NZEDGE Arts — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Cleaning up their act

The Las Vegas Sun applauds the arrival of Anthology – the collected works of Flying Nun legends, The Clean. “Two decades later the music still brims with the raw, lo-fi energy that helped usher…

NZ pop-art exponent, Billy Apple (nee Barry George Bates,) listed alongside Odd Nerdrum, Hercules Fisherman, and Seymour Likely as one of the “unbeatable names in the art world.” Buy Billy Apple in the…

Goodshirt. Good music.

“Since blowing in from their native New Zealand last year with three hits (“Sophie”, “Blowing Dirt” and “Place to Be”), Goodshirt has emerged as one of our Antipodean cousins to watch. Unlike their countrymen…

International Bright Young Thing

Anna Paquin talks dogs, dorm-living, Degas and “living long distance” with the Independent. Currently studying art history – between films – at Columbia University, Paquin will next be seen alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Ed…

Weta Digital Uncovered

The Wellington-based animation team behind the Lord of the Rings‘ award-winning visual effects were one of the main attractions at the annual Siggraph exhibition in San Diego, California. Established in the 1970s, Siggraph is…

For him (and her)

First we were treated to the infinite variety of feminine experience in The Vagina Monologues; now actress and playwright Geraldine Brophy has penned the masculine equivalent. She describes The Viagara Monologues – which opened…

The everyman of pop

NZ-born pop star, Daniel Bedingfeld, shares his thoughts on friends, family, and musical inspiration in an interview with the Guardian. An artist of chameleon-like musical abilities, Bedingfeld has been likened to everyone from Craig…

Kiwi snaps up award

NZer Antony Rieck was named Photographer of the Year at the annual Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects design awards held on August 2. Rieck, who has a background in structural engineering…

Sydney set in stone

Wellington-born Sydney Goodsir Smith is to join the ranks of Scottish poets immortalised in stone outside Edinburgh’s Writer’s Museum. The Makars’ Court attraction is the Scottish equivalent of Westminster Abbey’s Poets Corner, and features…

Ted Man Walking

Kiwi baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes is the Weekend Australian’s cover-boy for his lead role in opera Dead Man Walking, which opens shortly at Adelaide’s Festival Theatre. The opera is based on the story of…

Third Culturist Boyd nets Nabokov

Brian Boyd-edited Nabokov’s Butterflies, an exploration of Nabokov’s obsession with butterflies that posits Nabokov’s scientific pursuit of lepidoptry as a way of understanding the author more completely, hailed as third culture exemplar in…

A View from Down Under

A forum for ex-pat NZ, Australian, and South African amateur filmmakers living in London – the UpOverDownUnder film festival – is now in its third year. Over that time, the festival has…

Sarah-Kate Lynch’s Sure-to-rise Kitchen

Ex-NZ Women’s Weekly editor, Sarah-Kate Lynch, interviewed in Canada’s National Post about her first novel – Blessed are the Cheesemakers. The tale of a cheese-making couple and their musical cows has been optioned by…

Soul Sister

NZ-born Carla Werner’s debut album – Departure – proves a moving experience for New York Daily News reviewer, Jim Farber. ” have a compellingly confessional quality … Werner sounds most like a female…

Land of the long black shadow

The Stedelijk Museum curated Colin McCahon retrospective – ‘A Question of Faith’ – reviewed in the Weekend Australian, prior to its opening at the Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne’s Federation Square. Critic Susan McCulloch:…

Datsuns apply the brakes

The Datsuns made their debut appearance at Ozzfest in July – looking, in their words, like a group of “Nancy-boys” amidst a sea of metal. Rolling Stone had a more favourable outlook, describing the…

The Poetry of Exile

Displaced artists and writers from around the world gathered at Auckland University in July for a 3-day conference examining the link between exile and creativity. Organised by Professor Mike Hanne and officially opened by…

Central Park Sounds From the Edge

A diverse showcase of NZ music was held at New York’s Central Park Summerstage on July 13. ‘New Zealand Sounds’ brought together the “catchy and hummable” tunes of Greg Johnson, lo-fi pop of Christchurch…

Return of the Native?

As Whale Rider premieres in the UK, the Guardian ponders its impact as NZ and Maori cinema, and the cultural factors at play. “longside the celebration in New Zealand’s film industry, there has also…

Something to Sing About

Singing star Jonathan Lemalu gave a recital at London’s St Lawrence Jewry church as part of the City of London’s New Generations series. Financial Times: “In the English-language repertoire the young New Zealander is…

Edge Polish

Saatchi & Saatchi global CEO Kevin Roberts interviewed in Poland on the future of advertising and how Saatchis has triumphed through the recession (Advertising Age named it Global Agency Network in 2002). Roberts is…

Weta’s Secrets Revealed

Te Papa’s record-breaking Lord of the Rings exhibition opens at London’s Science Museum in September – it’s only European showing before travelling to Singapore, Sydney, and Boston. The exhibition focuses on Weta Digital’s FX…

The first, second, and third Noel

The trio behind Kiwi comedy act The Four Noels – James Pratt, John Forman, and Jesse Griffin – interviewed in SMH. The group formed in 1996, without any strictly comic ambitions. “We just wanted…

Tried and true formula with a new direction

An impassioned performance by The Datsuns at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire earns them (another) rave review in the Guardian. “Amid the hand-clapping, singing, and Dolf’s stage diving, Christian balances on Matt’s shoulders, both continuing…

The Magus and His Protégés

“Do creative writing courses work? Judge for yourselves.” The Guardian’s literary gossip column reports on the findings of a recent NZ Listener poll naming the country’s top 10 authors under 40. Six of them…

Narnia to Aotearoa

The multi-million dollar production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is now likely to be shot substantially in NZ, following the government’s decision to allow a tax-exemption grant for film companies shooting…

Sing Bravo Bravo

Whale Rider praise swells in both broadsheet and tabloid reviews on its UK premiere. Daily Telegraph: “Bereft of name actors, supersaturated colours and egregious product placements, it shows us that another kind of…

Tali tumeke

MC Tali, Roni Size’s edge in the machine, profiled in Guardian review of the dance tent at mud/music fest Glastonbury: “The most notable is Tali, the female hotshot from New Zealand who rose to…

Kiwi ads bug Cannes

Kiwi ad agencies excelled at last month’s International Advertising Festival in Cannes. Grey Worldwide Auckland won the Outdoor Grand Prix for its innovative insect-eye-view Kiwicare bug spray campaign and Clemenger BBDO NZ and Colenso…

Glamour Girls

A photographic exhibition by NZ artist Fiona Clark is creating a stir at Sydney’s Mori Gallery. Go Girl – a series of portraits of NZ’s transgender and transvestite community – is described in the…

The many faces of Cliff Curtis

Tribune feature on Cliff Curtis tracks his career trajectory from Once Were Warriors to Whale Rider. While the two movies appear vastly different in subject and style, Curtis is quick to point out a…

Laga’aia Lionised

NZ performers feature strongly in Sydney’s highly anticipated production of The Lion King. Vincent Harde plays the lead role of Simba, with Water Rats star Jay Laga’aia as his on-stage father, Mufasa. The Disney…

Mita takes pride of place

Maori filmmaker Merata Mita was the star guest at Montreal’s 13th First Peoples’ Festival last month – a celebration of the world’s aboriginal cultures. The Cinematheque Quebecoise held a retrospective of her work -…

Seriously comic

The Weekend Australian profiles NZ-born and Ilam (University of Canterbury) trained graphic artist Colin Wilson. Virtually unknown in the antipodes Wilson has millions of avid overseas fans and after his acclaimed work on…

Serious as anything

NZ-born Mambo creative and ex-Mental as Anything guitarist Reg Mombassa turns his satiric talents to serious effect for Isle of Refuge, a show of 13 high-profile Australian artists protesting the treatment of refugees. “I felt…

Lady Ngila

“The costume designer deserves a knighthood.” Award-winning Kiwi costumier, Ngila Dickson, receives nameless praise in Empire magazine for her “impressive rendering of 19th century Japan” in previews of Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai -…

Henwood plays Burton

Welsh-Wellingtonian actor, Ray Henwood, thrilled Melbourne audiences with his portrayal of theatre legend Richard Burton, in Mark Jenkins’ Playing Burton. The Age: “Henwood’s fine performance, beautifully paced, movingly builds real tragic stature for his…