LIGHTBOX @ Italy and Kitchens
by Kim Atherfold
Italy and Kitchens in Newmarket is an ideal venue for an exhibition of fine art with a focus on light. Curator Paul Baragwanath's Lightbox which ran from November - 14 December 2007 included work by some of New Zealand's leading artists, and his choice reminds us of the enigmatic nature of light in spite of its prosaic use in household environments. Importantly, Baragwanath's vision as a curator becomes apparent in foregrounding the relationship between the cutting edge of modern design and that of fine art. Light is integral to our lives and although it has a long art history, central to the work of Dan Flavin, Bill Culbert and Laurent Grasso, for example, increasingly artists in the first decade of the 21st century are using (or continue to use) light as their preferred medium of self expression. The artists in this exhibition idiosyncratically manipulate the medium, however, the simple fact remains that objects which emit glowing light are visually alluring on one hand and make a powerful spatial statement on the other.
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Italy and Kitchens, Newmarket, Auckland
Photograph by Kallan Mcleod |
The chosen works either complement the minimal kitchen and bathroom designs in this showroom, or work as a foil to them. For example, Peata Larkin's Patikitiki 4 and Patikitiki 6 seemlessly coexist and connect with the neutral and minimal schema of the surrounding environment. Although these works directly reference tuku tuku panels (traditionally found in wharenui as a medium in the telling of legends) they also have a distinctly retro feel, and from a distance resemble squares of fabric redolent of a 1960s furniture aesthetic. This impression is derived from the formal elements - geometric style, sequence of pattern, the muted colours and surface texture. Within an overall repetitive pattern, and contiguous with the minute ellipses of white and black paint in shallow relief, Larkin combines negative spaces of the same forms through which light projects. From a distance the light appears as an "impression of colour" different from the material texture, but responsible for the unique glow and power of the aesthetic.
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Peata Larkin
Patikitiki 4 Acrylic on mixed media 1200mm2 Courtesy Two Rooms Photograph by Kallan Mcleod |
Similarly, Lisa Reihana's Kawhia and Kete references tuku tuku panels and while you may not envisage watching a video installation while cooking the risotto, conceptually the alignment of leading edge kitchen design with video installation works well. Although apparently simple, Reihana's fast moving repetitive images mutate into new patterns, colours and sequences as you watch. It is at once kaleidoscopic and mesmerizing as the various designs recede and advance in a continuous loop. By virtue of placing Reihana's video in this context Baragwanath unites various ideas around cultural diversity, technological sophistication and modern art and design. However, he also subtly brings to our attention in the post-colonial period, the importance of both unique cultural identities and cultural diversity continually under threat in an increasingly globalised world.
By comparison the works of Paul Hartigan work more actively against the subdued nature of the space. Self evidently, the titles Screw Ball and Ice Ball hint at the nature of the works themselves. Although very different in terms of colour, they are both three dimensional coils of random neon light. Moving around the works, each viewing angle brings a fresh impression of light, form and colour and as such they appear improvisational, immediate and quirky. Oddly, the surface impression of unsystematic form and pattern works entirely against the very tight esoteric process required to bring these works to fruition (1). Screw Ball has an added synaesthetic dimension in that while viewing the work it alternatively breathes periods of intense colour and light with restful periods in which all colours fade to simulacra in soft relief. Fittingly, both works embody modern life as symbols of chaos, order and diversity, a successful (if not obvious) synthesis from the hand of an established artist in control of his medium. Hartigan's works seem to embody elements of both Jim Speers ethereal and minimal lightboxes on one side and Gregor Kregar's gnomes on the other.
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Gregor Kregar
Blue Gnome Lead crystal 430mm h x 280mm w Courtesy Bath Street Gallery Photograph by Kallan Mcleod |
Blue Gnome, Mauve Gnome and Reclining Gnome are the perfect antidote to the over sophisticated world we live in, they are at once an embodiment of postmodern life and art. Kregar's gnomes do not take themselves, life or the current environment they find themselves in seriously! Like Jeff Koons, Kregar transforms what amounts to "kitsch statuary" with all its baggage into fine art for the modern collector (2). Lying casually about on the bench or shelf, they represent a universal state of nirvana where the external world of personal problems, consumer debt and the world of commerce and politics are blotted out. And in the wake of artists like Koons, the gnomes have vicariously replaced the bunny and monkey to become commentators on modern life in New Zealand art. The story of the gnome is well remembered as a key figure in fairytales from childhood, and long confined to silent, yet public ignominy in the front yards of houses all over the world. In recent times this lifeless little figure has been extricated from the shackles of bad taste, to take star billing in films such as Amelie. This knowledge and the cuator's choice underpins their importance in the current environment as oblique commentators on design within a contemporary New Zealand context. One imagines collecting them as a group to sustain the fairytale impression of togetherness, playful interaction and perpetual do gooding! So obvious!
In stark contrast, the purity and simplicity of Jim Speer's Untitled Red and Small Sky share much with the minimalism of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. Both works are square boxes projecting from the wall 200mm and one can imagine them multiplying identically and endlessly with subtle colour changes. While they have the same format, treatment of light and surface appearance, oddly, one directly references nature while the other does not (3). These are highly refined works in which nuances of colour seep into softer and more intense hues and the modulated rhythms of light hum in a quiet diffuse way, as if gas as colour, is literally in a state of suspended diffusion. They convey an impression of perfect equilibrium which equally is a characteristic of the bathroom design they occupy. Furthermore, the sense of surrounding space is transformed on one hand by the way in which these works induce a sense of quiet contemplation at one remove from a "domestic" environment, but on the other by the soft bleeding of light into the adjacent spaces. Baragwanath has chosen works which transform the space in a very unique way, sometimes "logically", as in the sequential viewing of Speers, Hartigan and Kregar, but sometimes as a kind of disjunctive dialogue, as in the two works by Peter Roche.
