Auckland Arts Festival 2015: Visual Arts
AUCKLAND ARTS FESTIVAL 2015: VISUAL ARTS
March 4 - 22 2015
Auckland Arts Festival 2015 has officially announced its stellar line up of New Zealand and international visual artists. Local artists, including Lisa Reihana and Niki Hastings-McFall, will be joined by UK maverick David Shrigley, Black Panther revolutionary Emory Douglas and many, many more, promising to make March 2015 an unmissable month in our nation's largest city.
Commissioned by Auckland Arts Festival, internationally recognised New Zealand multi-media artist Lisa Reihana premieres the poetic and powerful new video work, Tai Whetuki / House of Death, which will screen daily on a large outdoor screen in the TimeOut Festival Garden, Aotea Square. Tai Whetuki utilises haunting, ethereal imagery to delve into Maori and Pacific cultural practices pertaining to death and mourning.
Nearby, Niki Hastings-McFall, also commissioned by the Festival and supported by Manukau Institute of Technology, will transform the TimeOut Festival Garden with an abundance of colour for her installation Fale Ula. Using synthetic lei, one of her signature materials, Hastings-McFall will wrap tree trunks and the lower branches of an area of Aotea Square's native trees, transforming the trees into pou, and the space into a symbolic Samoan fale. Fale Ula will be further enhanced by audience-responsive birdsong courtesy of digital collective Hubbub.
Irreverent and provocative Glasgow-based artist, David Shrigley is Two Room's 2015 International Resident Artist. Examples of his work will be shown for the first time in New Zealand at the gallery during Auckland Arts Festival 2015. Shrigley, whose work includes sculpture, animation and photography, is best known for his distinctive, deceptively simplistic style which pokes fun at everyday situations and human interactions.
The new development on Daldy Street, Wynyard Quarter, will host award-winning installation Field by Auckland-based designers Angus Muir and Alexandra Heaney. A grid of mirrored poles, the work reflects and merges with its surroundings - trees, buildings, people - leading one to question what is real and what is illusion. Playful and intriguing, Field is an ideal exhibition for families.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki presents Billy Apple: The artist has to live like everybody else. This massive retrospective of one of our most important living artists opens during Auckland Arts Festival 2015 and marks the first substantial survey of Apple's work.
Six contemporary Japanese artists will feature in the exhibition Invisible Energy (20 February 27 March) at ST PAUL St Gallery. Curated by Japanese-based Naoko Horiuchi, Vera May and Charlotte Huddleston, the exhibition looks at the relationship between post-tsunami Japanese art and an interest in new media.
Titirangi's Te Uru Waitakere Gallery and the Pah Homestead form an integral part of Close Encounters, combined visual and performing arts exhibitions offering an opportunity for various works to interact with their surrounds in a unique way, blurring lines between audience, environment and art.
PAH, at the TSB Bank Wallace Trust Arts Centre, Pah Homestead (11 March - 19 April), is an innovative meeting at the crossroads of interdisciplinary collaboration, weaving music by Dame Gillian Whitehead, choreography by Carol Brown and the unique vision of painter Star Gossage. Through a series of intimate performances and an exhibition, performers and environment build a special dialogue between colonial heritage architecture and whenua/land.
Also part of Close Encounters, Aroha/Ahava Songs the rich, earthy melodies of composer Jonathan Besser and singer Mere Boynton will resonate throughout the brand new Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Titirangi on 14 March.
During the Festival, Te Uru will present three exhibitions focusing on local artists and issues. The immersive three dimensional installation, Model World, by New Zealand artist Judy Millar (12 February - 5 April), A Delicate Balance (5 March - 19 April), which focuses on kauri preservation and ecological concerns, and George Nuku and Tracey Tawhiao's collaborative installation IOIOIOIO (12 February - 5 April), which will explore the Maori idea of The Creator though notions of binary code and sacred geometry.
Toi Maori touring exhibition, Uku Rere: Nga Kaihanga Uku & beyond will be on display at Objectspace from 7 March - 11 April, sharing the vitality and diversity of the contemporary Maori ceramics movement. This exhibition is the first major survey of contemporary Maori ceramics in the world and comprises 60 hand built works by members of Nga Kaihanga Uku the national Maori clayworkers association.
NZPQ15: Ahua o te Rangi is an exhibition developed for the 2015 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Spaces theme of Shared Space: Music, Weather, Politics 2013-2016. A selection of innovative New Zealand artists will address the creative influence of weather in this era of climate change (7 March - 15 March).
Gus Fisher Gallery on Shortland Street presents Black Bird: Lonnie Hutchinson 1997 2013, A Survey (7 March - 2 May), the first major survey of this leading Maori/Samoan artist. The exhibition will feature a diverse body of Hutchinson's work, ranging from sculpture and video, to virtual reality experiences. Throughout, Hutchinson's interest in pattern and the navigation between space and time will be a constant theme.
At Papakura Art Gallery, a trans-Tasman collaboration between Auckland-based artist Martin Awa Clarke Langdon (Tainui, Ngai Tahu) and Sydney-based rising star Jonathan Jones (Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi) is celebrated in Shared Endeavour (14 March - 24 April). As the artists explore their shared interest in pattern and indigenous experience, audiences are invited to consider ancestral connections to place and people while they enjoy this developing work.
Revolutionary artist and former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas, will visit Auckland during Auckland Arts Festival to mentor with innovative arts organisation Nga Rangatahi Toa at Mangere Arts Centre Nga Tohu o Uenuku. Douglas is responsible for much of the former political movement's compelling, symbolic imagery and a small exhibition of his prints will be on display, 7 March - 19 April, alongside a work he will create with youth from the programme.
Finally, the tremendously popular White Night returns on March 14 from 6pm to midnight, presenting exhibitions, special events, surprise performances and unexpected arts encounters inside and outside at more than 60 venues and locations across Auckland from north to south, east to west and right in the very centre. Keep a kaleidoscopic eye out for #entity255, the hypnotic living digital organism opening in the eye of the TimeOut Festival Garden which will have you hashtagging your heart out!
Auckland Arts Festival 2015 runs from 4 - 22 March. The full programme is available online at www.aaf.co.nz
The Auckland Arts Festival 2015 Visual Arts Programme is supported by Creative NZ, Chartwell Trust and ASB Community Trust.
AUCKLAND ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 VISUAL ARTS PROGRAMME DETAILS
Tai Whetuki / House of Death, Lisa Reihana
Wednesday 4 March - Sunday 22 March, TimeOut Family Garden, Aotea Square
Fale Ula, Niki Hastings McFall
Wednesday 4 March - Sunday 22 March, TimeOut Family Garden, Aotea Square
David Shrigley
Friday 6 March - Saturday 11 April, Two Rooms
Field, Angus Muir and Alexandra Heaney
Wednesday 4 March - Sunday 22 March, Daldy Street, Wynyard Quarter
Billy Apple: The Artist Has to Live Like Everybody Else
Saturday 14 March - Thursday 21 June, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki
Invisible Energy, various artists
Friday 20 February - Friday 27 March, ST PAUL St Gallery
PAH, Carol Brown, Gillian Whitehead, Star Gossage
Wednesday 11 March - Sunday 19 April, Pah Homestead
Aroha/Ahava Songs, Mere Boynton and Jonathan Besser
Saturday 14 March, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
Model World, Judy Millar
Thursday 12 February - Sunday 5 April, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
A Delicate Balance, The Kauri Project,various artists
Thursday 5 March - Sunday 19 April, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
IOIOIOIO, Tracey Tawhiao, George Nuku and Fred Harrison
Thursday 12 February - Sunday 5 April, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
Uku Rere: Nga Kaihanga Uku & Beyond, various artists
Saturday 7 March - Saturday 11 April, Objectspace
NZPQ15: Ahua o te Rangi, various artists
Saturday 7 March - Sunday 15 March, Sir Paul Reeves Building, AUT University
Black Bird: Lonnie Hutchinson 1997-2013, A Survey, Lonnie Hutchinson
Saturday 7 March - Saturday 2 May, Gus Fisher Gallery
Shared Endeavour, Jonathan Jones and Martin Awa Clarke Langdon
Saturday 14 March - Saturday 25 April, Papakura Art Gallery
Emory Douglas with Nga Rangatahi Toa
Saturday 7 March - Monday 19 April, Mangere Arts Centre Ng? Tohu o Uenuku
White Night,various locations
Saturday 14 March, 6pm to midnight
*White Night is a partnership between Auckland Arts Festival 2015 and Auckland Art Gallery, Central City Library, Creative NZ, Voyager Maritime Museum and ASB Community Trust. For more info, please visit www.aaf.co.nz
SEASON DETAILS
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Information |
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Bookings |
For Close Encounters, book at Ticketmaster outlets: www.ticketmaster.co.nz/ P: 09 970 9700 or 0800 111 999. All other exhibitions are free of charge, unless specified |
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Social Media |
Facebook: facebook.com/Aklfestival Twitter: @Aklfestival |
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Media enquiries |
Meredith McGrath, Publicist P: +64 (0)9 3740317 M:+64 (0)27 4473247 Mackenzie Pickert, Assistant Publicist P: +64 (0)9 3740339 M: +64 (0)27 8797138 E:mackenzie.pickert@aaf.co.nz |
Advance tickets available through Visa Entertainment:
Visa cardholders can purchase tickets to Auckland Arts Festival 2015 in Visa Entertainments exclusive pre-sale, from 6pm Thursday 23 October until 12pm Friday 31 October or until pre-sale tickets sell out. Pre-sale ticket details are available at www.visaentertainment.co.nz
Tickets for the general public will be on sale from 12 pm on Friday 31 October and available from www.ticketmaster.co.nz or phone 0800 111 999.