Unnerved The NZ Project, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

NGV News

5 October 2010

Yvonne Todd

The National Gallery of Victoria today opened a major exhibition celebrating the extraordinary work of 26 contemporary New Zealand artists in Unnerved: The New Zealand Project.
This fascinating exhibition explores a rich and dark vein found in contemporary art in New Zealand, drawing on the disquieting aspects of New Zealand’s history and culture reflected through more than 100 works of art.
Jane Devery, Coordinating Curator, NGV said: “The works presented in Unnerved reveal a darkness and distinctive edginess that characterises this particular trend in New Zealand contemporary art. The psychological or physical unease underlying many works in the exhibitions is addressed with humour, parody and poetic subtlety.
The exhibition reflects the strength and vitality of contemporary art in New Zealand with works created by both established and emerging artists, across a range of mediums including painting, photography, sculpture, installation, drawing, film and video.
“Unnerved engages with New Zealand’s changing social, political and cultural landscape, exploring a shifting sense of place, complex colonial past, the relationships between contemporary Māori, Pacific Islander and pakeha (non-indigenous) culture, and the interplay between performance, video and photography,” said Ms Devery.
A highlight of the exhibition is a group of sculptural works by Michael Parekowhai including his giant inflatable rabbit, Cosmo McMurtry, which will greet visitors to the exhibition, and a spectacular life-size seal balancing a grand piano on its nose titled The Horn of Africa. Also on display are a series of haunting photographs by Yvonne Todd, whose portrait photography often refers to B-grade films and pulp fiction novels.
Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said this exhibition demonstrates the NGV’s strong commitment to interesting and challenging contemporary art secured from around the world; he noted that the NGV has made a special commitment to exhibition the contemporary art of our region.
“Unnerved will introduce visitors to the rich contemporary arts scene of one of our closest neighbours, fascinating audiences with works ranging from the life size installations by Parekowhai through to the spectacular 30 metre photographic essay by Gavin Hipkins. This truly is a must see show this summer!” said Dr Vaughan.
Unnerved will also offer a strong and engaging collection of contemporary sculpture, installations, drawings, paintings, photography, film and video art by artists including Lisa Reihana, John Pule, Gavin Hipkins, Anne Noble, Ronnie van Hout, Shane Cotton, Julian Hooper and many others.
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project is on display at NGV International from 26 November 2010 to 27 February 2011. NGV International is open 10am–5pm, closed Tuesdays. Admission is free.
An exciting range of programs have been developed to coincide with the exhibition which can be viewed at ngv.vic.gov.au
A Queensland Art Gallery touring exhibition.
Support sponsor: Sofitel Melbourne On Collins

http://figuregroundzine.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/the-values-of-voids-and-trash/

Lorene Taurerewa, Sensible World (10) 2008 ink on duralar 11 x 8 in

Another form of void is witnessed in one of the highlights of Unnerved: The New Zealand Project at the NGV International. Lorene Taurerewa’s Psychopompe series presents ink on duralar (a transparent plastic film, not unlike acetate) renderings of strange dreams, in which animals transport humans into a nether world. The works draw on shared links between Jungian psychoanalysis, Aesop’s and Grimm’s fairy-tales, in which animals act as a guide for souls moving between the conscious and unconscious. The word psychopompe is derived from the Greek psychopompous, literally ‘guide of souls’. [2] The reference in aesthetic style Chinese drawings, which place great value on expanses of white as a representation of the void. This void is furthered by the fact that the ink drawings are suspended on a transparent film, the picture plane existing near independently of the substrate. Originally, many of these works were shown suspended from wires in the air [3]; at the NGV they are displayed layed flat on a white table in the middle of the room. Whilst gorgeous layed down on the white surface, the suspended installation definitely heightens the interpretation that these drawings are extensions of a psyche, peeping out of a void and floating out of context between the conscious and subconscious.

Ava Seymour, Day Care Walkabouts, 1997, colour photograph of a photomontage, 73 x 92 cm, Collection Auckland Art Gallery

The exhibition also contains a well selected four works from Ava Seymour’s Health, Happiness and Housing series (1997). (The Auckland Art Gallery has a good selection of images from this series, though not those on show at the NGV). Four works from Seymour’s series are hung in the same room as Taurerewa’s works, making a neat contrast to the ways psychoanalysis has influenced art practice — the former following the Surrealist trajectory, and the latter attempted to recreate the fluidity of fluctuating consciousness. Seymour’s works are situated in the void of the suburbs, a feeling amplified by the near exclusive use of blank white skies that serve to further strip the collages of a real world context. Both Syemour’s and Taurerewa’s works are created using relatively inexpensive means (compared with, for example, shooting a HD video or casting a bronze sculpture), but resulting in a polished and valuable piece. Taurerewa’s drawings sift the trash out of the subconscious and render it as art, whilst Seymour’s collages re-figure disposable photographs for the same purpose.