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

New Zealand Creative Guns

New Zealand is still hitting its creative stride, and is right up there with the big competitors according the most recent Young Guns Awards. Auckland’s Media Design School has been named 4th best…

One of the most influential performing artists agents in the United States will represent Wellington actor Jacob Rajan and his Indian Ink Theatre Company. Agent David Lieberman, a legend in performing arts and festival…

Spunky wonky donkey

Queenstown-born children’s author Craig Smith is currently touring Australia promoting his best-selling book Wonky Donkey. Smith began his tour at Hobart Library where a crowd of 5 children danced and clapped as he read…

Not quite themselves

Flight of the Conchords’ stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie will make a guest appearance on hit show The Simpsons in the first episode of the new season, Elementary School Musical, to be broadcast…

Homecoming King

2,500 fans took part in a “low-key” ceremony to honour Peter Jackson and fellow Oscar winners at the Wellington Events Centre. Jackson and co each received a glass goblet to add to their already…

“Urban Cowboy”

Leading NZ actor Karl Urban makes Nylon‘s list of “those most likely to succeed.” The interview reveals a lifelong passion for film and theatre, from amateur play-writing (at age 8) to a string of…

Weta Puts Out Feelers

New York-based Ohio Edit is to represent Weta Digital on the US commercial circuit. Company heads Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor decided that their acclaimed effects house would benefit from small international projects in…

In the footsteps of Frodo

The inevitable spate of Rings-related travel articles continues, with major features in the Scotsman and New York Times. The Scotsman writer – who walked the Tongariro Crossing and Routeburn Track, and sailed Milford …

Good Morning USA From NZ

Wake up! To coincide with the ‘Amazing Race’ visiting New Zealand, roaming New Zealander ambassador of down under adventure, Phil Keoghan, will be staging ‘ Kiwi Week’ on the CBS Early Show….

Kiwis of tomorrow

The prestigious Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) dedicated its short film section – “Leopards of Tomorrow” – to NZ and Australian film-makers. 8 NZ short films were accepted for competition; Cow, The French…

“I’m from New Zealand, I only know about rugby.”

Andrew Adamson, NZ co-creative behind hit movie Shrek, is reportedly confused by the green ogre’s latest claim to fame – as unofficial mascot of the New York Jets. Adamson: “are the Jets baseball or…

Angela Dotchin is the boss-fox

British secret agent / scientist with whom he’s partnered — did someone say “prickly”? Review of Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Hercules) produced new TV show Jack of All Trades.

Alison Maclean In Time Out New York’s “We Told You So” List

20 to watch in 2000: “Film’s drug-subculture genre has been pretty played out lately – really, how many times can you watch an artfully mussed stud or starlet shoot up on screen? But director Alison…

Sam Neill Brings Thomas Jefferson to Life

Growing up in New Zealand, Sam Neill was aware of Thomas Jefferson merely as “writer of the Declaration of Independence, architect, politician, two-time U.S. president and big cheese on Mount Rushmore.” (5February 2)

Thunking Room

2 page spread in LA style barometer Flaunt for chanteuse Anika Moa, that explores the edge in the angst. “One of the things you will hear throughout Thinking Room is the same melancholy moodiness that infuses…

Urban cowboy

NZ-born Keith Urban was named Best New Artist in US Country Weekly magazine’s 2003 Fan Favourite Awards. More than 65,000 US country fans voted in this year’s poll.(23)

Edge divas

Maori language musician Hinewehi Mohi features in Adventure Divas, a best selling book by US writer/editor turned intrepid documentarian Holly Morris. A few years back Morris traded in her desk job in order to scour the…

South Pacific

“A major new talent destined for greatness”. Samoan Jonathan Lemalu, continues to stun the UK music scene. As well as featuring on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, the bass baritone received the Young Artist Award…

Wai 100%: Something Old, Something New

Wai 100% nominated in Asia/Pacific and Innovator categories of the BBC’s World Music Awards. Singer Mina Ripia and producer Maaka McGregor have created a sound described as a “startlingly original combination of the ancient and the…

Edge Quake

Salmonella Dub’s epoynmous DVD reviewed in The Weekend Australian. With a large Australian following and formidable live reputation Elizabeth Coleman finds the Kaikoura dub waves don’t disappoint: “from the animated single Platectonics through to the exhilarating Push…

Home and away

The latest work by acclaimed ex-pat composer Lyell Cresswell is, appropriately enough, about exile. Shadows Without Sun, which premieres with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in mid-December, fuses the voices of a bigoted 19th century Highland preacher and…

Rhombus nices it up

Wellington-based musical collective Rhombus headline at Mullumbimby’s Mullum Music Festival in late November, having this month released their third full-length self-titled album. Initiated in 21, Rhombus presents a seamless blend of hip-hop, soul, funk, dub and bass…

Blue-eyed soul brother

Brit-based Kiwi-born Daniel Bedingfield continues his assault on the U.K pop charts with a second No.1 hit, “If You’re Not the One.” Bedingfield’s album, Gotta Get Thru This, has seen him compared to Craig David and…

Aotearoa Ark

Auckland band Goodshirt get big ups in SMH’s Metro: “irresistibly catchy, clever pop quirk that mixes up the laid-back idiosyncrasies of Pavement with classic melodic pop, new wave and retro synths. It could be too…

On the edge of Country

New Zealand country music star Kylie Harris from Edendale Southland (pop 57), Timaru, Hamilton and Rotorua broadcasts to 34 million US homes daily on leading Nashville cable program On The Edge of…

Girl From Invercargill

“Helen Henderson mines her New Zealand heritage, creating music with a unique blend of folk, rock, blues and country sounds, along with her own provocative “Down Under” attitude.” (Dec 2)

Nuns fly high in Seattle

Seattle Weekly chats with “one of New Zealand’s coolest exports” – David Kilgour of The Clean. Kilgour answers questions on a musical career which spans 20 years; from 1981’s “coughing, cursive, and practically perfect Boodle Boodle Boodle” …

Art Attack in Basel

Influential art journal Art Forum notes a first time edge presence at the Liste 01 Young Art Fair in Basel. Wellington’s Hamish Mckay Gallery showcased artists including Ricky Swallow, Michael Harrison, Ronnie van Hout and…

“Freewheeling, irrepressibility & incoherence.”

Pioneer of postmodernist NZ art, Richard Killeen, featured in Art Asia Pacific. Killeen’s recent works revisit the “cut-out” form with which made his name in the late 70’s. Deceptively simple in appearance, the works…

4WD Bellissima!

Contemporary artist Michael Stevenson is representing NZ at the 50th Venice Biennale 2003 – the oldest and most prestigious art event in the world. Described by the NZ Selection Committee as “a passionate archivist of our culture,”…

Modernism revisited

NZ born Northern Territories (Australia) based artist Peter Adsett recently exhibited at the Grant Pirrie gallery in Redfern, Sydney. Adsett describes his More Rot series as a purely abstract visual representation of cross cultural debate: “In this…

Barr & Barr

Wellington curators and strategists Jim Barr and Mary Barr head the survey by London art magazine Contemporary of 21 international collectors. An essay by William McAloon features work by Ronnie Van Hout, et al, Michael Parekowhai, Michael…

Readymade mule at Basel

Et al.’s exhibition ‘altruistic studies’ – a “non-peopled, computer-generated performance” – installed at the Basel art fair in early June, their fourth at the international show, has once again sparked curiosity about the group’s identity. Et. al…

Gift giving with film

Auckland-born artist Sriwhana Spong, 29, celebrates her Balinese heritage in “distinctively grainy ‘amateur'” Super 8 films like 2005’s Muttnik and its sequel Nightfall, works which have been exhibited throughout the world. Interviewed in Art World Spong explains…

Illuminating the Canal

Artists Francis Upritchard and Judy Millar’s installation spaces at this year’s La Biennale di Venezia “reflect Birnbaum’s theme of Making Worlds with intense microcosms, one in an intimate former residence, the other in a place of worship,”…

Millar in colour

Painter Judy Millar explains her international reputation over her local to Art World: “I’m in the curious position that no one really gets what I’m doing, and they never did.” In the early 2000s, Millar’s relentlessly colourful…

“Crazy guy” gets his dues

Kinetic artist and New Zealander Len Lye, who “waltzed through several art movements, genres and countries” and who is becoming widely recognised as a major contributor to the story of 20th Century art, is bio-ed by…

Yuk Yum

NZ artist Denise Kum to take up residency at Adelaide’s Experimental Art Foundation, bringing in her plastic shopping carry-bags her unique brand of toxic materialism, mixed media and cultures – popping a pin in the speech…

Shopping with Billy Apple

Ground-breaking NZ artist Billy Apple featured in The Tate Liverpool’s Shopping exhibition. Apple’s work appeared alongside Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray and Andy Warhol in a retrospective of “a century of art and consumer culture.” Apple’s 1964…

When, Will I, Will I be Famous

SMH art critic Peter Hill muses on art, fame and celebrity, praising the playful personas of NZ artist Patrick Pound. He compares Pound to English YBA chief Damien Hirst: “For a decade he has been working…

Taranaki to Toronto

Gregory Burke has been appointed to the position of Director, The Power Plant Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre Toronto commencing September 2005. A native New Zealander, Gregory Burke is currently Director of the Govett-Brewster…

Top Shots

The photographer who captured Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Mt Everest hosts a retrospective at Lab X in Melbourne. Alfred Gregory documented Hillary and Tenzing’s feat in a series of images that became recognised…

Exploration of light

NZ art luminary Bill Culbert staged his second solo exhibition “Black and Light” at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Soundan Lane, Sydney. “In this exhibition, Culbert uses the three-dimensional form of fluorescent lights and flat, matt-black lines…

Readymade mule at Basel

Et al.’s exhibition ‘altruistic studies’ – a “non-peopled, computer-generated performance” – installed at the Basel art fair in early June, their fourth at the international show, has once again sparked curiosity about the group’s identity. Et. al…

Ideas of transformation

Upper Hutt-born painter Shane Cotton recently held a three-month residence at Sydney’s Artspace where he prepared works for upcoming 2008/09 shows at Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland and Kaliman Gallery in Sydney. Art World’s Laura Murray talked…

Censored views

The work of New Zealand photographer and artist Bruce Connew features on the cover of the latest issue of UK literary magazine Granta (#105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009). Censored 2008 is a photographic artwork that…

Up-and-coming Upritchard

Artist to watch Francis Upritchard features in the 48th issue of Object magazine. “An exciting talent … Upritchard’s art locates value in the personal and the imperfect … finds a way of accommodating beauty, rendering…

Mad for glamour geeks

Auckland artist Peter Stichbury’s acrylic portraits of stereotyped “yearbook” characters feature in the latest Art World magazine, with his 2000 work ‘Juvenile’ taking the cover. “Stichbury is highly regarded for creating stylish, satirical portraits of his own…