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The weather is clearing today. Since Thursday it’s been so wet and bleak with the town lashed by a wind so cold. Wellington is a hard place. It does not give itself to you easily. The topography and climate are of a sort that often rebuff people. But she is good underneath and, in fact, can be welcoming. It is a hard place to live in. But if you can survive here I’m sure you develop in a rich and independent way. No nonsense, perhaps. None of the flashy get up and go of Auckland. None of the cultivation of Dunedin or the class of Christchurch. But another quality. I’ll find a word for it one day. Perhaps it’s pragmatism.
—Peter McLeavey to Colin McCahon, 31 August 1976.
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[IMAGE: Rita Angus At Suzy’s Coffee Lounge 1967]
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I’m Kicking Myself
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I just put together the show Iconography of Revolt and stupidly didn’t think to request this photo—Christopher Williams’s Model: 1964 Renault Dauphine Four, R-1095 … (2000). It’s in the collection of the always helpful Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, and would have been simply perfect. It refers to May 1968 in France—those striking Renault-factory workers. Upturned, the car evokes the barricades. And yet Williams’s photo looks like it was shot not in the stone-throwing hubbub of street riots, but in the controlled environment of the studio, as if for an ad. Well lit. Crisp, but coy. (Iconography of Revolt, City Gallery Wellington, until 19 November).
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Human
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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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