Venue
The Most Difficult Problem, 2013 (still)

The Most Difficult Problem, 2013 (still)

Text from J Bronte Gatenby, 'The New Zealand Glow-Worm' (Tuatara, vol 8, no. 2, 1960)

Text from J Bronte Gatenby, 'The New Zealand Glow-Worm' (Tuatara, vol 8, no. 2, 1960)

Born 1970, Auckland, New Zealand
Lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand

Maddie Leach’s practice is project-based, conceptually driven and frequently involves research into the specifics of the site in which she is working. With her interest in the development of new thinking in relation to social, place-based and process-driven artwork,Leach’s early work held a central position in New Zealand’s relational aesthetics practice. While no longer overtly participatory, her work continues to explore ideas of spectatorship, expectation and strategies of cooperation in the production of art works. Leach’s recent projects often operate beyond the walls of the gallery and focus on constructing complex arrangements between space, time, place and audience.

Campaign to re-open tunnels under Auckland's Albert Park - 3 News

Selected exhibitions (group):

Between Memory and Trace, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland, 2012; Peripheral Relations: Marcel Duchamp and New Zealand Art, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, 2012; The Obstinate Object, City Gallery Wellington, 2012; Iteration: Again, CAST, Tasmania, 2011; Collecting Contemporary, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 2011; Reason and Rhyme, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2011; Close Encounters, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2010; One Day Sculpture, Wellington, 2008; Trans Versa, The South Project, Santiago, 200

Leach’s practice weaves narrative threads to connect propositions, actions, and materials. Her sculptural diffusions of matter and imagination challenge the idea of the ‘sculptural object’.

Jem Noble, artist, Bristol and Vancouver

The Most Difficult Problem

2013
Auckland Art Gallery

single-channel colour HD video projection, sound, text on newsprint
piano: Paul Lincke’s Glüwürmchenidyll performed and uploaded to YouTube by Markus Andreas Mayer
print design by Warren Olds
courtesy of artist


Venue
Libellule bleue (Blue Dragonfly), 2009/2011

Libellule bleue (Blue Dragonfly), 2009/2011

Le salon (The Living Room), 2008/2011

Le salon (The Living Room), 2008/2011

Born 1971, Paris, France
Lives and works in Tangier, Morocco

Yto Barrada’s art reflects her experiences of living in Tangier, and the realities and struggles of life in a city undergoing rapid development and modernisation. Her photography captures the quiet dramas that play out when the diversity of local people and wildlife give way to the mono-cultural visions of planners and developers. Barrada’s work reveals a ramshackle kind of modernity and the existential issues of a society dominated by a desire to leave.

http://www.ytobarrada.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Riffs, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, 2012; The Strait Project, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2004; Selected exhibitions (group): I Decided Not to Save the World, Tate Modern, London, 2012; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012; 54th Venice Biennale, 2011; Hand Me Downs, film screening at MoMA, San Francisco, New York, 2011.

‘Barrada likens her multifaceted practice to a stack of Russian dolls, where one piece fits into another and another still.’

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, independent writer and critic, Beirut.

Casa Barata

2001
Artspace

Artspace
c-type print
1000 x 1000 mm

Rue de la Liberté, Tanger

2000
Artspace

c-type print 1250 x 1250 mm

Tunnel – Ancien chantier d'étude de la liaison fixe Maroc-Espagne

2013
Artspace

(Tunnel – Disused Survey Site for a Morocco-Spain Tunnel), Tanger 2002
c-type print
800 x 800 mm

Briques (Bricks)

2003
Artspace

c-type print
1500 × 1500 mm

Le salon

2008
Artspace

(The Living Room)
c-type print
1500 x 1500 mm

Nuancier de roses

2008
Artspace

(Pink Color Chart)
c-type print
1250 x 1250 mm

Libellule bleue

2009
Artspace

(Blue Dragonfly)
c-type print
1250 x 1250 mm

 

Sidi Hssein, Beni Said, Rif

2009
Artspace

c-type print
1500 × 1500 mm

 

Restaurant, Villa Harris, fig. 2

2010
Artspace

c-type print
1250 x 1250 mm
courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg


Venue
Bishan Commune,2013

Bishan Commune,2013

Outdoor film screening, Bishan Harvestival, 2011

Outdoor film screening, Bishan Harvestival, 2011

Ou Ning: Bishan Commune: How to Start Your Own Utopia

Ou Ning: Bishan Commune: How to Start Your Own Utopia

Born 1969, Zhangjian, Guangdong, China
Lives and works in Beijing, China

Ou Ning is a graphic designer, editor, curator, filmmaker, writer and lecturer and founder of U-thèque, an independent film and video organisation. He is the founder of the Bishan Commune which brings together artists and intellectuals to get involved in the rural reconstruction movement in China. In 2011 the Commune held its first Harvest Festival in the rural settlement of Bishan. This incorporates music, dance, a small documentary festival and academic panels on rural reconstruction with local and international intellectual speakers.

http://www.alternativearchive.com/ouning/

Selected exhibitions and events:

Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, 2011; Videotage, Hong Kong, 2011; Tirana Biennial, 2009; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2008; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 2008; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2008; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, 2007; Yokohama International Media Art Festival, 2009; 22nd Milan, Asian, African and Latin American Film Festival, 2012.

