Existence: Life according to Art: curated by Leafa/Janice Wilson for Waikato Museum of Art and History Te Whare Taonga o Waikato.14 July 2007 -13 January 2008.
This is one of those crammed cluttered shows that Waikato Museum is famous for, a sprawling dog’s breakfast of an exhibition involving close to fifty artists. Much of it is local talent linked to Wintec Media Arts, and a lot of the work is also borrowed from the Chartwell Collection in Auckland - its borrowing part of the deal negotiated when WMAH lost the collection to AAG.
The theme is life itself and the ability of the human species to fabricate stories that explain how we all came to be here. The show is slightly pompous but also shambolic. Its potentially coherent theme becomes featherbrained because of unity lost when ideational ingredients go off in multiple tangents.
Wilson’s show seems designed to promote the careers of a large group of Hamilton’s Christian artists by mixing them in with a national pool of non-believers and creating a forum about Creationism versus Darwinism. Into that forum a whole range of normally irrelevant artworks are seconded in the hope that they will bring substance: lots of mediocre portraits, images of chimps, dogs, flowers, and trees for example. It is all about using art to support a predetermined discussion that mainly revolves around Biblical and scientific narratives.
Despite the abundance of dross there are ten or so true treasures that accidentally got here. The stunning art provided by Dan Arps, David Cook, Richard Malloy, Amit Charan, Yvonne Todd, CK Reynolds, Angela Singer, John Lyall, Emit Snakebeings, Ricky Swallow and Janice Abo Ganis makes a visit to this horrendous exhibition worth while. Arps' sculpture of a faceless mud man laying an egg from out of his shoulder blades, and Malloy's gorgeous toy terrier covered with thick blue paint are fabulous treats. You just have to grind your teeth while looking for such rarities.
Existence the exhibition may be a shocker but the published book is far superior. It is blessed by the contributions of several highly competent science writers (Nicola Harcourt, Michael Graham and Bartholomew Karalus) whose efforts make this project far more than what it might appear to be - a Christian attempt to do a Waikato version of the big Darwin show currently on at Auckland Museum, and toured by the American Museum of Natural History. That Auckland show is a better visiting experience but it has no art. This one has little coherence, but at least it has some taonga and several stimulating essays.
Images by (working downwards) Meredith Collins, Gregor Kregar, Michael Shepherd, exhibition logo.
