Robert Leonard

Contemporary Art Writer And Curator

Frog Poet

November 15, 2021

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These days, I receive few invitations to weddings, but many to funerals. Too many. I was sad to hear of the recent death of Robert MacPherson, a giant of the Brisbane art scene. True, he had a good innings—he was eighty-four! MacPherson was a complex, eccentric artist, who jumped many art-category fences, scrambling formalism, conceptualism, and folksy Aussie vernacularism. He was at once an internationalist and a localist. He did a poignant show for me at the Institute of Modern Art, back in 2007. Popov and the Lost Constructivists filled the big gallery with his constructivist-inspired junk assemblages. These were accompanied by death notices from the local newspaper glued to drops of receipt-printer paper. (He had started by cutting out obits for Russian immigrants, but expanded to include others with nicknames.) The work implied that countless Russian émigré constructivists may have been working incognito in Brisbane backyard sheds. Of course, MacPherson himself did not toil in obscurity. Today, he pretty much permeates Australian art history. He was a big wheel.
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[IMAGE: Robert MacPherson: Popov and the Lost Constructivists, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2007.]
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Pharmakon

August 18, 2021

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There’s a lot of clamour around ‘art history’ right now. On the one hand, universities are cutting art-history departments—it’s part of the neoliberal purge of the humanities, we’re told. On the other hand, art history is under attack from the left—as a bastion of crusty white privilege. Of course, when people talk about ‘art history’, they are often talking about very different things. For many people, ‘art history’ conjures up notions of the canon, and the image of Lord Kenneth Clark in his tweed jacket fronting the 1969 BBC TV show Civilisation, laying out the Western high-art tradition. (I was six.) However, we tend to forget that, just three years later, in 1972, BBC2 screened John Berger’s Ways of Seeing—a Marxist-feminist critique of Civilisation. (I was nine.) When I started studying art history at the University of Auckland in the early 1980s (still a teenager), it was still all about the Western tradition (white males), and, to proceed to post-grad, you had to study a European language (French, German, Italian, or Spanish). However, all that was rapidly coming unstuck. A Women in Art paper was introduced (which I did), followed (after I left) by papers on New Zealand art, contemporary art, and Maori and Pacific art. Today’s art-history courses bear little resemblance to the one I did. Similarly, in my later life in art museums, art history would be always under scrutiny while being furiously transformed. For as long as I have been involved in it, art history has been in a state of perpetual and profound revision, philosophical and political expansion. Indeed, for me, art history is that business of rewriting. Art history may be, at once, the field and the game that’s played upon it; poison and cure, scapegoat and straw man. Pharmakon.
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[IMAGE: Hank Willis Thomas Colonialism and Abstract Art 2019]
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Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

August 14, 2021

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I’m no longer at City Gallery Wellington, however I hope you get to see my four current shows, which opened there yesterday: Brett Graham: Tai Moana Tai Tangata, Judy Millar: Action Movie, Tia Ranginui: Gonville Gothic, and Pierre Huyghe: Human Mask (until 31 October). People have been asking me about my plans. For now, I’m focusing on writing and publishing. I’ve joined Art News New Zealand as Editor and I’ll be revving up my work on Bouncy Castle. Our second title—Giovanni Intra: Clinic of Phantasms—is almost off to the printers. It’s being co-published with Semiotext(e). Two more books are in the pipeline. I’m also looking for opportunities to curate and consult; advise and assist; write and edit. I can be contacted on my new email BouncyCastleLeonard@gmail.com. Don’t be shy.
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[IMAGE: Salad days. I enjoy a light lunch at Villa Blanca, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, alongside its owner Lisa Vanderpump, 2016. Photo: Michael Zavros.]
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Who Am I?

I am a contemporary-art curator and writer, and Director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. I have held curatorial posts at Wellington’s National Art Gallery, New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery, and, most recently, City Gallery Wellington, and directed Auckland’s Artspace. My shows include Headlands: Thinking through New Zealand Art for Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (1992); Action Replay: Post-Object Art for Artspace, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, and Auckland Art Gallery (1998); and Mixed-Up Childhood for Auckland Art Gallery (2005). My City Gallery shows include Yvonne Todd: Creamy Psychology (2014), Julian Dashper & Friends (2015), Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs (2016), Colin McCahon: On Going Out with the Tide (2017), John Stezaker: Lost World (2017), This Is New Zealand (2018), Iconography of Revolt (2018), Semiconductor: The Technological Sublime (2019), Oracles (2020), Zac Langdon-Pole: Containing Multitudes (2020), and Judy Millar: Action Movie (2021). I curated New Zealand representation for Brisbane’s Asia-Pacific Triennial in 1999, the Sao Paulo Biennale in 2002, and the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2015. I am co-publisher of the imprint Bouncy Castle.

Contact

BouncyCastleLeonard@gmail.com
+61 452252414

This Website

I made this website to offer easy access to my writings. Texts have been edited and tweaked. Where I’ve found mistakes, I’ve corrected them.