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Peter Roche
Twirler (on the left) Glass, translucent vinyl, aluminium, fluorescent light 1000mm x 800mm D Photograph by Kallan Mcleod
Peter Roche
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Since the early 1990s Roche has been working with light in a sculptural sense. His Untitled is a large milk coloured saucer with what seems to be random splatters of red paint, but which is on closer inspection, is revealed as two indistinct figures, one prone and one upright. The very expressive nature of the "splatter" is a nice contrast to the symmetry of the circular form, and characteristically there is an element of associated unease. Although contained within an overall pattern, in a visceral display, the figures seem to both eject and spew matter which meets in a continuous arc. This is an important but subversive element in the work. Initially the figures are obscured by the overall pattern of red and as such we do not immediately notice them, when we do the work gains impact as we realize what we are looking at. Furthermore, the fact that we can make out figures subverts the initial impression of abstraction and as such Untitled seems to hover between two aesthetic dimensions.
In stark contrast Twirler is a simple impression of two bright silver squiggles of light floating against a disc of luscious black lacquer. On the surface it is as if the cracker night "sparkler" has been flung around in dark space and the marks captured permanently in these spiraling threads of light. And although visually simple and enticing, it emits an "out of this world" impression in keeping with the ideas Roche has been involved in during his lifetime as an artist. By exhibiting Roche, Baragwanath shows that a strong modern space can accommodate diverse works of art in an individual and natural way. Roche's works react to the space enigmatically, one in alignment and the other reacting to it, but both are logical inclusions.
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Jae Hoon Lee (Kregar's Blue Gnome) in the foreground Space Tree 1 Photographic print on lightbox 5/5 1000mm2 Courtesy Starkwhite Photograph by Kallan Mcleod |
Sitting on the far wall is Jae Hoon Lee's unearthly Space Tree 1, and as the work is approached, an impression of light on the floor directs our gaze up and into the lightbox itself. The work is positioned high so that we look up into a "tree" floating against an immaculate blue background. Resembling a disembodied root system, freed and floating in space, the forms seem to have been "pieced together", as if the dominant shape is undergoing constant morphological change as more and more matter is attracted and added in space. Lee's lightbox resembles conventional photography on one hand in collaboration with surreal references to nature on the other. This results in an imaginative landscape of contemplative pristine beauty. Although Lee has not simulated nature, the effect is similar, where the artist creates "an alternative world (or a detail of one) that evokes the real one and yet retains its identity as a world apart" as viewers we feel ourselves transported into another realm brought magically to life within the borders of art. Furthermore, rapid advances in technology allow "artists to blend the factual and the fictive even more, to warp space, fold time, and find openings to new dimensions." (4) Looking at this work we feel assured of something known in conjunction with something unknown and apart from the visual impact it is this aspect which makes the work compelling.
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Hye Rim Lee
Lash DVD Edition number 5/7 Courtesy Starkwhite, Auckland and Kukje Gallery, Seoul Photograph by Kallan Mcleod |
In spite of the knowledge that we are watching a virtual identity in an artificial situation Hye Rim Lee's TOKI as she appears in Lash is seductively compelling. This is predominantly because although conceptually complex, the character engages with the viewer through a few simple but powerful actions. As the video unfolds her large oval eyes softly shut to an audible and silence shattering whip lash, disarming the viewer as she seems simultaneously absent and present, while embodying the prospect of both submissive and violent actions. In conjunction with the impact of her eyes and accompanying whiplash, her lips change from pure white to a deep rosebud red which ends in a soft, and almost silent, provocative kiss aimed directly at the viewer. This sequence repeats over and over in a slightly altered time frame so that once engaged the viewer becomes more and more fascinated by the repetition of sensual detail and gesture, and the subtleties of her changing expression.
TOKI does not exist except as a potent idea in cyberspace at the extremes of invention and reality. She is the ultimate symbol of male desire, offering at once "a hybrid of the virgin and the hooker, both cute and unsettlingly raunchy, one who promises to satisfy male desire even as she suggests that men will be expected to be the satisfiers." (5) The paradox extends to TOKI's position as an established identity who tantalizingly offers a melange of fantasy, fetishism and fact, all concepts which quintessentially characterize TOKI's home turf - the global net. For this reason she symbolizes the potential of modern life on one hand and embodies all that modern art represents on the other, operating as she does, in a climate of "internationalism" on the fringe of all cultures, all media and all locations, impervious to both time and circumstance. By placing TOKI in this context Baragwanath explodes conventional expectations of domesticity, and in the process demonstrates the ability of art and design to transcend the quotidian realities of life while embodying a point in the future we have yet to reach.
The idea of exhibiting fine art in a high end design showroom seems obvious when self evidently works of art acquired by private collectors, in the main, end up on display in a domestic environment. Baragwanath has chosen work which suits and is enhanced by the modern and minimal aesthetic which characterizes Italy and Kitchens. His vision in confining works in Lightbox to a single focus on light means the diversity and strength of the work is both concentrated and amplified, but also because they are cutting edge, the works in this context comment positively on the relevance of contemporary New Zealand art to modern times.
(1) Explained at length by John Hurrell in Art New Zealand, Number 125, in relation to Revolutions, pages 44 - 46
(2) Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, 2005, Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual art after 1980, Oxford University Press, page 27.
(3) This is interesting because under the dictates of Minimalism the natural world was shunned in favour of an intense scrutiny of the properties of both the materials and forms themselves, Judd refers to "aspectual diversity".
(4)Robertson et al, page 88
(5) Barry King, Cybernetics and Sex