Zhou Tao The 5th Auckland Triennial

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

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

Teddy Cruz

Venue

San Diego’s urban waste is recycled

Lace presentation

Public Space as socio-economic

Born 1962, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Lives and works in San Diego, United States of America

Teddy Cruz is best known for his socially responsible and artistically motivated architecture on the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. As a research-based practice, Estudio Teddy Cruz has amplified urban conflict as a productive zone of controversy, leading to constructive dialogue and new modes of intervention into established politics and economics of development in marginal neighborhoods which become sites of artistic experimentation.

In 2008 Cruz represented the United States in the Venice Architecture Biennial and in 2010 was part of the exhibition Small Scale: Big Change New Architects of Social Engagement at the Museum of Modern Art.

‘... Cruz asks, ‘Who gets to live where .... with what kind of political representation and economic power?’

Kathy Waghorn, artist, designer and Lecturer

Whau River Mapping, Legal and Illegal Storm Water

2013

Auckland Art Gallery

Herman Haringa
Whau River Mapping, Legal and Illegal
Storm Water 2013
images courtesy of Kathy Waghorn

Anri Sala

Venue

Tlatelolco Clash, 2011 (still)

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

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

Watch video

Untitled

2013

Fresh Gallery Otara

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

Allan Sekula

Venue

The Forgotten Space 2010 (still)

Born 1951, Erie, United States of America
Died 10 August 2013, Los Angeles, United States of America

Allan Sekula (1951–2013) was a photographer, filmmaker and writer engaged with issues of social reality and globalisation. The Forgotten Space, 2010 is a filmic sequel to his book Fish Story, 1995 which explores the historic use and representation of the maritime space and the radical modern-day shifts and transformations. In recent work Sekula explored the uneasy relationship in maritime space between anti-authoritarianism or imaginative freedom and instruments of economic, military and political power. As an intellectual and practitioner, he was mainly engaged with socio-political critique of what he described as ‘the imaginary and material geographies of the advanced capitalist world’.

http://www.theforgottenspace.net/

Selected exhibitions:

Polonia and Other Fables, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 2010; Polonia and Other Fables, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2009; dOCUMENTA (12), Kassel, 2007; Shipwreck and Workers, STUK Kunstcentrum, Leuven, 2005; Titanic’s Wake, Harn Museum of Art, Florida, 2004; Prayer for the Americans, Galerie Michel Rein, Paris, 2004; Sekula, Performance under Working Conditions, Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2003; dOCUMENTA (11), Kassel, 2002.

‘Sekula and Burch’s film asks us to consider those critical spaces between the local and the global...’

Alex Davidson, Curatorial Assistant, Artspace, Auckland

The Forgotten Space

2010

The Film Archive

Screening times for The Forgotten Space at The Film Archive:

Weekdays - 11am, 1pm and 3pm

Saturday - 11am, 1pm

film essay / feature documentary, English subtitles
110:00min
producers: Frank van Reemst, Joost Verheij
co-producers: Vincent Lucassen, Ebba Sinzinger
courtesy of DOC.EYE Film

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

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

Wayne Youle

Venue

Just in time for too late, (2013)

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

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

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

1998-1999, musée du Kosovo, Pristina, septembre

2009

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
1270 x 1590 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

«Travaillons ensemble», Pristina, Kosovo, 8 novembre

2010

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
1270 x 1590 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

L’interprète, Grand Hôtel, Pristina, Kosovo, 27 avril

2011

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
1270 x 1590 mm
courtesy of the artist and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris

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

2012

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
1270 x 1590 mm
courtesy of the artist and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris

«Kosovo is serbian Alamo», barricade # 2, Mitroviça, Kosovo, 7 avril

2012

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
520 x 630 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

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

2012

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
520 x 630 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

Journaliers (Bosch), Pristina, Kosovo, 11 avril

2012

Artspace

diptych, Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
520 x 630 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

Journalier (Bosch), Pristina, Kosovo, 11 avril

2012

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
520 x 630 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris

Journaliers (bûcherons), Mitroviça, Kosovo, 9 avril

2012

Artspace

Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium, frame with glass
520 x 630 mm
courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Paris