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Selected Writings

2025

  • Susan King

2024

  • Miguel Aquilizan: Mutagenesis
  • Sarah Poulgrain: Take Me to the River
  • Ralph Hotere: Taranaki Gate Stations

2023

  • Brent Harris: Hidden Figures
  • Michael Zavros: The Devil’s in the Detail
  • The Last Word
  • Kathy Barry: Within You Without You
  • Anselm Kiefer Has Left the Building
  • Tia Ranginui: My Other’s Other

2022

  • Giovanni Intra: The Light that Burns Twice as Brightly
  • Brett Graham: Art of Forbearance
  • Divergent
  • Brent Wong: Twilight Zone
  • Brett Graham: Ark of Forbearance
  • Julian Dashper: Are You Talking to Me?
  • Yvonne Todd and Geoffrey Heath: Mould in the Lens
  • John and Jane
  • Simon Ingram with Terrestrial Assemblages: Machine in the Garden
  • Venice for Beginners
  • Zac Langdon-Pole: Hurry Slowly
  • John Currin: Part of the Problem
  • John Lethbridge: Escape the Flames

2021

  • Robin White: The Tide Turns
  • Telly Tuita: Telly Vision
  • Brett Graham: Written on the Wind
  • Florian Habicht: Everything Is Kapai
  • Andrew Beck: Photography Backwards
  • Judy Millar: Paint, Canvas, Action
  • Julian Dashper: Autumn 1989
  • Yona Lee: Fix and Fit
  • Tia Ranginui: Gonville Gothic
  • In Memory of Bill Hammond 1947–2021
  • Wellness versus Art
  • Susan King: Address Unknown
  • Michael Zavros: Zeus/Zavros

2020

  • Zac Langdon-Pole: Containing Multitudes
  • Isabella Loudon: Concrete Mixer
  • Zac Langdon-Pole: Rabbit Hole
  • Kirsty Lillico: Let Me Tell You About My Mother
  • Steve Carr: Taking the Fun out of Fireworks
  • Explaining Peter Peryer to a Dead Hare
  • Stuart Ringholt: Committing Time
  • John Stezaker: A Ship’s Steering Wheel and a Hangman’s Noose
  • Gavin Hipkins: No Place (Like Home)

2019

  • Brent Harris: Sincere Disconnect
  • Colin McCahon: Numerals
  • City Chief
  • Stanley Kubrick: 2001
  • Patrick Pound: Slender Threads

2018

  • Questioning Revolt
  • The People vs. Kelley Walker
  • Eva Rothschild: The Difference a K Makes
  • Patrick Pound: The Collector’s Shadow
  • Jono Rotman: Our Enduring Image of Strength
  • This Is New Zealand
  • Ian Scott: Enzed Dead Zone

2017

  • Gavin Hipkins: The Revenant
  • John Stezaker: Twice Removed
  • Michael Parekowhai: The Empire of Light
  • Colin McCahon: On Going Out with the Tide

2016

  • Gavin Hipkins: Wives Are Scarce
  • Mikala Dwyer: Psychoplastic
  • Corita Kent: Sister Act
  • Laith McGregor: Ramblin’ Man
  • Francis Upritchard: Adrift in Otherness
  • Fifteen Minutes, Twenty Years Later: Ann Shelton’s Redeye
  • Cindy Sherman: Everything and Its Opposite
  • Julian Dashper: Nothing Personal
  • When Artists Die
  • Bullet Time
  • Michael Zavros: Daddy’s Girl
  • Jacky Redgate: What Ever Happened to Baby Jacky?

2015

  • Julian Dashper & Friends
  • Love Not Given Lightly 
  • City Mission
  • Feel the Love in Venice
  • Simon Denny: Too Much Information
  • Steve Carr: Annabel

2014

  • Yvonne Todd: Cult Appeal
  • Viviane Sassen: Detail in the Shadows
  • Mikala Dwyer: Drawing Down the Moon
  • Promiscuous Collaborator
  • Stuart Ringholt: The Artist Will Be Naked
  • Curnow’s Leverage
  • Simon Starling: Please Explain
  • Ocula Conversation
  • Michael Zavros: What Now?

