University, also seeing what status it can bring the University at Edinburgh of course, declared that this was going to be no problem.  Then I had to go back to the CEO of Culture Ireland, who'd appointed me as their Commissioner and Curator, and I was a little nervous, but she just gave me the biggest hug and said, ‘congratulations, now the Scots are going to come too.’

I loved it, the spirit of growth and understanding, here I am with my New Zealand accent representing Ireland in the first place and now I'm actually going to be Scottish and everybody involved saw this as being a really great story.  This even grew further in my heart when I met Alastair for the first time at a Commissioners meeting in Venice, and we pledged to make the most of these cross-overs.  Then we ended up being fond neighbours, the Irish and New Zealand Pavilions in the Arsenale.

PAWhile developing and producing Contemporary HUM, we've spoken to many artists and art professionals from Aotearoa New Zealand living or working overseas.  From these discussions and our own experience here in Europe we've come up with two contrasting observations that we’d like your view on. One, is that New Zealand produces some of the most critically engaged and conceptually ambitious creative practices presented internationally at current, and as Tessa said, it's really once they get presented in this context that it becomes quite obvious. 

The other reflection is that this success on the world stage is perhaps underestimated and doesn't get the full recognition and support it deserves back home.  This was mentioned already in the conference yesterday.  We've been wondering whether it's a tall poppy syndrome, whether, because of New Zealand’s geographical remoteness, it’s unavoidably more difficult for people to experience and therefore connect and follow what takes place overseas.

So from your personal experiences, do you feel New Zealand recognises and supports overseas achievement or do we still suffer from some elements of cultural cringe, as others raised yesterday too?

TGWe had the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins attending the Biennale—those are the legacy moments when you know that now every Member of Parliament and TD in Ireland knows what the Venice Biennale is.  Every journalist that follows the President's movements knows what the Venice Biennale is.  I think these are the moves that you need to make when you're working on these projects to elevate awareness of the visual arts for the future.  President Higgins is also something of a national treasure, so from the philosophical perspective is was just so wonderful to have him there.

And it was interesting to hear Alastair talk about et.al: I invigilated the New Zealand Pavilion in 2005 and I totally agree that this was an absolutely fantastic installation. He's not exaggerating at all when he talks about the furore at home either, but I do think that it all comes out in the wash, because I think that the Venice Biennale is now in the consciousness of New Zealand people in a way it might never have been had that whole saga not happened.

BRI want to add something about NZ at Venice. 2007 was when Rachel Rakena and Brett Graham went, which we haven't mentioned yet, and they were part of the curated section of the Biennale. So that was the one year where New Zealand didn’t send a representative artist, and for them I think the trajectory after Venice has been vastly different compared to the artists that New Zealand has chosen to present.  

The work Aniwaniwa was beautiful, and from the reports that I've heard, related to Venetian culture and the Venetian people. It was an underwater scene of a small town in Waikato that used to have a power plant and then got flooded and I think is now Lake Karapiro.  I believe the National Art Gallery of Canada has acquired this work. So, vastly different to what New Zealand chooses to represent and to put a wide, embracing fold around with a comms and media person and people to support it in a wider ecological sense than these two amazing artists could do. These artists mortgaged their house to get the work to Venice, both their houses. They did it and it was amazing, but not a lot of ripple effects.  So I think that, yes, Venice is amazing, but it's amazing for what New Zealand chooses to be defined as amazing for everyone.

ACI was a little political with this Biennale because I'm sick of it being a kicking ball in New Zealand and I'm no longer in the funding game, this is a voluntary role, I thought ‘how do I make this as safe as possible for future Biennales.’  So I asked the Head of State to attend as that will create lasting memories inside Venice with a lot of people that will pave the way for us in the future.

But the thing that I'm currently most pleased about is that last week Te Papa released online five teaching modules associated with New Zealand's presence at the Venice Biennale and the 2017 exhibition. They are going to be taught in the curriculum for over 400 000 students as an NCEA course.  You can find these Te Papa Teaching Resources online.  That will hopefully secure a generation of kids coming through school who have a knowledge of Venice and why it matters.

ACI can't say but nearly everybody who was considered very seriously in this round of applications I believe will end up in Venice at some point, life is long for all of them.

EB I don't think I can comment on this.