Headlining Act
Neil Dawson’s Fanfare sculpture provided the focal point for Sydney’s famous New Year celebrations. The 20m steel sphere, studded with more than 300 light reflective pinwheels, was suspended from the Harbour Bridge in the…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
National Ikon
An Independent obituary for Pat Hanly calls him “the jester of modern NZ art … His images – exuberant, colourful, feisty and humorous – reflected the personality of their maker.” The subjects of Hanly’s…
Winner by invitation
Peter Boggs won Australia’s most esteemed drawing prize, the Kedumba Drawing Award, in late October. He was selected from a field of 24 contemporary artists to win the invitation-only award, which is now in…
Brothers in arts
Cheyene Emery, Lisa Bartlett, and Marie Panapa of Te Wananga o Aotearoa (University of NZ) travelled to Sante Fe to take part in an international arts exchange with the Institute of American Indian Arts….
Rick Rudd, noteworthy ceramicist
Taipei Times praises NZ potter Rick Rudd’s “heavenly wares” in a review of his exhibition at Page One’s Taipei 101 store. “Rudd does not label his wares, preferring instead for the viewer to provide…
Textile success
Promenade by Clare Plug won the Marianne Kor Award for Distinguished International Entry at the 2004 Fibreart International exhibition in Pittsburgh. Two of Plug’s pieces were selected out of 1,600 US and…
Edge dimension
Textile artist Clare Plug contributed two works to the Fiberart International 2004 biennial, which recently moved to New York’s Museum of Arts & Design from the Pittsburgh Centre of the Arts. A review in…
Sterling edge
Leading contemporary jewellers from both sides of the Tasman took part in a Melbourne exhibition entitled Cross Pollination. Curated by Vicki Mason (NZ) and Anna Davern (AUS), the brief was to design a modern…
Garland Coma
New Zealand-born political cartoonist for the Daily Telegraph since 1966, Nicholas Garland has provided 40 woodcut illustrations for the new Novela by son Alex “The Beach” Garland. The book describes the dream-like interior life…
Edge to the curve
NZ artists Claire Hammon and Nadia Hunt took part in the inaugural Curvy Exhibition, organised by Australia’s Yen magazine and M-One-11 clothing. Curvy was set up to promote the best of female design…
Edge Adventurer
BBC notes the NZ connection in Shackleton’s legendary voyage, prior to the opening of Te Papa’s Antarctic Heroes – The Race to the South Pole exhibition. Kiwi Frank Worsley successfully navigated Shackleton’s boat -…
Tales from the city’s edge
Canterbury School of Fine Arts graduates Kent Bell, Sara Givins, Damon MacLeod, Rachel Brown, and Reece Sanders have mounted a joint exhibition at Melbourne’s Conical Gallery, running April 23 – May 8. Entitled City…
Brothers in arts
An opinion piece in the Age asks: “Why don’t Australian and New Zealand arts sectors cooperate more?” The lengthy article examines the difference between the two nations in regards to arts funding, profiles the…
History Goes Digital
4 March 2004 – New York Times reviews ‘Paradise Now,’ a diverse exhibition of contemporary NZ and Pacific art currently on show at the Asia Pacific Society Museum on Park Avenue. Lisa Reihana’s multiple-screen…
Now Wear This
Boston Globe profiles Nelson’s World of Wearable Art (WOW), which has grown “from a soggy one-night affair in a tent 16 years ago to become one of New Zealand’s iconic arts events,…
McCahon’s Edgy New-world Modernism
Peter Hill’s review of the Stedilijk Museum’s Colin McCahon exhibition – now showing in Sydney – perfectly encapsulates the New Zealand Edge. “Enough time has passed for a shift between the centre and the…
Noiseworks
Houston Press reviews an exhibition by edge conceptual artist Julian Dashper at the Texas Gallery. ‘Unique Records’ is a collection of art-shrine sound-bites amassed during Dashper’s travels and presented on transparent vinyl discs. On…
Finely sculpted prose
Michael Dunn’s New Zealand Sculpture: A History praised as “a fine production … readable and informative” in Art Monthly Australia‘s book review issue. Dunn’s comprehensive historical overview is the first of its kind published…
Glass master #2
NZ glass artist, Luke Jacomb, is turning heads in Seattle with his pioneering use of photosensitive glass. While the product itself was invented during WW2, Jacomb is believed to be the first artist to…
![You Make Me Feel I’m [Not] Really There](/wp-content/themes/boilerplate/post-images/jacqueline_fraser_biennale.jpg)
You Make Me Feel I’m [Not] Really There
NZ’s Jacqueline Fraser has made the shortlist for the inaugural Artes Mundi (the Wales International Visual Art Prize), which at £40,000, is the largest award made to an individual artist in the…
He is: Looking Edge-ward for Inspiration
This year’s recipient of Australia’s $20,000 Dobell Prize for drawing, Aida Tomescu cites a work by Colin McCahon as the inspiration behind her winning piece, Negru III and Negru IV. “It triggered a series…
Twisted sister
NZ artist, Anne Shelton, featured in Vancouver’s annual gallery-crawl, Swarm described as “for many … the only gallery-going to be accomplished all year.” Shelton’s eerie photographic diptychs portray the scenes of actual murders:…
Crimewatch goes global
NZ tourists Olive and Graeme Reed have provided Scottish police with crucial evidence in one of the world’s biggest ever art thefts. The couple used their digital camera to snap shots of the robbers…
Art-attack
September’s Art Monthly Australia includes celebratory reviews of Michael Stevenson’s This is the Trekka exhibit at the Venice Biennale, and the Stedelijk Museum’s Colin McCahon retrospective, currently showing in Melbourne. Louise Tegart on Stevenson:…
Glass Master #1
Wanganui artist David Murray has won Australia’s prestigious Runamok Prize for Contemporary Glass Art for 2003 for his work entitled ‘Gatherer’.
Big McCahon: harbinger of art globalisation
In a substantial feature, ‘Spreading the word’, in international art world standard, ArtForum, Thomas Crow talks to Stedelijk Museum curator Marja Bloem about the growing international reputation of Colin McCahon. Crow urges globalisation in…
Kiwi Car Culture Laps Venice
NZ’s representative at the Venice Biennale – Michael Stevenson – praised in Time Pacific for his “finely calibrated sense of irony.” Stevenson’s main installation – ‘This is the Trekka’ – places NZ’s Cold War…
Brake Continues to be Benchmark
Australian photojournalist Paul Blackmore is compared to late great NZ photographer, Brian Brake, in a review by the Herald. Blackmore’s Waters images are reminiscent of Brake’s Monsoon series – “one of the most successful…
East-side story
Te Papa’s ‘Japonism’ exhibition reviewed in August’s Australian Vogue. A joint collaboration with the Kyoto Costume Institute, the show explores the influence of Japan on Western fashion from 1860 to the present. ‘Japonism’ -…
The Name Game
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…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
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…
In love with Earth’s wild places
Celebrated NZ photographer, Wayne Papps remembered. Papps was best known for his striking images of Antarctica, which he produced as a member of the Australian Antarctic Division. Regarded as one of the world’s premiere…
A Man of Wealth and Taste: Harry M. Miller
“Should the job go to the vulgar New Zealander who had brought the Rolling Stones to Australia?” Sydney icon, edge arts patron and tour promoter, Harry M. Miller is celebrated in a profile that…
KTV: Kinetic Television
Work by pioneering NZ filmmaker, artist, kinetic sculpter and general ‘crazy guy’, Len Lye, is featured in the exhibition ‘A Century of Artists’ Film in Britain’ at the Tate Britain. Lye’s 1930s work is…
Capturing the uncanny
Works by Wellington based artist Pippa Sanderson are currently on show at Edmonton’s Harcourt House Gallery. Her exhibition, The (Un)heimlich Manoeuvre, references Victorian Spiritualism, haunted houses, and Gothic cinematic aesthetics. Shot on film well…
Peter Robinson: “Migrateur”
Artist Peter Robinson, exhibiting in Berlin, described in ArtForum as ” the profile of the artist as a global player … a migrateur in the emphatic sense.” Aware of his edge exoticism but fused…
Hillary on show
The National Geographic Society’s Explorers Hall in Washington has opened an exhibition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Everest climb. Curiosities include the ice-axe Hillary used in the last few metres…
Scream queen
“Eye-catching” sculptures and drawings by ex-pat Kiwi Francis Upritchard are currently on show at London’s form-setting Institute of Contemporary Art, as part of the annual Beck’s Futures award exhibition. Referencing Mike Kelley and Tony…
A Fond Farewell
Washington Post pays tribute to Donald McCarten, the NZ-born former art director of US News & World Report magazine. McCarten studied art in NZ and London before moving into graphic design in the US….
Octopus’s Garden
Work by NZ artist Ani O’Neill is currently on show at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art as part of an exhibition exploring artistic interaction with the ocean, Liquid Sea, alongside Doug Aitken, Hiroshi…
Give Up Your Day Job?
Otago-born Peter Lyons has the attention of the American art world, with shows scheduled for Manhattan’s Richard York Gallery and the St Botolph Club in Boston. The 42-year-old security guard works nights at Boston’s…
Premium quality: South Seas art
Aotearoa-Pasifika artist Michael Tuffery talks to the ABC about recycling identity. Tuffery has recently completed an artist’s residency at Artspace Mackay in Queensland, Australia, where he ran a series of workshops for aspiring artists…
Infant igenues
NZ’s best-known baby-snapper, Anne Geddes, interviewed in The Baltimore Sun. “Other photographers say to me, ‘Oh, I used to take pictures of babies’ – implying that they went on to better things – but…
Giovanni Intra Remembered
We are diminished to report the death of Giovanni Intra in New York City on December 17th 2002. Giovanni, artist, critic, gallerist went east to stir up the LA art scene and established the gallery, China…
Big Tex Inspiration
Leading NZ artist Julian Dashper is currently on show at the Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery. The varied and interactive works (created during his residency at the Chinati Foundation in Texas) include a reproduction…
What is this?
“They can be seen as postmodern hymns to invention and appropriation, or they can be read as theoretical texts that map the visual culture of at least two phases of the 20th century.” Dick Frizzell’s latest…
Dead-eyed beauties
Photographer Yvonne Todd reviewed in Art Forum’s Best of 2002 issue. “Todd applies Revlon-style control to construct the opposite of the bouffant and bouncy … she assembles a group of unreachable females, encased in…
Something old something new
Multimedia artist Lisa Reihana commended at the 2002 Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art for her current “work in progress,” Digital Marae. The large-scale photographs dramatise female mythological figures in an exploration of matriarchy in Maori culture….
Magic: It’s academic
Prominent University of Melboune based NZ-born theorist Simon During’s Modern Enchantments reviewed in Guardian. During’s “thorough and compelling” study challenges commonly held beliefs about the role of performed magic throughout history: “we milk the…
Carving a place in history
For two years Polynesian “master carver” Shane Eagleton has been teaching disadvantaged Californian teens the ancient art of mallet and chisel. Employed by the One Voice arts program, the NZ-born artist/ecologist has helped his students to create…
I am international
“He is the first important painter in that part of the world.” The Netherlands’ Stedelijk Museum is to hold the Western hemisphere’s first major retrospective of Colin McCahon’s work. “What at first sight…
