Peter Cleverly has rarely shown his work in Auckland galleries apart from a few times the early 1990’s, so for many his work is unknown apart from images in publications.
However, a new book, “Peter Cleverly: Between Transience and Eternity” by Alistair Fox will correct this.
The heavily illustrated book traces the artists career from the 1980’s to the present with images of his work across more than four decades.
These four decades of art practice have seen him developing a personal style partly influenced by other New Zealand artists as well as his personal, response to his environment – physical, social and political.
His early work was predominantly figurative but from the 1990’s these were replaced with landscapes, often with texts and then. more recently the inclusion of figurative elements again.
His work, particularly early on was influenced in different ways by Toss Woollaston, and McCahon.
McCahon probably influenced his palette and his use of text but he may have also gained an understanding of McCahon’s approach. Unlike many artists influenced by McCahon he referenced A C Cotton’s book “Geomorphology” which was a prime source for both artists and Cleverly uses Cottons illustrations and shapes. He also used objects such as the pitcher as symbols in his work.
Other influences include New Zealand artists Bill Sutton and Tony Fomison while the importance of several international artists such as George Baselitz, Mimmo Paladino and David Salle and appears to have adapted their thinking about art.
His early landscapes owe much to McCahon shapes in “Six Days in Nelson and Canterbury while interiors such as “Still life kitchen Oamaru” are Post Impressionist distilled though Woollaston.
Peter Cleverly, All twenty-nine
His figurative work often dwells on mortality and death. “All Twenty-nine” his response to the death of 29 miners at Pike River. Here and in many other works the artist has a personal and visceral approach to his subject.
This is also seen in “Couriers” featuring two distorted hanging figures – is reaction to the incarceration of drug couriers Lorraine and Aaron Cohen. Often his figures are something between flayed corpses and angels.
Peter Cleverly, Seadog
Cleverly has developed his own distinctive iconography including a dog shape/face which serves a range of emotional and symbolic purposes as in “Seadog”.
The book is a very readable account of the artists varied life which has had an impact on the way he sees the world and the influences on his practice as well as an understanding of the artists thoughts and motivations.
The Art of Banksy – the major exhibition which has brought Banksy’s era defining works to over 1.5 million visitors in 19 cities across the globe will visit Auckland for a final and strictly limited New Zealand season. The exhibition will be hosted at Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s Aotea Centre (Hunua Rooms) from Monday 7 July through Sunday 3 August 2025.
The Art of Banksy is the world’s largest collection of original and authenticated Banksy art showcasing more than 150 pieces including prints, canvases and unique works. The collection wowed thousands of Wellingtonians in 2024 and now it’s Auckland’s turn.
Michel Boersma, curator and producer of the exhibition says: “Following a hugely successful 19 city global tour and 2 years in London, UK, we’re very excited to bring this larger-than-ever collection to Auckland, bigger and better! The last 9 years we have been working with collectors in expanding the collection which we are able to display, from 70 in Auckland in 2018 to over 150 authenticated and genuine works, no replicas – the real deal. I am particularly proud that trusted associates of Banksy, for example Ben Eine, have been willing to contribute to the exhibit with their privately held works, gifts and hand drawn sketches and video testimonials. This way The Art of Banksy is able to lift the veil on how some of the iconic Banksy works were created and reveals some of the secret stunts they got up to.”
Daniel Clarke, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Director of Performing Arts, leading Auckland Live adds: “We’re delighted to be working with GTP Exhibitions to bring The Art of Banksy to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As one of the world’s most successful contemporary artists Banksy’s work consistently captures the public’s attention and imagination – over a million people worldwide have seen the exhibition – so to have this number of works on show is a hugely exciting addition to our winter events season.”
Visitors at The Art of Banksy can expect to see the seminal artworks that brought the infamously anonymous artist international notoriety such as Girl With Balloon in four different colour variations, including the rare Gold Edition. Banksy fans can also see unique personalised gift prints created for friends, associates and lovers. The exhibition also focuses on Banksy’s Dismaland and recent artworks acknowledging the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Many of Banksy’s iconic works are also featured in the exhibition including a very rare collection of ‘thank you prints which Banksy created as gifts to staff and team members who worked with him at Dismaland and other Banksy stunts. The exhibition also features a series of unique hand drawn sketches by Banksy. The fragile pieces of paper are one-of-a-kind depicting Banksy’s working on versions of his famous rat images.
The Art of Banksy is an unmissable show for anyone who wants to learn more about one of the world’s most important current artists and what their work reveals today; the power of art to affect social change, inspire the public and lay bare the undercurrents of social issues.
The Art of Banksy is not curated or authorised by the artist and only displays authenticated art sold or gifted by the Artist, no replicas or art removed from the street.
Banksy’s Dismaland
ART OF BANKSY
Monday 7 July – Sunday 3 August 2025 Mon – Wed: 10am – 6pm Thu – Sun: 10am – 9pm
Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris
By Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson
Te Papa Press
RRP $60
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Botanical painters have been an integral part of the botanical and artistic history of New Zealand since Joseph Banks accompanied Cook on his voyage to New Zealand and his publication of detailed illustrations of the exotic plant species he found here.
Since the time of Banks there have been many other artists who have devoted themselves to depicting the flora of New Zealand .A new book “Groundwork” by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson reveals one of the first women botanical artists in New Zealand. Emily Cumming Harris who was born in England in 1837 spent most of her life in New Zealand, mainly in the Taranaki and Nelson areas.
During this time, she painted numerous examples of plant life as well as landscapes, a number of which were exhibited locally and internationally.
Her works were exhibited at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879, the 1880–81 Melbourne International Exhibition and the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886. At the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition held in Wellington in 1885 she won first prize and a silver medal for a painted screen.
Emily Cumming Harris, Kiekie (Freycinetia banksii), nikau (Rhopalostylis sapida), five finger (Pseudopanax arboreum) and karaka (Corynocarpus laevigata) in fruit, 1879, watercolour, 389 x 506mm. Reproduced as a Turnbull Library print in 1980. Alexander Turnbull Library,
Throughout her life she also had solo exhibitions, selling a number of works, the sales of which provided useful financial assistance to her and her family.
The book documents her career as an artist and even though this was never to be a full-time career she amassed a large collection of images many of which are in public collections. Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson’s research, along with other individuals reveal a woman whose work lies between the scientific, botanical illustration and artistic.
The book has been the result of a lot of detective work, research in various museums and some family history. Michelle Leggott ‘s interest came about when she was researching about Emily’s father, Edwin who had painted several views of New Plymouth at the time of the Land Wars in Taranaki. His paintings are also included in the book.
Emily Cumming Harris, Hector’s tree daisy Brachyglottis hectorii, oil on straw board, 690 x 470mm. Galpin collection, Pauanui
The authors also discovered a number of paintings Emily had done of astronomical subjects – The Total Eclipse of the Sun in1885 and a double tailed comet in 1901.
The book includes a number of her poems which range in quality but the occasional one shows some literary skills and keen observation.
Her “The mountain looks down on the river” contains some lines which indicate an awareness of the situation of Māori.
But the forest which grew by the river,
And the flowers on the mountain that bloomed
Will they gladden our hearts for ever
Or pass like a race that is doomed?
In 1890, she published three books, New Zealand flowers, New Zealand ferns, and New Zealand berries. Each contained twelve lithographs with descriptive text, and some copies were hand-coloured by Harris herself.
Emily Cumming Harris, Celmisia chapmanii – Campbell Island; Celmisia vernicosa – Campbell Island, 1890s, watercolour, 310 x 440mm. Alexander Turnbull Library
All her paintings as well as her writings and poems provide a portrait of a woman of great talent and enterprise but social convention prevented her developing an independent career and she was viewed merely as a gifted illustrator.”
This has meant she has not been well served by history but this book will do much to correct that.
Mark Forman’s new book on Tony Fomison is a superb piece of scholarship which adds to our understanding of the life of one of the great New Zealand artists of the late twentieth century. His writing is particularly informative as there are no images of Fomison’s work in the book. The trustees of his estate, his three daughters, withheld permission to use his work because of assumptions and inaccuracies.
Forman has made up for this with perceptive descriptions of many of the artists important works as well as providing an understanding of the artist and the environment in which he developed his work
Forman’s detailed research, obvious from his bibliography along with the numerous interviews he had with other artists, family members and friends enabled him to give the reader insights into Fomison life and thoughts. He has also included a number of quotes from newspapers and magazines of reviews of the artist’s work and there are also accounts of Fomison irritation at unfavourable reviews.
Fomison had been to Ilam Art School at Canterbury University where he had met a number of artists who he would be friends for the rest of his life including Quentin McFarlane and Des Helmore, Later he would meet Philip Clairmont, Allen Maddox and Colin McCahon. He was also influenced by some of the tutors at Ilam notably Bill Sutton and Rudi Gopas.
In the chapters covering his later life Forman has accounts of his involvement with his various gallerists including Elva Bett, Tina and Kees Hos, Peter McLeavey as well as John Gow and Gary Langsford. There were also other important figures who helped and supported him such as Charles Brasch and Jim and Mary Barr
In the 1960s, Fomison began painting and exhibiting portraits that were, even then very different from many of the other portraits by his peers. His were often distorted, maniacal and tapped into his own troubled life.
Also in the 1960’s as well as pursuing an art career he studied and recorded a number of the Māori rock drawings in Canterbury which became part of his art references
The 1970s was a particularly troubled period in Fomison’s life after he had returned from Europe which had included a spell in a mental institution.
He was down and out, grappling with drug addiction, and he began producing work which was contemptuous and cynical about society.
Many of these artists he identified with were ‘outsider artists’ which Fomison identified with and his dark figures and landscape began to emerge in his paintings. His monsters, misfits, and medical deformities challenged polite society, and explored what it means to be an outsider. Fomison began to paint people on the edges of society, such as prisoners and the disfigured.
Tony Fomison Grotto Road, Onehunga, Auckland. Image Mark Adams
Living in Auckland for much of his life, he had a strong connection to the local Samoan community and in 1980 made the decision to be tattooed with a Samoan pe’a. This and his response to the Springbok tour of 1981was part of the artists unconventional or subversive approach to social and political issues
Forman includes numerous quotes from friends and fellow artists along with reviews which allude to Fomison’ s art as being related to distant periods rather than addressing contemporary issues so that Francis Pound said of his work that it was “akin to that of a seventeenth century primitive” while Hamish Keith wrote that his figures were “sinister and unpleasant… giving of an Old Master complex” and Peter Simpson said he “has something of the impoverished yet eloquent beauty of late Michelangelo”
Fomison led a challenging personal life, which often could be seen in his paintings. As Ian Wedde says, ‘Fomison persisted with thinking and with making art out of his thoughts.’ Following a trip to Europe in the mid 1960s, and a short stint in institutions, Fomison began to paint people on the edges of society, such as prisoners and the disfigured. He would repeatedly return to the theme of the ‘outsider’. Fomison’s work was also often ‘socially committed’, protest the state of the world.
In his career spanning three decades, Fomison produced some of New Zealand’s most significant paintings and drawings, which seemed to incorporate elements of his own physical journey as well as the spiritual and aesthetic journey, linking ideas that he developed along with his whimsical and dark attitude to life.
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The Lula Washington Dance Theatre is a contemporary modern dance company in Los Angeles which has performed across the United States and toured internationally. It was established forty years ago when Lula Washington realised there were few black dance institutions in America .
They have a stylish approach to contemporary dance incorporating elements of African and Caribbean dance as well as contemporary modern dance and ballet. All these elements were seen in the opening number where three dancers – Love, Faith and Hope, performed to heavy beats, foot stomping and clapping with the audience encouraged to add to the heavy clapping to that of the dancers and he riotous drumming morphed from African beats to something closer to hip hop.
Three female dancers were joined by male dancers who became intertwined and there was a sense of the dancers and audience all part of a church service, street performance or gym workout.
Accompanying the hectic dancing were references to American segregation, slavery, lynchings and race riots – Charleston, Springfield, Watts and an image of George Floyd
Accompanying this dancing was some relentless drumming with and intense energy more akin to that of a night club and each of the sequences was given multiple bursts of applause from the audience.
Throughout this sequence the woman danced like ghost or departed spirits, their dancing a combination of celebration and remembrance of the African roots of the movements and music.
Because of the emphasis on these aspects the dances all seemed to be something of a political force and the dancers’ political activists.
In a later sequence one of the dancers shouts out the repeated chant “America is killing me” and this was accompanied by a visceral scream, a dramatic event one would not encounter in a Royal New Zealand Ballet performance and shows the level of the political urgency behind the Lula Washington project.
There was an intensity to many of the dances with a physically close to that of a Whirling Dervish. But alongside this there were elements of playfulness and whimsy which were all performed with a finesse close to that of classical ballet dancers.
The political or polemical aspects of the dances often felt to be less satisfying of the performance without a dance vocabulary which did not express the angst and anger which was conveyed in the words which accompanied the dance.
The Sri Lankan Civil War of the latter part of the 20th century provides the backdrop for Ahklan Karunaharan’s “A Mixtape for Maladies” which explores the lives of a Tamil family, who are caught up in the conflict, some of whom are killed or immigrate to New Zealand.
The play explores the reality of living in a different time and culture in a period of tension and transition and we identify and sympathize with the family’s trials of living through a war.
I was jolted back to another reality at the end of the show however. My Uber driver looked South Asian, so I mentioned about the show and how it combined politics and family. He was from Sri Lanka and acknowledged the tragedy of the war and its impact on the country. But his experience was very different from the family I had just witnessed on stage as he had been an air force pilot during the war contributing to the death and destruction, providing an alternative history of the period
One of the few things that Sangeetha (Ambicka G.K.R.) one of the daughters has brought to New Zealand was a tape recording of songs she loved growing up. Her New Zealand born son, Deepan (Shaan Kesha) finds the tape and plays the songs during his online podcast which trigger personal and political memories for her.
Through the course of the play Deepan plays these songs and Sangeetha remembers elements of the family’s life – hearing about the war, her and her sister hanging around the store where Anton (Bala Murali) works because he plays all the latest local and international songs as well as songs from the movies.
While some of the songs are played on the tape recorder others are sung by various members of the cast, accompanied by a duo (Ben Fernandez and Seyorn Arunagirinathan) playing a variety of instruments – keyboard, Carnatic violin and flute. Ahilan Karunaharan (Rajan), and Bala Murali give particularly fine vocal performances while Tiahli Martyn’s (Subbalaxmi) display of Tamil dance was skillful. These vocal and dance performances had many of the Tamil audience singing and swaying along to the music.
Among the tunes were Doris Day singing” Que Sera Sera”. “La Bamba” and some Tamil songs. These songs act as a cultural glue which holds the family together but also reminds us that these songs had universal appeal listened to by Sri Lankans as well as New Zealanders at the time.
The play is a mixture of social history, family exploration, cabaret and personal journey with music playing a central role in the play as well as the instruments the family would have listened to the songs on – an old turntable, a hi-fi player and the tape recorder.
The simple set features Dareen and Sangeetha in his podcast studio on one side and musicians on the other, flanking the family home and Anton’s general store.
The exploration by Dareen is initially an innocent enquiry into his mother’s music choices but becomes a journey into Sri Lanka’s history as well as triggering memories of his mothers and her family’s past and the impact of the war on their lives.
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Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926; Water Lilies ; about 1922;oil on canvas Toledo Museum of Art, purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
A Century of Modern Art
Auckland Art Gallery
June 7 – September 28
John Daly-Peoples
Auckland Art Gallery has announced that the exhibition “A Century of Modern Art” will be its special winter exhibition this year, running from June & through till September 28th.
The exhibition will be on loan from the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and will provide a survey of the major artists who transformed modern art.
The exhibition will consist of 57 works by 53 artists, including Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Helen Frankenthaler, Édouard Manet, William Merritt Chase, Amedeo Modigliani, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Robert Rauschenberg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler, among others.
Director of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Kirsten Lacy says the calibre of works and artists in this collection is exceptional and not to be missed. “A Century of Modern Art showcases the diversity and innovation that defined modern art movements,” says Lacy. “From the emotive brushstrokes of Van Gogh to the evocative landscapes of Monet and Rauschenberg’s bold abstractions, these works not only revolutionised Western art history but continue to inspire new generations.”
“The exhibition includes works by legendary art figures, including Vincent van Gogh, whose work hasn’t been publicly displayed here in Aotearoa in over a decade. It is made available to us due to renovations that are taking place at Toledo Museum of Art, and we are honoured to be working with the Museum to make the most of this rare opportunity.”
The centrepiece of the show will be Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey Plants, water, and sky seem to merge in Claude Monet’s evocative painting of his lily pond at Giverny. The disorienting reflections, bold brushstrokes, and lack of horizon line or spatial depth make Water Lilies appear almost abstract. Painted about 1922, it belongs to a grand project that Monet had conceived as far back as 1897:
“Imagine a circular room whose wall . . . would be entirely filled by a horizon of water spotted with [water lilies]… the calm and silence of the still water reflecting the flowering display; the tones are vague, deliciously nuanced, as delicate as a dream.”
