A Review: The University of Auckland's Top Ten Recent Acquisitions

Summer school is almost over, and the grading for our final marks is nearly finished. I'd just like to share this exhibition review that I made as one of the prerequisites for the course (or paper). I got a decent mark for this one so I might as well share this one with you, guys (although I could have done better if I hadn't started late). Be sure not to miss out this Top Ten Acquisitions for the Art Collection held in The Gus Fisher Gallery (along Shortland St) before 5 March 2011. Admission is free. Read more.

  

Portrait of a Life-cast of Matua Tawai by Fiona Pardington

Foyer ceiling

Chromatic Interaction by Sara Hughes

Yvonne Todd's Gynecology and Reuben Paterson's Fish To Water

Fish to Water

Closer look

Pink and Green Abstraction with a Dragon by Andrew McLeod

 Bellevue Series by Yvonne Todd

Top Ten label

Colour Bars by Daniel von Sturmer

Oddooki and Oioio by Seung Yul Oh

1020 Metres in 26 Minutes: Waitangi Day Auckland Harbour Bridge Protest by Alex Monteith

Top Ten: new acquisitions for The University of Auckland Art Collection Review

by Jan Feliciano

Art galleries have been housing works of renowned and up-coming artists of our current and previous generations. They have been opened to the public to appreciate the artists’ works, but for some, to relive the past. These are showcases of gifts and talents that one could easily be a formalist and forget about the true essence of art. But, little did many know that art, in a sense, is an extension of one’s self? It is not mainly about the aesthetics and beauty and technical details, rather it requires one to understand, interact and be in one with the artist. It would discourage hasty evaluations, but require a sensible reading.

Ever since the development of Science and technology in the 19^th century, people became aware of the possibilities in the art world. This led to several art movements the shaped the art world as we now know today. As the First World War escalates, it affected almost all people of the nations involved one way or another. The art world began to lose its confidence— modernism was the term coined to this era of self-disintegration and pessimism, alongside with the inventions and discoveries of notable persons in Science. The artists lost their faith to reality. They also felt loss of their artworks’ sense of uniqueness as the mass productivity of the mechanical age entered the scene, specifically the advent of photography. But Sigmund Freud found an analysis of the subconscious mind and its possibility, or rather ability, to produce art. This continued until after the war has ended –of what others would call postmodernism. And a subset of it called contemporary art (and sometimes used interchangeably) made use of a wide variety of media that was made available to artists over the years until today.

Linda Tyler talks about the recent acquisitions of the University of Auckland’s Collection, entitled Top Ten: New Acquisitions for the University of Auckland Art Collection, at the Gus Fisher Gallery that was made open to public for viewing. The exhibition features some of the top contemporary artists of the country. It also showcases a fine line of students from the Elam School of Fine Arts and is now in the contemporary art world. Taking great note of the media used, Tyler talks about how each artist with their choice of medium— from the most common to the latest and innovative— could extend his artistic mind to his viewers. Nevertheless, this would serve as an effective primer to contemporary art for those who are interested.

The exhibition showcases a variety of media. One would usually see paintings in watercolour, acrylic and such, in most art galleries, but how often would you see the use of glitters, digital lenticular polypropylene print, large-scaled toys and a television as artworks? Most will be sceptical, but today’s artists were not limited to certain cliché media, if you’d like. As technology starts to prosper through the years, they have used it to their full advantage to create ground-breaking art works as well as to make their own signature using it.

The exhibition was arranged as balanced as possible putting together relevant pieces for easier understanding of the viewers. Welcoming art-lovers were Fiona Paddington’s Portrait of a Life-Cast of Matua Tawai and Seung Yul Oh’s Oddooki and Oioio artworks. Paddington wanting a sense of realism captured the sculpture on different angles with her creative lighting techniques which has made her subject to look like real. Oddooki and Oioio were made in fibre-glass material and could be inspired by Seung’s childhood days. These round sculptures, however, makes use interaction – the light passing through the ceilings reflects on the sculptures’ heads, completing each body with a single eye—like those in the cartoons. These surely were humorous and catchy, especially to children, and the child-like, to be preoccupied. And both could be thought of as a juxtaposition of the use of past and present mediums of artwork. The Gallery Two, situated on the right side, holds a video clip of Alex Monteith’s 1020 metres in 26 minutes: Waitangi Day Auckland Harbour Bridge Protest. It holds intrinsic values like any other movies: an isolated dark room, a huge display and a comfortable but limited seating space. But I reckon no one would finish watching the sluggish-moving vehicles as it traverses through the Harbour Bridge –or not—though it possesses an interesting view from the front and rear of the motorcade. 

