Covering Climate Action: Ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, artist Joseph Michael and composer Rhian Sheehan teamed up to create Voices For The Future, a 30-minute installation projected onto the UN buildings. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here! Joseph Michael is walking along Wakefield … Read more
The paintings of Colin McCahon convey dissonance and uncertainty, writes Shannon Te Ao. So what does this say about us? And why are we maintaining this Pākehā male narrative at the expense of more inclusive representation? Ka pōraruraru ahau. I am troubled. Colin McCahon would have turned 100 on August the 1st. If you keep … Read more
The Future of Work at Hutt City’s Dowse Art Museum makes visible our changing work conditions. Mark Amery took a tour, and even got some work done himself while he was there. I’ve gone to work at the gallery. And I’m making an exhibition of myself. Making my labour visible. I’m writing about the exhibition … Read more
In this extract from a chapter called ‘Deep Time’ in Rebecca Priestley’s new memoir, Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica, Rebecca remembers her peculiar, legume-heavy, art-saturated childhood in Wellington. (And a note from the author: if anyone has a painting from Ruth Priestley’s Antarctic Dream series, Rebecca would love to hear from you.) I grew up in … Read more
In our latest local elections 2019 race briefing (read the rest here), Josie Adams looks at those who would dare oppose Tim Shadbolt’s record reign. The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here. Where? At the bottom of … Read more
Hope, censorship, the Hong Kong protests and their threads across Asia and the Pacific: a conversation with artist Yuk King Tan, whose show Crisis of the Ordinary is at Starkwhite gallery now. A lattice screen made out of white plastic zip tie police handcuffs. Batons, bottles, drones and other protest objects, wrapped in many-coloured threads, … Read more
A prose poem by Wellington writer Susanna Gendall. Art The number of artists at the art gallery was overwhelming. It seemed there were too many. There were too many. Never would so many poems be assembled in a single building and people expected to walk around and read each one. It seemed an unfair burden … Read more
David Eggleton considers the remarkable radiance and Canterbury swamp fog of Tony de Lautour’s paintings, in this mid-career survey at Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Resembling a giant blackboard covered in graffiti, ‘Underworld 2’ (2006) by Tony de Lautour is spectacular. This painting is a phantasmagoria of signs and markings, intended to bring to mind Christchurch … Read more
An exhibition of Dutch-New Zealand artist Theo Schoon at the City Gallery in Wellington has set off a debate about the place of racially problematic work in public spaces. Lana Lopesi reports on the ongoing protests, and how they connect to the activism at Ihumātao. When Theo Schoon: A Biography by Damian Skinner was released … Read more
Artist Nikau Hindin is reviving a contemporary form of Māori art that was largely lost after the extinction of the aute plant in Aotearoa. Ngāpuhi and Te Rarawa artist Nikau Hindin has recently been taught by ancestors in Hawai’i the skills of beating tapa or barkcloth, reviving as contemporary form a Māori art largely lost … Read more
Amy Weng reviews Kim Hak’s exhibition that tells the stories of Cambodian refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge through the objects they carried – a show that will please many and offend none. Alive is an exhibition with the noblest intentions. In 29 still lives, Phnom Penh-based photographer Kim Hak brings to life the accounts … Read more
ART-TASTIC is a big heavy beauty of an activity book, written by Sarah Pepperle and produced by the Christchurch Art Gallery. We think it’s marvellous and so do the judges of the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Keen to try it out? Here are four ART-TASTIC spreads guaranteed to keep … Read more
‘Like Escher, if he was more into dicks than staircases.’ Poet Hera Lindsay Bird celebrates the work of New Zealand artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion, who creates portraits of angry ‘alpha men’. Like most teenage punishers who took art history in high school, I spent years resentfully analysing the composition of Colin McCahon paintings … Read more
Anna Knox spoke to the curator of a new exhibition of Guy Ngan’s work at the gallery in the heart of his home. Artist Guy Ngan and the art establishment never seemed to care much for each other. But a new exhibition raises questions about that mutual disregard. Ngan lived in Stokes Valley, Upper Hutt, … Read more