Monet began this ambitious project in 1914, finally completing it shortly before his death in 1926. Over those years he executed more than 60 paintings of his water garden, capturing the light conditions at different times of day and in different weather. Twenty-two of these large panels were installed in the Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris, as a gift to France. The Toledo’s work was is possibly a study for one of the three panels of the Orangerie composition” Morning”.
Berthe Morisot, In the Garden at Maurecourt. (Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey)
Included in the exhibition is a work by artists Berthe Morisot one of the few female Impressionist artists. Her work “In the Garden at Maurecourt” (Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey) is set in Morisot’s sister Edma country house outside Paris and probably shows Morisot’s daughter, Julie, and one of Edma’s daughters.
She was born to an upper-middle class family and was the great-niece of Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Morisot rejected the social expectations of her class and gender by pursuing a professional career as an artist. In 1868 she met and became close friends with artist Édouard Manet, marrying his younger brother Eugène in 1874, the same year she participated in the first Impressionist group exhibition.
Paul Gauguin, French, 1848-1903; Street in Tahiti; 1891;oil on canvas (Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey)
There is also a work by the recently deemed “controversial” Paul Gauguin. His work “Street in Tahiti” (Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey) which predates his Tahitian figurative works was among the first group of paintings Gauguin produced in Tahiti during his initial two-year stay. He conveyed something of the special character of the place—the limpid light, rich colour, lush vegetation, and lofty mountains—through his use of strong contours, flattened shapes, repeated curving rhythms, and tautly patterned brushstrokes. However, minor notes of strain, such as the brooding woman and heavy clouds pressing down from above, introduce undertones of sadness and disquiet.
A Century of Modern Art will make use of its current major exhibition “The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity” which includes works by. Georges Braque, Paul Cezanne, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso.
Together the two exhibitions will trace out the birth of modern painting, beginning with the Impressionists in the 1860s, and follows its evolution through key movements such as Post- Impressionism, Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism, Constructivism, German Expressionism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Precisionism, and Colour Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism.
Adam Levine, the Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey President, Director and CEO of the Toledo Museum of Art, says, “The Toledo Museum of Art is distinguished by the quality of its collection. Each acquisition in our institution’s history has been oriented to acquiring artworks of superlative aesthetic merit. Never have so many of our masterworks travelled together, and we could not be more excited for them to debut in Auckland.”
A Century of Modern Art is organised by the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio and has been supported by HSBC and Auckland Art Gallery Foundation. Co-ordinating curator of the exhibition is Dr Sophie Matthiesson
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Martin Creed, Work No 3769, Work No 3764, Work No 2053
Three exhibitions K Rd – Palmer, Creed, Parekōwhai.
Stanley Palmer, New Work
Melanie Roger Gallery
Until February 22
Martin Creed, Like Favourite Socks in a Drawer
Michael Lett
Until March 1
Michael Parekōwhai, The Indefinite Article
Artspace Aotearoa
Until April 17
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Current exhibitions along Karangahape Rd offers a range of art works from the realist depictions of the landscape to abstract paintings and conceptual construction.
With his latest exhibition at Melanie Roger Gallery Stanley Palmer continues his depictions of the New Zealand landscape. Like many of his previous exhibition he has painted views of the New Zealand coastline featuring dramatic vistas of headlands and offshore islands.
With this new series of works he has revisited many of his previous subjects including depictions of Karamea, Great Barrier Island, Chathams, Great Mercury Island and Matauiri. While these are mainly landscape there are a few which also feature other element in the landscape which add a visual drama as in “Akiaki – Chathams” ($30,000) where he has included windswept trees and grazing sheep.
Stanley Palmer, “Akiaki – Chathams”
These paintings seem to be less detailed than some of his previous work and there is a simplicity which gives these works an added drama. Part of this drama comes from the artists shrewd use of paint, so that in “Awana- Aotea Great Barrier” ($22,000) the eroded cliffs are highlighted by the gash of earthy colours and in “Mataurui” ($28,000) the red line of a track is like an abstract slash through the landscape.
Stanley Palmer “Mataurui”
In most of the works the background of sea meeting sky shows a clever juxtaposition of shimmering abstract blues with subtle variations between each of the paintings
Also included in the exhibition are some of the artist’s earlier bamboo prints of the early 1970’s including “Hillside Town Kohukohu” ($2250).
Stanley Palmer “Hillside Town Kohukohu”
Martin Creed’s minimalist works have always played with the definition of art and art making starting with his Turner winning installation “Work No. 227: The lights going on and off: an empty room” in which the gallery lights switched on and off at 5-second intervals.