‘... Ou Ning and his ‘communards’ are looking to create an alternative social entity...’

Hou Hanru, Curator, 5th Auckland Triennial

Bishan Project

2013
Auckland Art Gallery

sketchbooks, drawings, magazines, archival material, photographs, video, mixed media objects
dimensions variable
courtesy of the artist


Venue
Automóvel (Automobile) 2012 (still)

Automóvel (Automobile) 2012 (still)

Automóvel (Automobile) 2012 (still)

Automóvel (Automobile) 2012 (still)

Born 1974, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Cinthia Marcelle’s video and photography deals with interventions in urban spaces or landscapes and frequently incorporates carefully choreographed, repetitive actions and elements of chaos. These works contain a sense of irony, where the absurd is presented with the appearance of certainty. Paradox is one of the concepts most linked to the performance method used by the artist, along with photography and video.

Marcelle’s videos are often shot from one camera angle and depict actions that appear to be happenstances but which become aesthetic occurrences. Her actions create situations that challenge our notions of conventional behaviour by introducing humorous coincidences and connections.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Zona Temporária, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, 2013; See for been seen, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, 2011; This Same World Over, Foyer Gallery, Camberwell College of Arts, London, 2009; Bolsa Pampulha: Cinthia Marcelle, Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, 2004. Selected exhibitions (group): Sharjah Biennial 11, Arabic Emirates, 2013; 2nd New Museum Triennial, New York, 2012; Tate Level 2 Gallery, London, 2012; Dundee Contemporary Art, 2012; 29th São Paulo Biennial, 2010; 9th Lyon Biennale, 2007; 9th Havana Biennial, 2006.

‘Marcelle seems to be making a call to a different kind of mobility... that not only looks forward, but also sideways and back.’

Luisa Duarte, writer and curator, Belo Horizonte

Automóvel (Automobile)

2012
Artspace

video projection
7:16min
courtesy of the artist, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo and Sprovieri Gallery, London


Venues
Winter, 2013 (video still)

Winter, 2013 (video still)

Winter, 2013 (video still)

Winter, 2013 (video still)

Born 1974, Chicago, United States of America
Lives and works in New York and Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Working across film, photography, sound and video, Amie Siegel’s work uses the cinematic image to investigate social issues. Making use of stylistic devices drawn from film genres such as action, science fiction and the western, Siegel’s installations and single-screen moving image works address critical theory and popular culture.

http://amiesiegel.net/

Interested in the history and act of filmmaking, fakes and the tradition of the remake, much of Siegel’s work is based on critiquing existing films. In Berlin Remake, she re-created shots from East German films to investigate differences and how these fictional films ‘become documents of a city’. In the recent work Black Moon, Siegel reworked a film of the same name by French director Louis Malle, setting it in abandoned suburban homes in areas of the US which have the highest mortgage foreclosure rates.

Selected exhibitions and screenings (solo):

Black Moon, Arthouse – Austin Museum of Art, 2012; American Originals Now: Amie Siegel, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2012; Amie Siegel, Part 1: Black Moon, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2011; Modern Mondays, MoMA, New York, 2010. Selected exhibitions and screenings (group): 2011 Cannes International Film Festival; The Talent Show, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2010; Auto-Kino!, Temporaäre Kunsthalle, Berlin, 2010; The Russian Linesman, Hayward Gallery, London, 2009; 2008 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Forum Expanded, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2006.

‘Siegel eschews ‘documentary’ as either an aesthetic language or a pretence to truth...’

Elizabeth Thomas, curator and writer, Los Angeles

Black Moon

2010
Auckland Art Gallery

super 16mm film transferred to HD video, colour, sound
20:00min
 courtesy of the artist

Winter

2013
Auckland War Memorial Museum

super 16mm transferred to HD video, colour, sound, performance
The Auckland Triennial Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 2013


Venue
Just in time for too late, (2013)

Just in time for too late, (2013)

Just in time for too late, (2013)

Just in time for too late, (2013)

Born 1943, Grand Rapids, United States of America
Lives and works in San Francisco, United States of America

Emory Douglas created the visual identity for the Black Panther Party and his iconic images came to symbolise the struggles of the movement. As Minister of Culture for the "Black Panther Party" from 1967 until the 1980s, Douglas’ work, described as ‘Militant Chic’, featured in most issues of the newspaper The Black Panther. His work is characterised by strong graphic images of young African American men, women and children. He used the newspaper’s popularity to spur people to action, portraying the poor with empathy and as being unapologetic and ready for a fight.

http://www.emorydouglasart.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, Urbis, Manchester, 2008–9; Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, MOCA Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, 2007–8. Selected exhibitions (group): 16th Biennale of Sydney, 2008; The Black Panther Rank and File, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 2006.