2013

  • Shane Cotton: The Treachery of Images
  • Geek Moment
  • On Curating
  • Craig Walsh: Elephant in the Room

2012

  • Re-Reading Julian Dashper’s The Big Bang Theory
  • Nostalgia for Intimacy
  • Don Driver 1930–2011

2011

  • Peter Madden: Orgasm and Trauma
  • Damiano Bertoli
  • Judy Millar
  • Unnerved: The New Zealand Project
  • Michael Zavros: Charm Offensive

2010

  • Peter Robinson: Gravitas Lite
  • APT6: Nice Show
  • Scott Redford: It’s Complicated
  • Feminism Never Happened
  • Michael Stevenson: Gift Horse
  • Scott Redford vs. Michael Zavros
  • Taryn Simon’s Known Unknowns

2009

  • Vernon Ah Kee: Your Call
  • Biennale Makers
  • Hamish Keith: The Big Picture
  • Julian Dashper 1960–2009
  • Tomorrow Will Be the Same but Not as This Is
  • Jemima Wyman: The Declaration of Resemblance and Fluid Insurgents

2008

  • Hello Darkness: New Zealand Gothic
  • Vivian Lynn’s Playground Series
  • Archives Become Him: The Giovanni Intra Archive
  • The Dating Show
  • Diena Georgetti: Parallel Existence

2007

  • Katharina Grosse: Mist and Mud
  • Julian Dashper: Mural for a Contemporary House 4
  • Scott Redford: Pop Haiku
  • Grey Water
  • Yvonne Todd: Why Beige?

2006

  • Jim Speers: Outdoor Cinema
  • Curator/Surfer
  • Gordon Walters: Form Becomes Sign
  • Et Al.’s Neo-Brutalist Playground
  • Hany Armanious: Catalogue of Errors

2005

  • Mixed-Up Childhood
  • Yvonne Todd
  • Michael Smither: Print Friendly
  • AES+F: We Are the World, We Are the Children
  • Stella Brennan: History Curator
  • Michael Parekowhai: Kapa Haka Pakaka
  • At the End of New Zealand Art
  • Judy Millar: I … Would Like to Express
  • Ian Scott: Jump Over Girl

2004

  • Mike Parr: Portrait of M and F
  • Shane Cotton: Cultural Surrealist
  • Peter Robinson: The End of the Twentieth Century
  • Et Al., Jacqueline Fraser, Ronnie van Hout, and Daniel Von Sturmer: 2004 Walters Prize
  • Et Al.: Simultaneous Invalidations, Second Attempt
  • Judy Millar: Things Get Worse

2003

  • Terry Urbahn
  • Michael Stevenson: Call Me Immendorff
  • Bill Hammond
  • Michael Parekowhai
  • John Reynolds
  • Michael Stevenson
  • Michael Stevenson: This Is the Trekka
  • Peter Peryer

2002

  • Jim Speers: Everything Is in Two Minds
  • John Reynolds: A City Street. A Sign. Dusk.
  • Gavin Hipkins: The Colony

2001

  • John M. Armleder: Lovers Lane on Full Moon

2000

  • Ava Seymour: I’m So Green
  • Jim Allen: Contact
  • Stephen Bambury: Interview
  • Gavin Hipkins: The Crib
  • Michael Parekowhai: Patriotism
  • Michael Stevenson and Steven Brower: Genealogy

1999

  • Adrian Hall: Bricks in Aspic
  • Gavin Hipkins: The Guide
  • Stephen Bambury: Chakra
  • Patrick Pound: Landscape of Mirrors
  • William Kentridge
  • The End of Improvement: In Defence of Ava Seymour
  • Colin McCahon

1998

  • Te Papa: Papa’s Bag
  • Rudi Fuchs: Some Sun, Some Mist, Some Shadow
  • Gavin Hipkins, Ani O’Neill, Peter Robinson, and Jim Speers: Biennale of Sydney
  • Shane Cotton
  • Action Replay: Curators’ Introduction

1997

  • Ronnie Van Hout: Overimpressed
  • Pacific Sisters: Doing It for Themselves
  • Peter Robinson’s Strategic Plan
  • Dick Frizzell: Self Portrait as a Serious Artiste
  • Richard Killeen: Secret Handshake
  • John Nixon

1996

  • Edgar Roy Brewster: Where the Bee Sucks There Suck I
  • Peter Peryer: Second Nature
  • For Armchair Tourists

1995

  • 3.125% Pure: Peter Robinson Plays the Numbers Game

1994

  • Peter Tyndall
  • Dashper as Photographer
  • Julian Dashper and Michael Parekowhai: Perverse Homages
  • Michael Stevenson: Smokers Please
  • Michael Parekowhai: Kiss the Baby Goodbye

1993

  • Dick Frizzell: Beyond the Pale
  • Michael Smither: To My Father the Printer

1992

  • Sleeve Notes: Julian Dashper’s Greatest Hits
  • Derrick Cherrie: Two Interviews
  • James Ross: Damned Fine Paintings
  • How Far Can Curators Go?
  • Mod Cons
  • Cliff Whiting: Te Po, Te Whaiao, Te Ao Marama (From out of the Darkness, the World of Being, to the World of Light)
  • Making a Scene

1991

  • Merylyn Tweedie: Mixed Emotions
  • Michael Parekowhai: Against Purity
  • Marie Shannon: Something from Nothingness Comes

1990

  • Julian Dashper: Surf
  • Derrick Cherrie: First Impressions

1989

  • Nobodies: Adventures of the Generic Figure

1988

  • You Must Be Barbara Kruger!

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