Tag: Auckland

Two Rooms: Conor Clarke – ‘Scenic Potential’

Conor Clarke_Two_Rooms

Exhibition/artist info

Two Rooms
16 Putiki St, Newton, Auckland
Gallery hours: Tue to Fri 11am – 6pm, Sat 11am – 3pm
Phone 64 (9) 360 5900
info@tworooms.co.nz

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PLAZA, Kingsland: Winter / Winter – Conor Clarke and Sam Hartnett

SamHarnett_ConorClarke

Winter / Winter
New photography from Conor Clarke & Sam Hartnett
06 – 21 June 2014
Opening Thurs 5 June, 6pm

Join us for a journey through a post-industrial picturesque landscape, with observations from New Zealand and Germany.

Conor Clarke and Sam Hartnett are photographic artists based in Berlin (Clarke) and Auckland (Hartnett).

PLAZA,  48a Bond St, Kingsland, Auckland
(Open Saturdays 11-4pm or by appointment: 021 0368470 or 09 5514202)
email: contact@plaza.net.nz
PLAZA facebook page

Image details:
L: Sam Hartnett, Ice Berg, Inactive, from the series Winter / Winter. Framed.
R: Conor Clarke, Schkopau, Saalekreis, Sachsen-Anhalt, 2013, from  the series In Pursuit of the Object, at a Proper Distance. C-print, 120 x 95cm, framed.

Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland: Christine Webster

Christine Webster_ Therapies_Gus Fisher Gallery


Therapies: new photography by Christine Webster
9 May – 3 June 2014
Gallery One – Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland
In conjunction with Milford Galleries, Dunedin and the Auckland Festival of Photography

Saturday 31 May, 1pm:  Visual culture expert Dr Sandy Callister is in conversation with photographer Christine Webster about her images of the crone in Therapies.

Christine Webster’s photography gets under the skin with its unsettling beauty and unnerving, direct gaze at subjects usually left in the dark. For over 35 years, her work has examined the way in which the female body has been constructed historically. In Therapies, she re-imagines the age of the crone, barren in body and pushed to the outskirts of a society that worships youth and beauty. In these recent photographs made in England, she has produced a sequence of images which evoke powerlessness, anguish and desolate beauty.

With tacit acknowledgement of the traditions of the English Romantic landscape, Webster sets her figures in a bleak world of bare trees, chill earth and oppressive skies. She writes: “Therapies places the subjects in, and alongside, a landscape which is not fecund and burgeoning with ampleness, but instead scarce, bleak and pared back to the essential dirt and mud”.

Christine Webster’s photographs, with their uneasy subject matter and lush production qualities, confront the viewer with their striking juxtapositions. Rich, textured interiors and stark, monochromatic exteriors mirror the tensions inherent in the minds and bodies of her subjects. The complex narratives in the 57 photographs which make up Therapies invite considered contemplation.

Gus Fisher Gallery
The Kenneth Myers Centre
74 Shortland St
Auckland, New Zealand
Telephone: +64 9 923 6646
http://www.facebook.com/gusfishergallery

Gallery Hours
Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 12pm-4pm
Closed public holidays

 

Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland: Ane Tonga, ‘Grills’

Ane Tonga Grills

 

Ane Tonga, Grills

30 May – 28 June 2014 (Gallery Two)
Opening Friday 30 May at 5.30pm with a performance by Sesilia Pusiaki, P.O.T. Productions

Sister Speak: Saturday 7 June at 1pm.  Ane Tonga in conversation with her sister Nina Tonga, Assistant Curator – Pacific, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in the exhibition Grills.

Titled Grills as a hybrid of hip hop bling and Tongan culture, this photographic series explores nifo koula (gold teeth), a new terrain of body adornment in Tongan culture. The on-going series began in 2008 after Ane Tonga and her sister Nina Tonga began to joke about their relatives returning from Tonga with new gold teeth. Ane Tonga’s initial approach to the subject was to flippantly link the practice of nifo koula with that of grills within hip-hop culture. A grill (also called a front, or golds) was first worn by hip hop artists in the early 1980s. Grills became widespread in the 2000s following the rise of Dirty South rap and as hip hop attained mainstream pop culture status.

Tongan nifo koula are not removable, and involve gold jewellery being melted down and then fitted to partially cover the wearer’s own teeth. Once Ane Tonga’s mother, grandmother and many female members of her family had nifo koula, the artist realised that she had to take the phenomenon more seriously. This photographic series resulted, and it has been produced for exhibition with the aim of broadening understanding of a practice which is widespread amongst the global Tongan community.

Gus Fisher Gallery
The Kenneth Myers Centre
74 Shortland St
Auckland, New Zealand
Telephone: +64 9 923 6646
http://www.facebook.com/gusfishergallery

Gallery Hours
Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 12pm-4pm
Closed public holidays