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Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.
—R.D. Laing
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Instant Icon
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In a few short months, Ronnie van Hout’s Quasi has become a Wellington icon. On the cover of the Metro Wellington Edition, it takes centre stage, flanked by the Bucket Fountain and the Beehive. But how did the Dowse get to be so big?
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Détournement
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In 1988, New York artist Barbara Kruger had a big show at Wellington’s Shed 11. As part of it, she presented several billboard works around town. The top photo shows National Art Gallery Director Luit Bieringa catching Mark Roach (Wellington City Art Gallery’s Exhibitions Manager) and Nicky Hager (later to become the famous investigative journalist) in the process of amending, vandalising, or adapting one of her billboards, shifting its message from the generic ‘Surveillance is their busywork’ to the particular ‘Waihopai: Surveillance is its dirty work’, bringing its message home. (At that stage, the Waihopai spy base was still being built and was not yet operational.) It was a brilliant intervention. In 1996, Hager would publish his first book, Secret Power, an exposé of New Zealand’s engagement in international electronic espionage.
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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.
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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