Allora & Calzadilla The 5th Auckland Triennial

Amie Siegel

Venues

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

Watch video

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

Claire Fontaine

Venues

Foreigners Everywhere (Chinese and French), 2013

Foreigners Everywhere (Chinese), 2008

Foreigners Everywhere (Tibetan), 2010

(formed 2004)
Lives and works in Paris, France

Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective, founded in 2004. After lifting her name from a popular brand of school notebooks, Claire Fontaine declared herself a ‘readymade artist’ and began to elaborate a version of neo-conceptual art that often looks like other people’s work. Working in neon, video, sculpture, painting and text, her practice can be described as an ongoing interrogation of the political impotence and the crisis of singularity which seem to define contemporary society today.

http://www.clairefontaine.ws/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

1493, Espace 1414, San Juan, 2013; Redemptions, CCA Wattis, San Fransisco, 2013; Carelessness causes fire, Audian Gallery, Vancouver, 2012; Breakfast starts at midnight, Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm, 2012; M-A-C-C-H-I-N-A-Z-I-O-N-I, Museion, Bolzano, 2012; P.IG.S., MUSAC, León, 2011; Economies, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, 2010; After Marx April, After Mao June, Aspen Art Museum, 2009. Selected exhibitions (group): When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis, San Fransisco, 2013; The Deep of the Modern, Manifesta 9, Genk, Limburg 2012 Unrest: Revolt Against Reason, apexart, New York, 2012; 9th Shanghai Biennale, 2012; Re-writing Worlds (Art and Agency), 4th Moscow Biennale, 2011; 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011.

‘Not only are there foreigners everywhere, but we are foreigners everywhere.’

Linda Tyler, Director, Gus Fisher Gallery

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

Peter Robinson

Venue

If You Were To Work Here: the Mood in the Museum, 2013

Born 1966, Ashburton
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

Peter Robinson’s recent work investigates both the materiality and metaphoric potential of his chosen medium. Whether it is the massive weightless volume of polystyrene forms or the densely contracted materiality of felt, Robinson’s sculptural propositions play out various oppositions such as density and lightness, and dispersion and compression. His felt sticks reference the formalist legacies of minimalist, post-minimalist and conceptual art, conflating these iconic art-historical conventions with both traditional Māori abstraction and taonga (treasure) forms, and genetic or binary codes, to activate a contemporary recoding and recontextualisation.

Selected exhibitions (solo): Defunct Mnemonics, Peter McLeavey Gallery Wellington, 2012; Structure and Subjectivity, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland, 2012; Essential Security, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne 2011; Modern Standards, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland, 2010, Wellington, 2010; The Influence of Anxiety, The Centre for Drawing Project Space, London, 2010; Polymer Monoliths, Artspace, Sydney and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2009; Snow Ball Blind Time, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 2008; Soft Rock Baroque, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington2008; Concatenation and Dispersion, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2007; ACK!, Artspace, Auckland, NZ, 2006;The Humours, Dunedin Public Art Gallery,2005

Selected exhibitions (group): All our relations, 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012; De-Building, Christchurch Art Gallery, 2011; The Walters Prize, Auckland Art Gallery, 2008; Three Colours: Gordon Bennett and Peter Robinson, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2004; Centre of Attraction, 8th Baltic Triennale of International Art, Vilnius 2002; bi-polar, 49th Venice Biennale, 2001.

‘Peter Robinson, at Auckland Museum, reminds us that Conceptual art can jolt viewers into revisiting the perceived and the accepted.’

Marcus Boroughs, Head of Public Programmes, Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira

Watch video

If You Were To Work Here: the Mood in the Museum

2013

Auckland War Memorial Museum

240 felt-covered aluminium rods
2500 x 32 mm (each), overall dimensions variable
courtesy of the artist and Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland

Rigo 23

Venue

Just in time for too late, (2013)

Born 1966, Madeira, Portugal
Lives and works in San Francisco, United States of America

Rigo 23 is an artist interested in the different forms of community-based practice. In the 1990s he painted a number of large-scale Pop Art-inspired murals which highlight world politics and the plight of political prisoners including the "Black Panther Party" and the "Angola Three". Some of Rigo 23’s most memorable murals appear on the sides of buildings, including the large black and white mural One Tree, 1995. In this mural Rigo 23 painted the words ‘one tree’ in a giant traffic arrow which points to a lone tree in a crowded industrial setting – a reminder to the people who pass it of what is lost in urbanisation.

http://www.artistsrespond.org/artists/rigo23/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Autonomous InterGalactic Space Program, REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles, 2012; Tate Wikikuwa Museum: North America 2024, Warehouse Gallery, Syracuse University, 2010; The Deeper They Bury Me, the Louder My Voice Becomes, New Museum, New York City, 2009; Cracks in the Highway, MAC – Museu de Arte Conemporânea, Niterói, 2007. Selected exhibitions (group): Autonomous Regions, Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2013; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala, 2012; Fifty Years of Bay Area Art – the SECA Awards, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2011; The Jerusalem Show IV, East Jerusalem/Ramallah, Palestine, 2010; 10th Lyon Biennale, 2009.

