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Two Rooms presents a program of residencies and projects
Making Visible
Auckland
W D Hammond, Peter Madden, Andre Tjaberings
Dark Matter
Curated by Simon Esling
26 June - 24 July 2009
Three cheers for Esling for doing this project, and a bouquet of flowers for not including his own work, as some artist-curators do.
Friday on His Mind
Auckland
Karl Maughan
Every day is like Sunday
23 June - 17 July 2009
It is astounding he is not bored himself. Perhaps he is?
Lonely at the Top
Auckland
Jason Lindsay
I am a mysterious loner who knows how to howl at the moon
18 June - 17 July 2009
Adding to the hints of atrocity with the crematorium, there is a seat at the top where you can perch to look out over Wellesley St through the window.
Godkin on Lorne
Auckland
Four Artists: Ana Horomia, Sue Novell, Esther Leigh and David Morrison
Curated by Antoinette Godkin
3 June - 4 July 2009
Overall this is not a memorable show, though Leigh is the star with work that carries on from what she exhibited at Roger Williams a couple of years ago.
City Keepsakes
Auckland
Group exhibition
For Keeps: Sampling recent acquisitions 2006-2009
Curated by Natasha Conland
18 June - 12 July 2009
There are 26 artists here, including the Australian photographer Bill Henson who has a whole room to himself to display eight night-time images. This is an excellent show, yet oddly it is only up for a month. Make sure you see it.
Interpreting de Lautour
Auckland
Tony de Lautour
B-Sides & Demos
Catalogue published by The Physics Room. Essay by Mark Williams. 50 pp and colour images. Choice of two hand stencilled covers by the artist
April 2009
The title of de Lautour’s exhibition here alludes to Nick Cave’s triple album box set B-Sides and Rarities, for like Dylan and Cave, de Lautour likes to entertain.
The Milkmaid and Lighthouse are elegant videos, while Traffic Police, though humorous, is absorbing due to the sheer energy the two gyrating cops provide.
Smaller Better
Auckland
Harvey Benge
Big Work, Small Works
6 June - 20 June 2009
He has done the right thing here in picking out quality works (with mystery or intensity) for viewing in isolation, and his ability with composition and scale is made obvious.
Elam Photography
Auckland
Carolin Casey, Mhairi-Clare Fitzpatrick, James Lowe, Geoffrey H. Short, Dane Taylor
Still
Curated by Ariane Craig-Smith
28 May - 20 June 2009
Because of the nature of film as a medium and as a form of entertainment, there is a narrative involved; a narrative that often alludes to archetypes and myths which were around thousands of years before cameras were invented.
Almost all of the work here is about tactility of surface; sensual qualities of thinly layered coloured paint or ink within rectangles, parallelograms or line.
DIY Heaven
Auckland
Charles Ninow
Content and Delivery
28 May - 18 June 2009
448 Gallery, run by Elam students, has presented about five shows - and this Charles Ninow display is its last.
Two Exhibitions
Auckland
Martijn Hendriks
Let’s call the whole thing off.
Edwards + Johann
Fishing in a Bathtub; Tormenting Luxury
2 May - 20 June 2009
You think I’m a vindictive shit? After you’ve seen Tippi Hedren check out this work for yourself and tell me I’m out of line.
There is a freshness about this show, a sense of pervasive energy, that is due to the variety of vibrant image Austin is presenting.
Pinned Fabric Pieces and Slides
Auckland
Amy Howden-Chapman
I used to think the only lonely place was on the moon
3 June - 20 June 2009
The Irish Empiricist philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753) once argued that if something is not perceived it does not exist.
Varied Excellent Photographs
Auckland
Group exhibition:
International photography
3 June - 20 June, 2009
Nothing here that will rattle anybody’s cage in terms of production but quality images nonetheless.
OK a KO
Auckland
Hany Armanious, The Estate of L. Budd, Julian Dashper, Richard Frater, Patrick Lundberg, Campbell Patterson
OK
Curated by Sarah Hopkinson
27 May - 4 July 2009
Meaning turns to sludge, certainties disappear. Entities transmute into ideas, expand and spread.
Here we have the second such yearly Elam graduate work book to come out, one that shrewdly promotes the institution and its graduates. Yet on close inspection a publication like this is not really practical. It is too skimpy to be anything other than a vague memento that old ducks can fondly look back upon in about five decades time - to help them reminisce over when they were sweet young things at uni.
Sensitivities
Auckland
Feelings (a group show)
23 May - 1 July 2009
The title of this show is apt. It points to the visceral side effects of emotions, almost a pre-linguistic state where sensations from images and the relationships between them acquire their own power.
Without any understanding of colour Larkin’s method of pushing paint through the weave of the canvas from behind becomes a shallow gimmick. The method doesn’t develop an aesthetic for the artefact by indicating chromatic control nor does it show a sensitive relationship with the dominant ‘neutral’ colour that happens to be white.
Legendary Carver
Auckland
Mark Adams
Rauru
Book launch. Rauru: Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History, ed. Nicholas Thomas
21 May - 27 June 2009
Because Adams uses a large-format 8 x 10 inch field camera it is wonderful to see untrimmed prints pinned to the gallery wall that really provide a sense of the architecture around Waitere’s carvings. Glossy with remarkable acuity, the tonal range of the C-prints is more pronounced than the same images on the published page. They have far greater depth, and often wide images are made by positioning three large coloured photographs side by side.
Surface and Beyond
Auckland
Glen Hayward
Live Transmission
May 27 - June 20 2009
In these few painted, carved kauri objects Hayward uses incongruous pairings to intriguing effect, and one can imagine him exploring the idea of hybridity or mutation further: perhaps in a more complex fashion. With these works he is not wowing his audience so much through accomplished technical skills as figuring out shrewd combinations that can generate disturbing psychological power.
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