John Hurrell – 5 February, 2026

The whole of Michael Lett Gallery (several floors) is devoted to this fascinating New Zealand conceptualist (1960 - 2009) and his international projects, an artist with an eye for formal beauty accompanied by clearly elucidated structuring ideas. The geographic title cunningly references a New Zealand audience placed in a North American/global context. It baldly rams home the particularities and ethos of internationalism then current, inviting a possibly rueful scathing local response.

The 25 works on show here were also chosen by Christopher Cook and David Raskin years earlier to tour the American Midwest in 2005-6 under the same title, as a survey. Lett’s accompanying publication therefore usefully reproduces the original contextualizing twenty-year old essay, and we note that Dashper’s project (then and now) wittily and without irony uses a child’s bass drum as a metaphor for insistent and incessantly ‘loud’ self-promotion. This is seen as necessary in a tough-minded, often resistant, artworld, and utilizing drum skins to present circular paintings that feature austere but gorgeous Minimalist geometry and deliciously sensual colour.

Vertical plastic chains, polycarbonate discs, and a recording of ‘buzz’ provide other interpretive troping possibilities for art careerist strategies—looking at linking connections and the impact of PR ‘sound’: ie. publicity via conventional media or gossip. As commentary these seem matter-of-fact and not cynical. The fact that they are being exhibited confirms this, for the work is extremely engaging, being cerebral but also positively joyful, and impeccably laid out by Lett and Marie Shannon, the late artist’s partner. Understandably this superb show openly embraces the very system it operates within and perpetuates.

John Hurrell

Print | Facebook | Twitter | Email