His work is a mixture of the witty, poetic and philosophical, making use of a range of everyday materials and approaches which challenge traditional views of art.
His current show “Like Favourite Socks in a Drawer” brings together elements of chance, time and structure with a series of ziggurat shaped works. The works started with his decision to buy an ordinary multi pack of commercial paint brushes.
Martin Creed, Work No 3764
With these he applied paint in different colours with the varying brush sizes, stacking the colours one above the other to create stepped, random bands of colour.
The paintings/designs can be seen as referencing the ziggurat forms of ancient Mesopotamia and Mexico as well as more recent brutalist constructions and has connections with Rewi Thompson’s block-like house in Kohimarama. There are also hints of Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Cuisenaire rods.
Creed says of the works “A step pyramid is solid and easy to understand. It is a safe structure that is not going to fall down. It is trustworthy. You can see how it is built. The steps are hopefully leading to the top, and you can enjoy the colours on the way up. In a blobby, soupy, ill-defined world it can be helpful to put your ducks in a row.”
The works have a sense of the structure to them with their build-up of coloured shapes and in works such as “Work No 3764” (USD $22,000 plus GST) there is sense of the artist gestural involvement where the striations of the brown / sepia are visible as a single calligraphic stroke. With others there is the notion of time with the various strokes of colour measuring out the time taken to complete each work
Martin Creed, Work No 3766
Some of the work display additions to the quick gesture with Creed scumbling the yellow band in “Work No 3766” (USD $22,000 plus GST). This work like some other has a humorous element with the painting looking like a celebratory, multi-layered birthday cake.
The works all convey Creed’s minimalism of means, notions of time along with the structuring and ordering of objects shapes and colours.
Michael Parekōwhai, The Indefinite Article
Artspace is exhibiting Michael Parekōwhai’s sculptural object, “The Indefinite Article (1990) which had previously been shown at Artspace in 1990 in the show “Choice” curated by George Hubbard
The large letters based on McCahon’s cubist stylised letters constructed of MDF spell out the words “I AM HE”. Which references some of the McCahon paintings featuring the words “I Am”.
While borrowing from McCahon the work can also be seen as creating a bilingual pun linking the words to te reo where “HE” can be read as the indefinite article where the word can be defined as -a, an, some – or it can also mean something is wrong, mistaken or incorrect.
Other linguistic variations can be identified with the words. During the ”Cultural Safety” exhibition in Frankfort in 1995 where the work was shown this reviewer noted at the time – “His large word sculpture using the words of the Colin McCahon painting I AM HE was quickly identified by one perceptive German journalist as coming from the pen of John Lennon in “I Am the Walrus” [I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together] rather than the Bible or McCahon.
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Murray Savidan’s new photographic book “Stop. Look Both Ways” is something of a travel diary, a record of his journeys through Aotearoa/New Zealand and around the globe to diverse locations in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. There are images of his time in Vietnam and Nepal, Egypt and Zanzibar, Italy and Spain, Japan and Vietnam.
But as well as a travel diary documenting the places he has been the images are also a record of the people of these places, seeing the aspects of other people’s lives which make them distinct but also seeing the similarities between us – partly ethnographic and partly the photographers own quirky approach to life.
Each of the individual photographs are the result of a keen eye, often capturing a moment, a contrast, a reflection or a facial expression which offers more than a simple photograph.
With many of the photographs Savidan has paired them in a way which emphasises their stories and creates new narratives. These often-subtle connections are an indication that he has reflected on the images and his way of contemplating the world around him.
There are spreads where he has contrasted the physical world a such as pairing the architectural shapes of the Guggenheim Gallery in Bilbao with those of a shrine in Bhaktapur – two different temples to culture.
The clash of cultures is seen is several of the works such as the linking of a beach on the Cinque Terra filled with sunbathing figures with a horde of burqa clad woman on a beach in Zanzibar.
Murray Savidan, Zanzibar
With some of the works there isa nod to other photographers such as his image of a crocodile in Madagascar which owes much to a similar work by Peter Peryer and his image of a woman contemplating a painting by Christian Schad at the Pompidou Centre is reminiscent of the similar gallery photographs of Thomas Struth.
He manages to find quirky connections as well. So, his view of the Anish Kapoor Dismemberment, Site 1 at Gibbs Farm is contrasted with horn shapes in an atrium in South Africa.
Then there are the landscapes such his pairing of a forlorn, misty landscape at Meola Reef with a desert landscape in Namibia. There are also some individual landscapes such as the drama view of a climber scaling a mountain in Fiordland.
Murray Savidan, Namibia
He contrasts a street scene in Kathmandu with one in Madagascar and a simple church in Northland with one in Madagascar as well as the contrasting portraits of a father and his child in Nepal and Egypt
While these paired images are serious reflections on culture and society there are many in which Savidan is making witty, or ironic comments.in one spread he pairs a gaudy jukebox with a church organ and in another he has juxtaposed the various parts of fish at a fish market in Vietnam with a figure lazing on a beach during a fishing competition on the East Cape., an image which itself is a droll comment on recreational fishing.
Murray Savidan, East Cape, New Zealand
He uses these images to create drama, explore history, culture and sexuality which become meditations on society and the individual, but in all of them he captures humanity.
Much of the work of the Danish / Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson focusses on issues around the impact of changing climate on our lives and our impacts on the environment. In his current exhibition “Your Curious Journey” at the Auckland Art Gallery the most obvious of his works which address these issues is “The Glacier Melt series 1999/2019”. In this series of 15 paired photographs the artist shows several; glaciers in Iceland ten years apart showing the extent of the glacier melt. The works are a clear visual documentation of the way in which warming temperatures are changing the nature of the environment. While they provide physical evidence of climate change they are also a metaphor for the issue and many of his other works are metaphorical or medications on the nature of the issues.
Eliasson is the Leonardo da Vinci of our times combining art and science with each of the disciplines informing the other providing observations and insights.
The title of the exhibition “Your Curious Journey” could be applied to the set of photographs as we witness the glaciers journeys of expansion and retraction, alerting us to the fact that climate change is part of the evolutionary journey of our past and future.
Linked to that work is one of the newer pieces, The Last Seven Days of Glacial Ice “(2024) where the progression of a melting block of ice over seven days has been rendered in bronze. The melted water has been captured in seven glass globes which are exhibited alongside the bronzes, The original block of ice is condensed to a shard of bronze and a globe of water but in reality the ice has disappeared, like some magic trick
While these and other works have a polemic quality to them, all his works are concerned with aspects of aesthetics -and scientific enquiry – light, structure, colour and movement. This mix of science and art can also be seen in “Double Spiral” where a long steel tube coils around itself creating a double helix in reference to the structure of DNA
One of the works which encapsulated all of these aspects is “Movement Microscope” (2011), a 16-minute video set in the artists studio / office in Berlin where the everyday activities of the staff become an elaborate dance routine and simple movements are elaborately observed. All the movements and interchanges are heighten by the inclusion of a group of “performers who move at a reduced pace, seemingly moving as though their recorded movements have been filmed at a slower speed.
We observe his designers and artists communicating ideas, working on designs, constructing works, sharing meals, their constructed works now on display in the gallery.
His largest work :”Under the Weather” hangs above the gallery atrium and appears to flicker and change as the observer moves beneath it. The images created are like weather patterns or brain scanner. The illusion of movement is created by an optical effect of two patterns similar to the auditory intersection of the Doppler Effect. Similar effects can be seen “Multiple Shadow House”.
Olafur Eliasson. Yellow Corridor
One of the more impressive works is at the entrance to the show. “Yellow Corridor “is an version of a work the artist has created in m any locations, flooding an area with yellow light which effects our perceptions of colour and form. The almost blinding light of the lit corridor recalls the quote of Robert Oppenheimer who described the Atom Bomb as brighter than a thousand – which also links to Eliasson’s “The Weather Project” which featured a massive sun located in the Tate’s Turbine Hall.
Eliasson also plays with water and in “Beauty (1993), films of misty water, illuminated by projected light create a mini Aurora Australis and with “Object defined by activity (then) a fountain of water is rendered as an almost solid figure by the use of stroboscopic light.
“Still River” brings the issue of climate change down to a local level with three large cubes of ices, slowly melting in the gallery. The ice is frozen water taken form the Waikato River at Lake Whakamaru. We witness the ice melting, see the drops of water falling into the collection tray and hear the sound of the ice cracking and the water melting. We can also see in the water the residue contained in the water – the chemical, effluent and soil and other contaminants.
It provides a physical reminder of the process of the natural world and the ways they can be disrupted.
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New Zealand Arts Review 