Launching today, and co-edited by Megan Dunn and Mark Amery, The Spinoff Art will bring you the big and little stories about contemporary art in New Zealand. Like this one about a small pointy-headed heist. On a trip to Auckland last week, I heard about an art heist. It was small but perfectly formed: the … Read more
Art history tells us a lot about the present moment through its interpretation of the past. In historicising the work of bygone artists, it reveals changing attitudes and contemporary concerns, writes Emma Ng. This year Wellington is host to three exhibitions recognising artists linked to the region: Gordon Walters at Te Papa, Theo Schoon at … Read more
Earlier this month Vunilagi Vou opened in Ōtāhuhu, the first art gallery the south Auckland suburb has ever had. Its director, curator Ema Tavola, is passionate about centring South Auckland communities and art makers in conversations around contemporary New Zealand art. Ōtāhuhu is home to a large migrant population, more than half are from Pacific … Read more
A prominent ad promoting the National Party and the CEO of Air New Zealand, Christopher Luxon, could be in breach of the law. An advertisement promoting Christopher Luxon and the National Party appeared in this morning’s newspaper – but the National Party says it had nothing to do with it. The half-page ad taken out … Read more
Women are told that their artistic life ends when motherhood starts. But Anna Knox knows that isn’t the case. I was living in Saudi, trying to finish a novel I had started on the UEA (University of East Anglia) Creative Writing programme when I first learned I was pregnant. My partner and I had been … Read more
It’s the biggest question in public art: which of these strolling sculptures would smash the other? Tara Ward plays referee. Who would win in a fight: Boy Walking or Giant Hand? It’s a question that’s perplexed both scientists and statues for at least a week, and a mystery so consuming I will never rest until … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: NZ Herald digital subscriber numbers reach first major milestone, Forest and Bird drop two major stories, and maternity wards lacking overnight cover. An exciting story broke yesterday for those who follow news about news. The NZ Herald put this one outside the paywall – releasing that the company had … Read more
A free, well organised event in Auckland is something to cherish. When it falls on a long weekend? All the more reason to spend a few of those extra hours among people far more talented than you. Alice Webb-Liddall went to Chromacon to browse the art and check out some of New Zealand’s hottest portrait … Read more
Megan Dunn looks back on this year’s Auckland Art Fair and what the fair means to New Zealand art galleries, buyers and artists. A curator friend recently said to me, “everyone loves to hate art fairs.” True, but only because everyone loves to go to them. In 2018 there were over 260 art fairs in … Read more
After repeated obscenities were scrawled on the face of the beloved New Zealander near Brick Lane, the artist added a note saying, ‘This is a portrait of a kiwi film director Taika Waititi NOT Jose Mourinho YOU MUPPET!!!’ And now he’s thinking he’ll paint over it altogether Taika Waititi might be world-famous in New Zealand, … Read more
The Auckland Art Fair runs from May 2nd – 5th at The Cloud on the waterfront. Three critics – Megan Dunn, Mark Amery, Ioana Gordon-Smith – cast an eye over what’s on offer. On the opening night of the Auckland Art Fair one artist said, “It gets worse the further in you go.” Another told … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Stephanie Post and Hayley White, co-directors of … Read more
We’re overjoyed to today launch our new webseries about drawing and stuff, Two Sketches. Here’s what it’s all about – plus, watch the first episode below. Popular illustrator and The Spinoff’s resident cartoonist-in-chief Toby Morris loves drawing and loves chatting to other pencil pushers, so why not combine the two? In this new webseries we … Read more
The fifth work in Yona Lee’s In Transit series is currently exhibiting at Wellington’s City Gallery. Megan Dunn writes on the aspirations of the piece and how comfortably it sits in a gallery context. On a Sunday afternoon I opened my laptop and sat in In Transit, the most ambitious and nimble exhibition on in the country … Read more
Christchurch’s massive hand sculpture Quasi is moving to Wellington. Refusing to be palmed off, Emily Writes set out to learn his story. I heard him before I saw him. He was awkwardly trying to get into the Mojo (you know the one on Courtenay next to the one on Dixon that’s next to the one … Read more