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 edge of modernism to occur. Rudi Fuchs, director at the Stedelijk Museum and veteran director of the Venice Biennale says: ‘When Edvard Munch became more and more personal and introspective in his art […] he was discarded for a while; the same happened with Asger Jorn, and also with Joseph Beuys in his early years. We now see those judgements as wrong. When such different positions slowly begin to emerge at what before had been considered the periphery, the centre automatically weakens and can no longer maintain its authority. So it was from this perspective that I began to see the work of Colin McCahon.'”