Advertising in this column
Two Rooms presents a program of residencies and projects
Janet Cardiff
Janet Cardiff
The Forty-Part Motet
20 February - 16 May 2010
Hearing the whispered snippets of local Home Counties English before they launch off into even ‘purer’ ecclesiastical Latin is fascinating for most New Zealand listeners.
Bill Viola at the New Dowse
Wellington
Bill Viola
The Messenger
20 February - 4 July 2010
This disturbing confusion between life and death is accentuated by the refracted dappled light which makes a healthy-looking body look bleached of blood and anaemic when submerged.
Bringing It All Back Home: Part Two
Wellington
Francis Upritchard
Save Yourself
26 February - 15 August 2010
Ornamentation here is paradoxically driven by reasons anti-social. For the dancer’s private delight only.
Bringing It All Back Home: Part One
Wellington
Judy Millar
Giraffe - Bottle - Gun
New Zealand at the 2009 Venice Biennale
26 February - 15 August 2010
It is extroverted work that sucks the visitor’s attention away from themselves and out into the flame or water-like parallel lines, layered clusters of specks and exploding angular scrapes dwelling on the stretched skin surfaces.
History seeking reconnoitres and sorties
Auckland
William Hsu and Nick Spratt
A lot or a little might be said but in the end there will be something to pass on
4 February - 20 February 2010
…but if an artist like William offers me a crunchy sugar-coated doughnut and there’s some lemon juice I can taste that reminds me, say, of my father’s pancakes, then there is a bodily experience I can remember…
Jeena Shin’s Stairwell Wall
Auckland
Jeena Shin
Stairwell Project
2009 - 2011
‘Dead’ non gallery spaces such as this may be where her talent shines most.
Leatinu’u at Te Tuhi
AUCKLAND
13 February - 11 April, 2010
Jeremy Leatinu’u
It’s smart work, but not haunting
Watkins video and sound piece at The Film Archive
10 December 2009 -27 February 2010
Clinton Watkins: Avalanche
with its spectacularly terrifying but beautiful violence that added sound doesn’t seem necessary.
Urban Panoramas from Shanghai
Auckland
Jin Jiangbo
Shanghai Ye! Shanghai
12 February - 20 March, 2010
They intrigue because of their hybrid technologies - imagine Laurence Aberhart combined with Andreas Gursky.
Hoist That Rag
Auckland
2 February 2010 - 27 February 2010
Mladen Bizumic
From Cube to Ball (Chapter 1)
The current Crockford show has a similar tension between emotional immediacy and cool cerebral logic
Anthony shows Graham
Auckland
3 - 20 February 2010
Graham A Group Show
A suite of mini-exhibitions by artists normally well known to Anthony visitors
Painted drawings and drawn paintings
Auckland
30 Nov. 2009 - 22 Jan. 2010
Amber Wilson, Anna Rankin, DJN,
Elliot Collins, Linden Simmons
Drawing on Paint
Maybe a pinch prissy – there’s nothing too rough or wildly dirty because as the title suggests it is mostly watercolour - not crumbly charcoal, crayon or smudgy soft black pencil.
Art that moves
2009
Roger Horrocks
Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye
Horrocks’ book is very good, methodically going through the main thematic threads of Lye’s working methods and elaborating on them with great precision.
Two Millar publications
Publishing
Bielefeld, Germany
Judy Millar
You You, Me Me
Giraffe-Bottle-Gun
If it is just Millar’s paintings that grab you, go for the thicker book; if it is her installation projects you like, take the skinny one.
This has to be one of the most visually sophisticated art books this country has ever put out.
William Blake visits Pakuranga
Auckland
12 Dec. 2009 - 7 Mar. 2010
Gavin Hipkins
The Billboards Project
Poor old William Blake, suffering the indignity of being processed through a classic post-modern filter.
Darryn George at Te Tuhi
Auckland
Darryn George
Rehita
12 December 2009 - 10 March 2010.
If you put a gun to my head and demanded to know what my favourite form of visual art was, and I was forced to come up with something, I’d probably say “Grid paintings.”
Zoological hide and seek
Auckland
Rachel Walters
Spoor
12 December 2009 - 31 January 2010.
This is one of those exceptionally clever exhibitions where the viewer is not bombarded with material but given a carefully organised, pared back selection rich in interpretative possibilities.
Billy Apple ® paperback
Rotterdam
Billy Apple: Paperback
2009
112 pp, coloured illustrations
It looks like 2010 is going to be a bumper year for exciting Billy Apple publications
Żmijewski publication
Auckland
IMA
Brisbane
Misha Kavka
Reaching Tentacles into Reality
In fact personal charisma and decency might well be a curse
© EyeContact and all contents copyright, unless otherwise noted. Contents under Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike).