Yto Barrada The 5th Auckland Triennial

Yto Barrada

Venue

Libellule bleue (Blue Dragonfly), 2009/2011

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

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

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

Zhou Tao

Venue

Nanshi Tou (South Stone), 2011

Born 1976, Changsha, China
Lives and works in Guangzhou, China

Zhou Tao’s work reflects on the activities and elements of everyday life. His subtle and humorous videos record interactions between people, things, and situations – touching on questions about the multiple trajectories of reality. In the performance piece Time, 2010 in New York Zhou attached a ball of string to his body as means of recording his movements throughout the day. For Zhou, the decision to use video was not a deliberate choice of artistic language or medium; instead, the operation of the camera is a way of being that blends itself with everyday life.

http://listart.mit.edu/node/509

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Zhou Tao: The Training, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, 2013; Open Studio: Seek for Geothermal Heat, Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2012; The Man Who Plants Scenarios, Queens Nails Projects, San Francisco, 2011; Zhou Tao, Location One, New York, 2010; 1234–, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, 2009. Selected exhibitions and screenings (group): 6th Curitiba Biennial, 2011; Non-Aligned, Marina Abramovic Institute West, San Francisco, 2010; 7th Shanghai Biennale, 2008; China Power Station Part II, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, 2007; Accumulation-Canton Express Next Stop, Tang

‘... Zhou Tao’s practice alchemises ordinary surroundings into a theatre...’

Xiaoyu Weng, curator and writer, San Francisco

Nanshi Tou (South Stone)

2011

Auckland Art Gallery

single-channel HD video, 36 inkjet prints
25:22min, 279.4 mm x 215.9 mm (each)
courtesy of artist and Kadist Art Foundation

Allora & Calzadilla

Venue

Under Discussion, 2005 (video still)

Returning a Sound, 2004 (video still)

(formed 1995) Live and work Puerto Rico

Jennifer Allora
Born 1974, Philadelphia, United States of America
James Calzadilla
Born 1971, Havana, Cuba

Collaborating since 1995, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla have produced an experimental and interdisciplinary body of work, combining performance, sculpture, video and sound. Their Land Mark, 2001–ongoing, project focuses on what the artists describe as the ‘transitional geography’ of Vieques, an inhabited island municipality of Puerto Rico used by the U.S Navy as a weapons-testing range from 1941 to 2003.

http://www.lissongallery.com/#/artists/allora-and-calzadilla/

Interested in questions of social justice the artists set into motion a series of structural couples – inscription and erasure, presence and absence, appearance and disappearance – which link processes of mark-making with counter-memorial claims for rights and justice vis-à-vis specific sites.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Stop, Repair, Prepare, MoMA, New York, 2010, and Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2008; Allora & Calzadilla, National Museum of Art, Oslo, 2009; Compass & How to Appear Invisible, Temporare Kunsthalle, Berlin, 2009; Never Mind That Noise you Heard, Stedekijk Museum, Amsterdam; Allora & Calzadilla, Kunsthalle Zürich, 2007; Clamor, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2007; Wake Up, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2007. Selected exhibition (group): 54th Venice Biennale, 2011.

Returning a Sound

2004

Auckland Art Gallery

single-channel video projection, sound
5:42min

Under Discussion

2005

Auckland Art Gallery

single-channel video projection, sound
6:14min

Half Mast\Full Mast

2010

Auckland Art Gallery

dual-channel HD colour video projection
21:11min
courtesy of the artists and Lisson Gallery

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

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

Watch video

Bishan Project

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

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

Angelica Mesiti

Venues

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

Luke Willis Thompson

Venue

Architectural plans with notes for the removal and acquisition of garage doors from Mahia Road, Manurewa

Born 1988, Auckland
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

Luke Willis Thompson’s art deals with sites and objects that embody a sense of historical, political or social trauma. In recent work the artist has used ready-made objects – such as a local funeral home’s art collection and a house in the Auckland suburb of Epsom – to trace the faultlines of race and class in his chosen context. Thompson sets up estranging encounters where the viewer is confronted with an object both ontologically and in the space of narrative and mythology.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

inthisholeonthisislandwhereiam, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland, 2012; Yaw, RM, Auckland, 2011. Selected exhibitions (group): Between memory and trace, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, 2012; In Spite of Ourselves: Approaching Documentary, St Paul St Gallery, Auckland and The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2012; Make\Shift: Tautai’s Third Tertiary Show, St Paul St Gallery, Auckland, 2010.

‘... objects that shatter any achievable fantasy of community...’

Danny Butt, writer and artist, Melbourne

Untitled

2012

Auckland Art Gallery

three garage doors, security lights
dimensions variable
courtesy of the artist and Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland

Michael Lin

Venue

Model Home,2013

Born 1964, Tokyo, Japan  Lives and works in Shanghai, China and Brussels, Belgium and Taipei, Taiwan.

Michael Lin is best known for his large-scale colourful floral paintings which cover the facades of building, interiors, windows and furniture. Using patterns from traditional Taiwanese textiles and decorative arts Lin’s work blurs the lines between art and craft, and raises issues around the continuity of traditional and domestic art forms. These playful insertions question the role of art in public space as Lin transgresses the line between the undervalued domestic realm and the dominant public one. Lin has collaborated with architects and local trades people to create environments and structures which encourage new ways of encountering art.

Selected exhibitions (solo):

Model Home, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2012; Michael Lin, Free Port No. 005, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 2012; Hotel MARCO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Vigo, 2011; A Modest Veil, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2010; Michael Lin, OK Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, 2007; Michael Lin, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2005. Selected exhibitions (group): 3rd SingaporeBiennale, 2011; Memories of the Future, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2010; 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, 2009; Space For Your Future, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2007; Notre Histoire, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006; 2nd Guangzhou Triennial, 2005.

‘... Lin goes out looking for ... anonymous patterns loaded with collective memories.’

Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

Watch video

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.