‘A social activist and commentator in his own right, Rigo 23 has an aesthetic that is unpretentious and direct.’

Nigel Borell, Kaiwhakahaere, Toi o Manukau, Auckland Council

Watch video

Untitled

2013

Fresh Gallery Otara

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

Do Ho Suh

Venue

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

Bruno Serralongue

Venue

Barricade # 2 (Mitroviça dans la partie serbe de la ville), Kosovo, 7 avril 2012

Au nord de Mitroviça sur la route menant à la Serbie, Kosovo, 8 avril 2012

Born 1968, Châtellerault, France
Lives and works in Paris, France

Bruno Serralongue’s images show the lesser events on the margins of major events and provide alternatives to the linear narrative of news reports of photo essays. Employing a photojournalistic technique Bruno Serralongue has captured important long-lasting geo-political conflicts in countries including Kosova, Sudan and Tibet as well as concerts, summits, forums, and demonstrations. His recent bodies of work reveal the effects of globalisation on those in developing countries.

http://www.brunoserralongue.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

South Sudan Series, Francesca Pia gallery, Zurich, 2013; Histoire des avant-dernières luttes, Air de Paris Gallery, Paris, 2012; Feu de camp, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2010, Bruno Serralongue, Wiels, Brussels, 2009; Backdraft, Centre of Photography, Geneva, 2007. Selected exhibitions (group): Newtopia, The State of Human Right, Mechelen, Belgium, 2012; Oceans and Campﬁres: Allan Sekula and Bruno Serralongue, San Francisco Art Institute, 2011; Project Europa – Imagining the (Im)possible, Harn Museum of Art, Florida, 2010; Uneven Geographies, Nottingham Contemporary, 2010; Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photographic Portraiture, Tate Modern, London, 2008; 6th Gwangju Biennale, 2006.

’[Serralongue] affirms that the only objectivity we have today is an artistic objectivity.’

Pascal Beausse

Born 1974, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whakaeke, Pākehā
Lives and works in North Canterbury, New Zealand

Wayne Youle’s playful and subversive art practice ranges from painting and sculpture to photography, ceramics and bronze casting. Informed by his heritage, Youle makes work which addresses Māori/Pākehā relations and bicultural concepts as well as broader social issues. One of his most recent projects was a large-scale mural painted on a concrete wall in Sydenham, Christchurch. I seem to have temporarily misplaced my sense of humour, 2012 was a giant painting of a shadow board with tools that represented what had gone from people’s everyday lives and all those who lent their equipment and hands to help clean up Christchurch following the earthquake in February 2011.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

So they say...,Tauranga Art Gallery, 2013; Fingers Crossed, City Gallery Wellington, 2012; 10 Down, Pataka Museum of Arts & Cultures, Porirua, 2010; The Icon 500, The Physics Room, Christchurch, 2005. Selected exhibitions (group): Close Encounters, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2009; Plastic Maori, The Dowse, Lower Hutt, 2009; Winners are Grinners, PICA, Perth, 2007; Pasifika Styles, University of Cambridge, 2006; Hei Tiki, Auckland Art Gallery, 2005; Manawa Taki, City Gallery Wellington, 2005. 

‘... the play of words and symbols which are often utilised to intersect national bicultural debates in provocative ways.’

Nigel Borell, Kaiwhakahaere, Toi o Manukau, Auckland Council

Watch video

Just in time for too late

2013

Fresh Gallery Otara

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

Shahzia Sikander

Venue

Parallax, 2013 (detail)

Parallax, 2013 (still)

Born 1969, Lahore, Pakistan
Lives and works in New York City, United States of America

Pakistani-born American artist, Shahzia Sikander is best known for her experimentation with the formal constructs of Indo-Persian miniature painting in a variety of formats and mediums, including video, animation, mural and collaboration with other artists. Over the years, she has pioneered an interpretive and critically charged approach to the genre of miniature painting. Sikander’s interest in paradox, societies in flux, and formal and visual disruption as a means to cultivate new associations also underpins her work.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Authority as Approximation,Para/Site, Hong Kong, 2009; Shahzia Sikander Selects, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, 2009; Intimate Ambivalence, IKON Gallery,Birmingham, 2008; Shahzia Sikander, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007; Shahzia Sikander, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2007.

‘Sikander’s work brings together the elegant sensibility and attitude of the miniature tradition with contemporary materials and scale...’

Charlotte Huddleston, Director, St Paul St Gallery, AUT University Auckland

Parallax

2013

ST PAUL st

three-channel HD video animation, surround sound
music by Du Yun
15:30min
courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro

Venue

dwell,2013

(formed 2001)
Live and work in Sydney, Australia

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

Watch video

dwell

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

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

dwell, Auckland Art Gallery