Robert Leonard

Contemporary Art Writer And Curator

Prospects

May 1, 2015

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At City Gallery, we are currently presenting photographer Jono Rotman’s Mongrel Mob Portraits, featuring members of the notorious New Zealand street gang. The subject matter is contentious, even incendiary, but Rotman offers his subjects without indictment. His Mob photos were first shown last year at a dealer gallery, Auckland’s Gow Langsford Gallery, where they proved controversial. For City Gallery, co-curator Aaron Lister and I added in new Rotman images to expand on the Gow Langsford show. We were particularly keen to include Sean Wellington and Sons (2009). In this portrait, Sean turns his back to us—we see his patch, but not his face. He carries his two sons, who face us. They wear tiny Mongrel Mob shirts. It’s the sweetest and the heaviest image in the show. People see gangs as abhorrent but also see children as innocent, and it’s hard to reconcile these assumptions when you look at this picture. You realise that people are born into gangs and that the Mob is a community generations deep. While Rotman’s other portraits are about what has happened (he refers to his sitters as ‘artefacts’), Sean Wellington and Sons is about the future—what will happen. It prompts us to imagine the lives these boys will live. Jono Rotman: Mongrel Mob Portraits, City Gallery, until 14 June.

Peter Roehr Films at City Gallery

March 15, 2015

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German artist Peter Roehr died in 1968, aged just 23. During his tragically brief career, he produced a remarkable body of works employing appropriation and repetition. Bridging the preoccupations of pop and minimalism, his film montages (all 1965) repeat short excerpts of found footage: shampoo commercials, wrestlers, cars on highways, petrol-station signs. Roehr wrote: ‘I change material by repeating it unchanged. The message is the behaviour of the material in response to the frequency of its repetition.’ Holger Liebs says, ‘His contemporaries did not immediately recognise the quality of Roehr’s work. Roehr’s series, with their dogged, tautological order, were in many ways so much in step with the trends of their times—among them the aesthetics of information theory, structuralism and minimal art—that their peculiarity long remained overlooked.’ In his montages, Roehr’s generic anonymous source clips take on a new affective scale; the contingent and banal becoming definitive, monumental, even mythic. On the one hand, the montages are frustrating, suggesting that time is attenuated or stuck; on the other hand, they foreground the pleasure of sheer repetition. Peter Roehr: Film Montages, City Gallery, 16 March–27 June 2015. (Here’s Tim Carballis’s review.)

Gunther … Creamy ….

December 1, 2014

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Gunther, a rugged, loincloth-wearing male, is based on memories of a commune in the Kaipara district near my uncle and aunt’s farm. I never went there but heard the stories from my cousins. The commune encouraged a casual atmosphere where nudism was practised. One of the mothers was often naked, sunbathing on a banana lounger, her overgrown pubic area a topic of lengthy discussion among my cousins and me. Instead of consuming lollies and biscuits like normal kids, the children of the commune ate handfuls of savoury yeast from large jars and had odd names like Shanu and Cyrus. We embellished their parents’ nudity to high levels of perversity, although the boring truth was that they were gentle hippies, self-sufficient, working the land, making feijoa wine.
—Yvonne Todd
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Check out my epic Yvonne Todd exhibition Creamy Psychology at City Gallery Wellington. 6 December 2014–1 March 2015.

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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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