The Spinoff, March 21, 2019 On a Sunday afternoon I opened my laptop and sat in In Transit, the most ambitious and nimble exhibition on in the country right now. If the Doozers from Fraggle Rock got unlimited access to stainless steel pipes and a really good welder they might have made the current installation at […]
Reviews
14 posts
New Zealand Books, 2018 ___ Did you realise that artist Theo Schoon, best known for his modernist photographs of rippling mud pools, also performed Balinese dance? Have you heard of the Prague-born architect Imric Porsolt, once the art critic for the Auckland Star, his writing so biting and insightful that […]
Eyecontact, 24 December ___ I wasn’t going to review this show but I kept circling back to it – because if not me then who?—and it is a show worth a review because it works the way a circle works, so don’t redesign the wheel—eight double-sided fabric banners of circles—some […]
Eyecontact, 12 Decemeber ___ But is it art? I’m not sure I care. Precinct 35 is a design store with a nifty little gallery out the back. And The Sun Department is the most exceptional exhibition I’ve seen there yet. Mark Alsweiler’s paintings and sculptures may be neither art or design but […]
NZ Listener, 13 December, 2015 ___ Who is the Alabaster Man: a monument or a sacrifice? He is buoyed on the shoulders of the crowd, his arms spread in the shape of the cross. Behind his head, a white picket fence and two-story house trim the hill, but this is […]
Eyecontact, 29 November, 2015 ___ What is it that makes today’s dollhouses so different, so appealing? Emily Hartley-Skudder seems intent on finding out. I first noticed her petite paintings of dollhouses and still-life compositions of doll-sized trinkets and toys a couple of years ago. Too cliché? Ibsen. Mansfield. Barbie. The […]
New Zealand listener, 26 Apr 2014 ___ In 1984 the first person died from an Aids related condition in New Zealand. Homosexuality was illegal. It would be another two years before the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was passed in 1986. Condoms were still primarily associated with the prevention of pregnancy; […]
NZ Books, Issue 105, Autumn 2014 ___ Lateral Inversions: The Prints of Barry Cleavin contains over 120 colour plates and is a beautifully produced book that affords serious consideration to Barry Cleavin’s artwork. In the introduction author Dr. Melinda Johnston foregrounds Cleavin’s status as a major printmaker within New Zealand, […]
Eyecontact, 24 April 2013 ___ “If worries were things, like worms for example, I expect they would burrow right into you.” Let me begin by congratulating Christina Read on the least pretentious artist statement I have seen in some time. Artist statements are often riddled with pseudo-scientific vernacular; a hangover […]
NZ Listener, Issue 3795, 24 January, 2013 ___ Quiet is usually a form of faint praise when used as an adjective in the arts. Desk Collection is a survey of seventeen years of Saskia Leek’s practice and yes it is a quiet exhibition, but there within of course lies its […]
Fishhead Magazine, December 2012 ___ It’s evening. A veil of mist has shrouded the sea. Outside, rain is falling so faintly it is almost invisible, almost but not quite. I can see the strings. A fantail alights on the black licorice telegraph wires outside my window and spreads its unwelcome […]
Eyecontact, 24 August, 2012 ___ Reading Room is an exhibition with plenty of character. Look through the window of Objectspace today and you will see the rubble of a bookcase, lined with books, face out and spine on. A low-lying table is scattered with more titles, some splayed open, others […]