Advertising in this column
Two Rooms presents a program of residencies and projects
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
Towards a more fluid image.
Ricky Swallow
Watercolours
12 December 2009 - 21 February 2010
You could regard Swallow’s sculpture and watercolours as quite separate: totally independent enterprises but with a little overlap in subject matter.
Almost forgettable
Auckland
Milli Jannides
9 December - 24 December 2009
(and Jan and Feb by appointment)
The best work is The Magician’s Assistant where we see bars of golden sunlight raking across a centrally positioned, wooden staircase
Maloy, Patterson, Steyerl.
Auckland
Richard Maloy: Raw Attempts
Campbell Patterson: Floorshow
Hito Steyerl: After the Crash
12 December 2009 - 27 February 2010.
…presentations that explore processes of continual change and transmutation.
When dance becomes movement art.
Christchurch
robbinschilds + A.L.Steiner: C.L.U.E
(colour location ultimate experience)
in collaboration with A.J Blandford
26 November - 20 December 2009
Yet one wonders if there was a satirical motivation behind this work, it seemed so classically ‘trippy-dippy-hippie’ with its trajectory of a rainbow coloured (seven costumed hues in sequence) road trip.
Elizabeth Thomson: Lost in Space
Auckland
Elizabeth Thomson
La Planète Sauvage
24 November - 22 December 2009
Thomson’s ‘Planète Sauvage’ series are strikingly dramatic lunar images, but spoilt by being shallow relief. Flat discs flush with the wall, devoid of mass, would have been less clunky and, if less over-elaborate in surface textures, much superior.
If Raw Feels is this show’s title, then perhaps the other work is Cooked Thinks?
© EyeContact and all contents copyright, unless otherwise noted. Contents under Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike).