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

Clay Figures Make US Debut

New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard will exhibit for the first time in the United States at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) next year. Upritchard’s “Wanting” (above) will feature…

Bountiful Inspiration

New Zealand’s exotic landscapes and lush flora were the inspiration behind American artist Mary Powell’s monotype prints she is exhibiting at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon. Each piece has been printed several…

Maori Forefathers Return Home

The remains of three Maori people, kept for 13 years in boxes in Lund, south Sweden, have been returned to a delegation from Te Papa led by the museum’s Kaihaut? Michelle Hippolite and representing…

Return of the Yeti Hand

Adventurer and Air New Zealand pilot Mike Allsop is in Nepal to return a replica of what some believe is the hand of a yeti to a remote monastery in the Everest region. Allsop…

Wall of History up for Prize

Wellington’s Gibson Group is up for a global award for its 12-metre multimedia touchscreen display “Wall” designed to tell Copenhageners — and let them add to — the story of their city. The multimillion-dollar,…

Anthropologist Of Avant-Garde

Inglewood-born artist Michael Stevenson is exhibiting at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art through June 19. Stevenson, who is based in Berlin, has been described as an ‘anthropologist of the avant-garde’. This exhibition is the…

Delicate Design Hangs in Berlin

New Zealand-born designer and ceramicist Jeremy Cole’s porcelain Aloe Blossom suspension lamp hangs in the living room of German writer and producer Peter Schlesselmann’s one-bedroom flat in Berlin’s Tiergarten. The lamp has…

Spiritual Path in Pictures

Auckland-born artist Max Gimblett’s new versions of the Buddhist ‘Oxherding’ series — ten drawings which represent a parable about the conduct of Buddhist practice, most commonly attributed to a 12th-century Chinese Zen master –…

Manhattan Ambition

New Zealand fashion photographer Regan Cameron who is based in New York, has shot some of the world’s biggest celebrities including Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen, Madonna, Kate Moss and Cameron Diaz; this month he’s…

Contemporary encounters

New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana is one of three New Zealand artists participating in an exhibition called Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years on at an “unprecedented number” of venues throughout Winnipeg until May…

Prints out of the box

New Zealand printmakers are showcasing their work in New South Wales at Tweed River Art Gallery, in an exhibition titled Out of the Box. Out of the Box features a range of printmaking skills…

Drawn into the fold

Christchurch City Art Gallery is a “place that works” according to design and architecture publication Metropolis Magazine, connecting to the natural environment “through modern architectural form that resonates with the self-image of people…

Time is precious

Colyton man Bill Williams has set a new world record for the Largest Collection of Clocks; Williams owns 321 timepieces. The previous Guinness world record for the Largest Collection of Clocks was 19. They…

Part of Camden history

New Zealander Francis Upritchard, 33, is one of 3 artists and designers included in a Camden Arts Centre (CAC) exhibition curated by British artist and Turner prize-winner Simon Starling. In ‘Never the Same River…

Films advancing art

“The most exhilarating show of 2th-century art to be seen in this country right now is by the New Zealand artist Len Lye,” Laura Cummings writes in a Guardian review of the retrospective exhibition…

Island artscape

Bailey, a full-time artist whose Maori, Irish and Dutch heritage is central to his work is one of more than 1 who make Waiheke Island their home, many of whom open their studios to…

Gimblett’s workspace

Auckland photographer John Savage and Auckland-born New York painter Max Gimblett have collaborated on a book from Italian art publisher Charta about Gimblett’s studio and home on The Bowery. The book was launched at…

Ink star in town

New Zealand tattooist and star of Hollywood reality show LA Ink Dan Smith, 3, got his first tattoo in the kitchen of a house of a few friends who lived by acclaimed tattoo…

Distinctive Edginess

Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, an exhibition of 26 contemporary local artists in various media, including photography, sculpture, video, painting and installation has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria in Brisbane. The pieces…

Record Goldie Sale

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has sold one of the finest paintings by renowned New Zealand artist Charles Goldie for the record price of $573, at Auckland’s International Art Centre. The oil on canvas, Forty…

Bric-a-brac lucky

A painting bought for $5 at a Northland flea market is expected to sell for more than $2, at an auction to be held at Aesthete Gallery in Hamilton on 22 November. The unsigned…

McCahon for auction

Colin McCahon’s 1982 canvas I applied my mind is up for sale and will be auctioned on November 17 at Sydney auction house Deutscher and Hackett. Estimated to sell for between $8, and $1,2,,…

Sci-fi Artistic Wonder

To be released in November, art book White Cloud Worlds showcases a never-before seen collection of science fiction and fantasy artwork from New Zealand, “home to Weta Workshop, and a fantasy/scifi concept art powerhouse,”…

Bindi on at Pataka

Porirua’s Pataka Museum of Arts & Culture is currently holding “Bindi — The Indian Dot” exhibition, which will continue through November 14. Applauding Pataka for holding an art exhibition related to Hindu cultural…

In pencil at Rare Device

Wellington-based artist Sarah McNeil is presenting new work at San Francisco’s design store and gallery Rare Device in an exhibition entitled, ‘Eighteen Twenty Three’, from November 5 through November 29. According to a press…

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…