‘The values of equality, racial economic justice and fairness are just as relevant today as they ever were.’

Nigel Borell, Kaiwhakahaere, Toi o Manukau, Auckland Council

Untitled

2013
Fresh Gallery Otara

Emory Douglas, Rigo 23, Wayne Youle
painted mural
2940 x 11300
Courtesy of the artists


Venue
The Garden of Pine – As Fierce as a Tiger II, 2010

The Garden of Pine – As Fierce as a Tiger II, 2010

One Cannot Break the Law Without Upholding the Law. All Laws Must Be Broken, 2013

One Cannot Break the Law Without Upholding the Law. All Laws Must Be Broken, 2013

One Cannot Break the Law Without Upholding the Law. All Laws Must Be Broken, 2013

One Cannot Break the Law Without Upholding the Law. All Laws Must Be Broken, 2013

(formed 2002) Live and work in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, China
Zheng Guogu Born 1970, Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, China
Chen Zaiyan Born 1971, Yangchun, Guangdong Province, China
Sun Qinglin Born 1974, Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, China

Yangjiang Group was founded in 2002 by Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin in Yangjiang, China. The direction of their work is driven by Chinese classical philosophy, the traditions of Chinese calligraphy, and notions of social transformation. In the 2009 Lyon Biennale Yangjiang Group created The Pine Garden – As Fierce As a Tiger, a work which brought art, football and chance together in a traditional Chinese garden setting.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Yangjiang Group – After Dinner Shu Fa at Cricket Pavilion, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, 2012; Garden of Pine – Also Fierce Than Tiger II, Tang Contemporary Art Centre, Beijing, 2010. Selected exhibitions (group): 10th Lyon Biennale, 2009; Sprout from White Nights, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2008; dOCUMENTA (12), Kassel, 2007; The Second Guangzhou Triennial-BEYOND: An Extraordinary Space of Experimentation for Modernization, Guangdong Museum of Art, 2005.

‘... a place where we learn about ourselves ... in this historical moment, this society, this city and this way of life.’

Echo Janman, Public Programmes Manager, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland

Shu Tu Tong Gui

2013
George Fraser Gallery

(Calligraphy and Scratching Leading to the Same Thing)
participatory community event, tea residue, calligraphy
courtesy of the artists and Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing


Venue
Kauri-oake, 2013

Kauri-oake, 2013

Kauri-oake, 2013

Kauri-oake, 2013

Kauri-oake, 2013

Kauri-oake, 2013

(formed 2007) Live and work in Sydney, Australia
Tessa Zettel Born 1980, Sydney, Australia
Karl Khoe Born 1980, Sydney, Australia

Artists and co-directors of Makeshift, Tessa Zettel and Karl Khoe collaborate on interdisciplinary projects that encompass live art, sculpture and installation, drawing, printmaking, writing, curating and design. As redirective practitioners, their work imagines or enacts other ways of living that are generative of sustainment, dialogue and new economies. Site-responsive and participatory, these works are shaped by provisional communities and appear as durational interventions. Such projects involve opening up spaces of dialogue or exchange (often facilitated by the presence of food), marking time to slow down and be attentive, and a revaluing of obscured cultural knowledge, stories and practices.

http://www.makeshift.com.au/

http://kaurioke.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Making Time, Performance Space, Sydney, 2013; A Leaf from the Book of Cities, National Institute for Experimental Arts/City of Sydney, 2012; Make-do Garden City, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 2010; Colony Collapse, Firstdraft, Sydney, 2010. Selected exhibitions (group): IASKA Spaced: Art Out of Place, Fremantle Arts Centre, 2012; Primavera 2011, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2011; Sister Cities Biennial: Urbanition, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery/Carriageworks, San Francisco/Sydney, 2011; In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2010.

‘... prefaces pleasure and community spirit over economic benefit.’

David Cross, Associate Professor in Fine Art, Massey University, Wellington

Kauri-oke!

2013
Fresh Gallery Otara

New Zealand kauri, karaoke machine and mixed media, folk songs
dimensions variable
courtesy of the artists


Venue
A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project, 2010 (video still)

A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project, 2010 (video still)

A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project, 2010 (video still)

A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project, 2010 (video still)

(born 1962) Seoul, South Korea
Lives and works in New York, London and Seoul.

