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

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

mounir fatmi

Venue

Architecture Now! Etat des Lieux #2, 2010 (still)

Born 1970,Tangier, Morocco
Lives and works between Tangier, Morocco and Paris, France

mounir fatmi makes art which directly addresses global current events by looking at the origins and symptoms of global issues, as well as speaking to those whose lives are affected by specific events. In his recent work, fatmi has criticised the formation of supranational political and economic structures in the late 1990s and offered an Arab perspective on megalopolises and urban architecture. fatmi defines a megalopolis as architectural development in cities that is carried out at speed and without taking time to consider or reflect upon the wellbeing of the people who live there.

http://www.mounirfatmi.com/

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Oriental Accident, Lombard Freid Projects, New York, 2012; The Angel’s Black Leg, Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf, 2011; Seeing is Believing, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France, 2010; minimalism is capitalist, Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf, 2009; Obstacle Next Flag, Migros Museum, Zürich, 2003. Selected exhibitions (group): Ici, Ailleurs, Tour Panorama, Marseille, 2013; 6th Québec Biennale, 2012; 54th Venice Biennale, 2011; 12th Cairo Biennale, 2010; 10th Lyon Biennale, 2009; 10th Brussels Biennale, 2008.

‘... [mounir] looks at a world dominated by new technologies, from the vantage point of the Arab world, with an ironic gaze.’

Ali Akay, Professor of Sociology, University of Fine Arts Mimar Sinan; curator, Istanbul

Architecture Now! Etat des lieux #1

2010

Fresh Gallery Otara

colour HD video, with stereo sound
11:33min

Architecture Now! Etat des lieux #2

2010

Fresh Gallery Otara

colour HD video, with stereo sound
6:49min

Architecture Now! Etat des lieux #3, I lived on the 3rd Floor in Tower no. 2

2010

Fresh Gallery Otara

colour HD video, stereo sound
10:12min

Architecture Now! Etat des lieux #4, City of urgency

2010

Fresh Gallery Otara

colour HD video, stereo sound
9:13min

The VF Project

2010

Fresh Gallery Otara

colour HD video projection, stereo sound
28:00min
courtesy of the artist and Analix Forever, Geneva, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town

Ryoji Ikeda

Venues

test pattern [live set], 2008, photograph by Liz Hingley

A [for 6 silos]

Born 1966, Gifu, Japan
Lives and works in Paris, France

Ryoji Ikeda is one of Japan’s leading electronic composers and visual artists who successfully works across both visual and sonic media. His work involves elaborate orchestrations of sound, visuals and mathematical notions which explore the characteristics of sound and result in immersive live performances and installations.

http://www.ryojiikeda.com/

Alongside his musical pieces, Ikeda continues to work on long-term projects including test pattern, 2008–ongoing in which he developed a system that converts any type of data – text, sounds, photographs and movies – into barcode patterns and binary notation consisting of 0s and 1s.

Selected exhibitions:

Beam In Thine Own Eye, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, 2013, test pattern [no5], Carriageworks, Sydney, 2013; test pattern [ 100m version],Ruhr Trienniale, Duisburg, 2013; Ryoji Ikeda, DHC-ART, Montréal, 2012; The Transfinite, Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2011; datamatics, Museo de Arte, Bogota, Colombia. His performances datamatics [v.2], test pattern [live set] and superposition have been presented all over the world including Pompidou Centre, Paris, Tate Modern, London and Palazzo Grassi, Venice.

‘[Ikeda’s] projects ... are sensational, beautiful and challenging.’

Hou Hanru, Curator, 5th Auckland Triennial

A [for 6 silos]

2013

SIlo 6

site-specific six-channel sound installation
continuous loop
courtesy of the artist

test pattern [live set]

2013

Galatos

audiovisual concert
concept, composition: Ryoji Ikeda
computer graphics, programming: Tomonaga Tokuyama

Ou Ning

Venue

Bishan Commune,2013

Outdoor film screening, Bishan Harvestival, 2011

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

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

Andrew Barrie

Venue

Model Home,2013

Andrew Barrie, Okoshi-ezu (Yatsushiro Monument KILALI, Kumiko Inui), 2008. Photo: Patrick Loo

Born in Levin, New Zealand in 1968, Dr Andrew Barrie, is an Auckland-based designer and Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland. After completing doctoral studies at Tokyo University, he spent several years as a project architect at Toyo Ito & Associates in Tokyo, before returning to Auckland to work at Cheshire Architects. His design work has won numerous awards in New Zealand and Japan. He is the author of several books on Japanese architecture, and is a regular contributor to architecture and design journals.

Barrie's academic research and exhibition practice includes okoshi-ezu, an ancient Japanese architectural drawing technique often associated with teahouse design, which takes the form of annotated folding paper models. He has been adapting this method for use in modeling contemporary buildings, and in Model Home 2013 extends it further to create a one-to-one paper model of Atelier Bow-Wow's workers' house.

Selected exhibitions (solo): Densities, New Work Studio, Wellington, 1996; Code, Artspace, Auckland, 1999; Unfolding the New Japanese Architecture, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane & Objectspace, Auckland, 2010. Selected exhibitions (group): Architecture to a Fault, 5th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, 1991; New Zealand Installation, Milan Triennial, 1996; SD Review, Tokyo & Osaka, 1999; Minna no ie, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2012; Familial Clouds, 13th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, 2012; Kiwi Prefab: Cottage to Cutting Edge, Puke Ariki, New Plymouth, 2012.

Model Home

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

For the 5th Auckland Triennial Michael Lin and Atelier Bow Wow collaborated with Professor Andrew Barrie from the University of Auckland to create a life-size paper document of worker housing element of the Model Home project, the sound and video artists were Nanli Lou and Ren Cheng. Andrew Barrie is a specialist in the Japanese technique of paper model building known as okoshi-ezu (folding drawing), and has adapted aspects of this technique for Model Home 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

Foreigners Everywhere (Chinese)

2008

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
215 x 1300 x 50 mm

Foreigners Everywhere (French)

2011

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
110 x 1720 x 50 mm

Foreigners Everywhere (Korean)

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
148 x 1535 x 50 mm

Foreigners Everywhere (Hindi)

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
185 x 2120 x 50 mm

Foreigners Everywhere (Samoan)

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
110 x 1240 x 50 mm

Foreigners Everywhere (Māori)

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
130 x 2292 x 50 mm
courtesy of the artist

Foreigners Everywhere (Māori)

2013

Gus Fisher Gallery

neon, framework, transformer, cables
130 x 2292 x 50 mm
courtesy of the 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

Makeshift

Venue

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

Emory Douglas

Venue

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