Taking the left entrance of the Gallery One, you will be presented with symmetric and geometrical pieces of Roger Mortimer and Sara Hughes. It showcases their meticulous and almost seamless works as you look closely and scrutinize each of those. But the fact that there were no descriptions regarding each work, Hughes’ Chromatic Interaction could be thought of just a collection of hexagonal palette of colours; Manaia could be an elementary child-like inspiration that was only brought to life by Mortimer. Only a few would know that they were representation of the top banks’ website colours and a trace of family history, respectively, unless researched. Moving to the next artworks, Megan Jenkinson presents to us a glacier, possibly in the Polar Regions or in the Antarctica continent, and behind were the northern lights (aurora borealis or aurora australis) on a digital hologram-like print. It is viewed while moving from left to right or vice versa to see its lighting effect and its light could be turned on and off (which would have a subtle effect) according to the viewer’s likeness. This is certainly a very different kind of medium for first-timers to see one. It suggests that as you witness this phenomenal natural light display at the ends of earth, it moves into something more outside of the Earth’s boundaries, passed through its atmospheres and into the outer space, which connects to Yvonne Todd’s Gynaecology. This shows a pregnant woman dressed in an old-fashioned long dress and is somewhat like forming a cult in a new galaxy. Somewhat inspired by the sci-fi genre— the rest is left for the viewers to fill in the story. Robert Patterson’s use of glitter complements the shiny stars in the previous work, in a way, as his choice of medium strongly attracts every viewer. Patterson’s Water to Fish brings you back down to Earth and into reality. It gives you the idea of the relation of these distant entities as you traverse from beneath the Earth’s ground surface and below to seabed level, into the outer space of vast darkness and stars. Andrew McLeod illustrates his abstraction of horizontal lines of shades of pink and green that seemed to be like a three-dimensional level of steps or a maze, a dragon and below it is a peculiar tree in his Pink and Green Abstraction with Dragon. This seems to break the cycle of the previous works that we’ve seen of relating to symmetry, natural wonders, and fiction contrasting realism, with his puzzling mindscape fantasy world. Completing the round were a set of female portraits taken by Yvonne. Formally dressed in the occupation that each represents – as stated in their titles—, they present a cliché of a generic fatal attraction of femininity. But if there’s one thing that could be noticed second, third or last it would be Daniel Von Sturmer’s Colour Bars. Displayed in high-definition video, Daniel made of use of modern technology to emulate the natural phenomenon of the dripping paint, forming an SMPTE-like television test pattern, which is rather interesting as it iterates itself – television represented within a television. It was also of immense wits that the television was placed adjacent to the entrances and in contrast to Patterson’s glitter work, where both display lustrous characteristics and has the attracting force to hold the viewers.

One could be tempted to forget the underlying meaning of the artworks if no contexts were provided to them. That would not be a good impression, though. I think it is a great deal to let the viewers give meaning to each artwork themselves as this will imply interaction between the artist and the viewer—some sort of a mutually beneficial relationship. But it could be as overwhelming as one could imagine. There is a quick tendency that viewers could easily be impatient and be blinded by the formalist characteristics of the artwork. I thought that they would need a curator or, at the least, a brief description or history of what each artwork is about, so as to constitute an understanding of how they work to together as an exhibition and what the theme is all about. 

Viewers and visitors would not be misguided throughout the exhibition as it constitutes a fairly segmentation of artworks. The Grand Foyer is definitely the first to hail greetings, of which the thick-black-frames isolates and focuses on Paddington’s portraits and the large-scaled sculptures, or toys, could keep the children company—a plausible juxtaposition of precedent and present media. Either way to Gallery One, the viewers won’t be lost in transition as each artwork was arranged methodological with complementing components, so as to form a theme or genre, and series were clustered together –like Todd’s Bellevue. It was also notable that each artwork occupies a decent amount of space for isolation and easier digestion of the subject at hand. The Gus Fisher Gallery was a perfect venue of the exhibition also, as it provides a plentiful amount of space to give the viewers an ambiance of pleasant relaxation. It is also suffice to say that it is just that the artworks were installed here, since most, if not all, of the artists featured were The University of Auckland’s graduates— so as to be readily made available to university students.

Tyler made up a great exhibition for the art-lovers to enjoy, selecting the university’s Top Ten images to welcome everyone in contemporary art. So, whether you’re an art-lover, an avid art gallery-goer or just a curious individual wanting to learn, then this is an essential supplement for your artsy mind.