Do-Ho Suh’s sculptures and installations explore spatial dynamics and issues of cultural difference. His site-specific installations act like microcosms of the postmodern, globalised world, questioning the boundaries of identity in relation to public and private space. Suh’s work, which draws from his Korean background and life in the West, addresses the place of individual and collective identities in a global society. Through the use of architectural elements and references to the body, Suh evokes a trans-cultural life where the dynamics of space, culture and connection create unanticipated form.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Hiroshima MOCA, Hiroshima, Japan, 2012; Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul, South Korea, 2012; Tate Modern, London, UK, 2011; Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, USA, 2010; 2001 Venice Biennale, Italy. Selected exhibitions (group):Luminous: The Art of Asia, Seattle Art Museum, 2011; 2010 Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK; 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy; Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA, 2009; Psycho Buildings, Hayward Gallery London, UK, 2008.

‘... there is no freedom in architecture. In fact freedom is a ruse Suh points to...’

Yasmeen M Siddiqui, curator and essayist, Louisville, Kentucky.

A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project

2010
Auckland Art Gallery

synchronised four-monitor animated digital slide presentation, two single-channel videos, sound
11:00min
© Do Ho Suh
courtesy of the artist


Venue
Tlatelolco Clash, 2011 (still)

Tlatelolco Clash, 2011 (still)

3-2-1, 2011

3-2-1, 2011

(born 1974) Albania.
Lives and works in Berlin.

Working primarily in film and video, Anri Sala creates works that bring together documentary, history, language and cultural memory. Early films referenced his personal experience and reflected on Albania’s social and political changes, while recent works have explored the tension between repetition and improvisation, often involving or offering the possibility of live performance.

http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/anri-sala/

Sala’s films and installations disrupt and reconfigure the viewer’s relationship to the image and the space, echoing his approach to making work, which the artist describes as being ‘shaped, inspired and constrained by rupture, and transitory or intermediate stations’.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Museum De Pont, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 2013; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 2012; Serpentine Gallery, London, UK, 2011; About Change Studio, Berlin, Germany, 2010; CAC Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati OH, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, USA, 2008; Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium, 2007. Selected exhibitions (group): 2012 Documenta, Kassel, Germany; 9th Gwangju Biennale, China, 2012; Architektonika, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany, 2012; Tribute to Anri Sala, Locarno Film Festival, Italy, 2011; 29th São Paolo Biennale, Brazil, 2010; Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2010; Gender Check, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria, 2009; The Implications of Image, Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008; Moskau Biennale, Moscow, Russia, 2007.

‘Music, emotive and often abstract, is a powerful form of non-verbal communication, and even a catalyst for change.’

Andrew Clifford, Curator, Centre for Art Research, The University of Auckland

Long Sorrow

2005
Gus Fisher Gallery

HD video transferred from super 16mm film, stereo sound
12:57min
courtesy of Johnen Galerie Berlin; Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Hauser & Wirth, Zurich / London; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

Tlatelolco Clash

2011
Gus Fisher Gallery

HD video projection, five-channel surround sound
11:49min
courtesy of kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Hauser & Wirth, Zurich / London; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

3-2-1

2011
Gus Fisher Gallery

live performance featuring artist André Vida responding to the film Long Sorrow
courtesy of the artist


Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro

Venue
dwell,2013

dwell,2013

dwell,2013

dwell,2013

Sean Cordeiro
Born 1974, Sydney, Australia
Claire Healy
Born 1971, Melbourne, Australia

 

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro met at the New South Wales College of Fine Arts in the 1990s. Avid travellers, their peripatetic lives inform much of their practice as they explore ideas of home and transience, and engage with issues such as real estate, permutations of space and modes of living. They are best known for transforming everyday objects into large-scale and provocative sculptures and installations. Through the presentation of the deconstructed and the reassembled Healy and Cordeiro literally unpack notions of domicide, and make us question our own materialistic tendencies and the impermanence of occupation.

http://www.claireandsean.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2012; Are We There Yet? Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2011; Par Avion, Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern, San Francisco, 2011; Future Furnishings, Nature Morte Gallery, Berlin, 2012; The Ultimate Field Trip, Akiyoshidai International Artist Village, Yamaguchi, 2010; Prems, La BF15, Lyon, 2009. Selected exhibitions (group): Setouchi Art Festival, Setouchi, 2010; 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009; Optimism, Gallery of Modern Art | Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2008.

‘Enigmatic clues hint at a narrative – somewhat playful, somewhat uncomfortable...’

Beatrice Gralton, Curator Visual Arts, Carriageworks, Sydney

dwell

2013
Auckland Art Gallery

mixed media installation
dimensions variable
courtesy of the artists, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.