mounir fatmi

Saffronn Te Ratana, Ngataiharuru Taepa and Hemi Macgregor

Venue

Ka Kata Te Po, 2011

Hemi Macgregor
Born 1975, Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngāi Tūhoe
Lives and works Paekakariki and Wellington, New Zealand

Saffronn Te Ratana
Born 1975, Ngāi Tūhoe
Lives and works in Palmerston North, New Zealand

Ngataiharuru Taepa
Born 1976, Te Arawa, Te Ati Awa

Hemi Macgregor, Saffronn Te Ratana and Ngataiharuru Taepa are leading contemporary Māori artists who collaborate to combine their individual practices. Collaboration is an essential element of tikanga Māori (customary values). Drawing from shared indigenous experiences the group created Ka kata te po, 2011 first shown at Te Manawa Art Gallery. This is a large installation that explores the expressions of tribal mana motuhake (authority) and the state’s suppressions of tribal voices. Earlier collaborative projects include Tu te manu ora i te Rangi, 2008 a mixed-media installation which explores the relationship between the atua (deity) Tāne and Rehua, a subject the artists have explored in their own individual practices and collectively.

Selected exhibitions (collaborative):

Ka Kata Te Po, Te Manawa Art Gallery, Palmerston North, 2011; Tu te manu ora i te Rangi, Thermostat Gallery, Palmerston North, 2008. Selected exhibitions (group): Double Vision: When Artists Collaborate, Pataka Museum of Arts, Porirua, 2010.

’... strength in mana tupuna (authority of ancestors), mana atua (spiritual and ancestral realms) and mana whenua (the power of land).’

Huhana Smith, artist and independent Māori art/visual culture specialist,

Ka kata te po

2011

Auckland Art Gallery

installation with painted cardboard and fibreglass figure
dimensions variable
courtesy of the artists

Tahi Moore

Venue

Paranoid Structures, 2013 (still)

Born 1972, Auckland, New Zealand
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland-based artist Tahi Moore works across a range of media including video, sculpture, painting and performance. Moore’s installations typically unfold and collapse around a central text offered to the viewer through subtitles in his video works. Moore’s narratives combine elements from a range of curiously linked sources (with myriad references from philosophy, literature, film, and popular culture more generally) in quietly absurd sequences. These stories typically evince the artist's long-standing fascination with narrative structure, in particular stories of failure, fakes, and moments where meaning is misunderstood, misconstrued or mistranslated.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Abstract sequels, returns, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland, 2012; Nonsuch Park, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland, 2011; Failed Purchases, High Street Project, Christchurch, 2010; War against the self, Gambia Castle, Auckland, 2009; Various Failures, Gambia Castle, Auckland, 2008; German Sands, Our Faces, Gambia Castle, Auckland, 2007; Selected exhibitions (group): Metaphoria, St Paul St Gallery, Auckland 2012; Caraway Downs, Artspace, Auckland, 2011; No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independents, Tate Modern, London, 2010; Pickups, Magic Mountain, Home, Okay, A pretty intense long drawn out game (with Fiona Connor), Y3K Gallery, Melbourne, 2009.

’... Moore... provides viewers with a selection of visual and sonic clues to decipher the turn of events.’

Caterina Riva

various, astral travels, politics, human, unavoidability of becoming someone else, progress

2013

Gus Fisher Gallery

various dimensions and materials

Conny Plank, Studios, Personal

2013

Gus Fisher Gallery

Citizens Band, 2012 (still)

Prepared Piano for Movers (Haussmann), 2012 (still)

Born 1976, Sydney, Australia
Lives and works Sydney, Australia and Paris, France

Angelica Mesiti creates performance-based videos that analyse culture in a state of transformation due to social or economic shifts. Past projects have focused on traditional music, movement languages, and storytelling. At the core of her work is an ongoing interest in the potential of performed cultural practices as expressions of the particularities and history of a given place and community.

http://www.angelicamesiti.com/

Listen to Angelica Mesiti talking at Artspace as part of the 5th Auckland Triennial.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

The Line of Lode & Death of Charlie Day, 24HR Art, Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin, 2012; Rapture (silent anthem), Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2012; The Begin-Again, C3West Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and Hurstville Council, 2011; Rapture (silent anthem), CCP, Melbourne, 2010. Selected exhibitions (group): Sharjah Biennial 11, United Arab Emirates, 2013; NEW12, ACCA, Melbourne, 2012; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala, 2012; Rencontres Internationales, Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2010; No Soul For Sale, Tate Modern, London, 2010; Les Rencontres International, Paris, Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Paris, 2008.

‘Few contemporary works evoke such beauty ...’

Jacqueline Millner, Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching, Sydney College of the Arts

Citizens Band

2012

Artspace

four-channel colour HD video installation, surround sound 21:25min, courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Prepared Piano for Movers (Haussmann)

2012

Auckland Art Gallery

single-channel colour HD video, stereo sound 6:00min, courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Yangjiang Group

Venue

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

(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

Abraham Cruzvillegas

Venue

Autoconstrucción, 2009 (still)

Born 1968, Mexico City, Mexico
Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico

Abraham Cruzvillegas’ practice is informed by growing up in Ajusco, a district of Mexico City. Cruzvillegas transforms everyday objects including pieces of scrap metal, plastic rubbish, and animal waste into art. Stark and somewhat precarious in construction, these dynamic assemblage sculptures retain a deep mystical quality. His recent work addresses solidarity, collaboration and optimism, and his construction of art using readily available materials operates as a metaphor for the articulation of individual identity and place.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites, Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, 2013; Abraham Cruzvillegas, Kurimanzutto, Mexico City, 2012; Abraham Cruzvillegas: Autoconstrucción: The Optimistic Failure of a Simultaneous Promise, Modern Art Oxford, 2011; The Magnificent Seven: Abraham Cruzvillegas Capp Street Project, CCA Wattis Institute Event, San Francisco, 2009; Autoconstrucción: The Soundtrack, The Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, 2008. Selected exhibitions (group): Garden of Reason, Ham House, London, 2012; 30th São Paulo Biennial, 2012; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, 2012; 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011; Unmonumental, New Museum, New York, USA, 2007; 50th Venice Biennale, 2003.

Autoconstrucción

2009

Auckland Art Gallery

HD video, single-channel, colour, sound
63:00min
courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City

Maddie Leach

Venue

The Most Difficult Problem, 2013 (still)

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

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

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