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Acquiring a salad at my local Pita Pit, I was shocked to discover how they see me. The beard comes off tomorrow.
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Please Sir, May I Have Some More?
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Yes, you may. In April, City Gallery Wellington serves up a double helping of international art, with big shows by Eva Rothschild downstairs and Semiconductor up—stars in alignment!
Rothschild’s show Kosmos features a giant punching bag, a decorated concrete-block barricade, an upholstered play space, a disco-decor fly-screen curtain, and a surveillance video of frisky lads demolishing and rudely repurposing her art. The London-based sculptor is known for her formal wit, her novel materials, and for putting her own spin on the modern-sculpture tradition. The show is timely: while it’s on in Wellington, she’ll be representing Ireland at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Semiconductor’s awesome video installations make the invisible visible. Collaborating with prestigious science agencies, including NASA, CERN, the Smithsonian, and the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, the UK duo—Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt—extend our experience and understanding of the macrocosmic and the microcosmic. Their churning Earthworks installation uses data from real-world volcanoes, glaciers, and earthquakes—including the 2016 Kaikoura quake.
Eva Rothschild: Kosmos, 6 April–28 July 2019; Semiconductor: The Technological Sublime, 23 March–14 July 2019. (And here’s a link to my interview with Rothschild last year.)
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A Death in the Family
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I’m so sorry to hear that filmmaker and author Peter Wells has died. Last year—despite his illness—Peter kindly spoke with Gareth Watkins at City Gallery in conjunction with a screening of his 1983 film Little Queen. He had much to say. Here’s a transcript.
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I’m so sorry to hear that filmmaker and author Peter Wells has died. Last year—despite his illness—Peter kindly spoke with Gareth Watkins at City Gallery in conjunction with a screening of his 1983 film Little Queen. He had much to say. Here’s a transcript.
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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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