Inebriated power poles

Frank Breuer: Ascetic Monumentality
McNamara Gallery, Whanganui
1 November - 29 November 2008

At the moment in Whanganui Paul McNamara is showing in his unusual, domestic feeling gallery - converted from a doctor’s surgery that was converted from a bungalow - two shows: Frank Breuer and Fiona Amundsen, in adjacent rooms. Amundsen’s is very similar to her recent show at Gus Fisher. Breuer has never shown in Aotearoa before. Both are big admirers of the German photo-conceptualists, Bernd and Hilla Becher, famous in the sixties for their documentation of cooling towers. Breuer was one of their last students.

Breuer’s images are slightly smaller than Amundsen’s; more vertical in format. Their subject matter is power poles, centrally positioned each time and often flanked by large brick buildings in which the great acuity of detail allows you to scrutinize each brick, if you so desire.

Amundsen’s images are very strictly controlled, but Breuer’s images (illustrated above) are even more austere, particularly with his more limited colour range. Like her he favours overcast skies, but usually he has pale dusty grey streets as well. There is no lush greenery, or icy cool colouration.

I don’t think it is intended but I find some of these power poles incredibly amusing. They have an anthropomorphic quality, where they take on human personalities. Some are untidy, or tilted, and look as if they are about to topple over like staggering drunkards. Others are formal, straight and prim, like military officers standing in line at attention.

Breuer’s images are also more obviously beautiful than Amundsen’s. There is a hint of a constructivist aesthetic about them (with their linear components and warm hues) and less process driven. Both artists make wonderful photographs and it is terrific that McNamara has introduced Breuer and his work (he has been on a speaking tour) to New Zealand audiences.

Here is another take on the touring Close Up show (toured by McNamara Gallery) - from Peter Dornauf

CLOSE-UP Contemporary Contact Prints
Ramp Gallery; Wintec
Hamilton
4 August - 22 August 2008

It was Duchamp who once said an art work that didn’t shock, wasn’t worth making. That would immediately rule out ninety-five percent of the current stock. But then that was a Dadaist speaking, and speaking at a time of crisis – civilization going down the tubes and all that, with the need for the artist to raise the voice a tad. A little hyperbole never hurt no one.

Still, sometimes it’s the inside voice that can cause a double take. It happened at Wintec’s Ramp gallery recently, which is currently showing a truncated version of Contemporary Contact Prints earlier seen at Gus Fisher.

The work in question that caused a ripple was New Zealand Playing Cards by Ben Cauchi (8x10 gold print). On a flat matt background are presented two images; one a playing card and next to it, a slightly worn playing card box (of antique vintage, perhaps late nineteenth century). On the cover of the cardboard box (manufactured by AD Willis Ltd Wanganui) is a picture of a Maori chief, someone looking a little like King Tawhiao. The card itself presents a Maori warrior in battle cry stance, the word, Joker, inscribed in cursive script running at an angle behind the figure.

After the initial shock, there are so many layers of meaning afforded the viewer, both historical and contemporary in this work.

Among others in the show are Laurence Aberhart doing Laurence Aberhart with stark mysterious interiors and Darren Glass doing Laurence Aberhart using a wide angled pin-hole camera to capture in an equally moody and mysterious way images of an old abandoned machine gun post.

Fiona Pardington offers us something from her series, Proud Flesh, (role reversal of the male gaze) and a sequence referencing the Huia bird, ironically owned by Whanganui Museum; Wanganui with an H. Judicious placement by the curator next to the Cauchi piece.

Mention must also be made of a local Wintec student, Chloe Ferguson, whose close-up dual image of a female head (sepia print) rivalled that of the main attraction. Titled Vencie’s Box, it evoked things Renaissance, Raphael and stuff otherworldly. A nice contrast to the ‘made in New Zealand’ look in the other room.

Above images from Cauchi and Pardington.

Closer than close

Close-up: contemporary contact prints
Gus Fisher
31 May – 5 July 2008

Paul McNamara (of the Wanganui dealership) has selected and organised this touring exhibition of contact prints, featuring nine artists, and the result is impeccable. With the show comes a natty little catalogue containing a nice explanation of what contact prints are by Te Papa’s Athol McCredie, and great comments from the nine contact-printers themselves.

The work is gorgeous, and surprisingly varied. In fact probably more than McNamara intended because Gus Fisher have augmented the show with works from the University of Auckland Collection. That means including enlargements. The show does look spiffy in GF’s awkward oblong room, but McNamara’s concept has been compromised.

Despite the peculiarity of this – you might as well throw McCredie’s commentary in the rubbish tin – one of the interloping works, Mark Adams’ images of Milford Sound, is sensational, and worth all the trouble of a hike down Shortland Street.

As you’d expect, McNamara has his own particular take on these artists. Personally I prefer say Wayne Barrar’s colour work and Joyce Campbell’s underwater images (but they are probably not appropriate), but McNamara's combinations are satisfying. It’s wonderful to see a body of Darren Glass photographs instead of his camera/sculptures and to get a bunch of Haru Sameshima images too. Aberhart is starting to get overexposed in Auckland town now and more Ben Cauchi images would have provided a better balance.

There are lots of very delicately toned, crisp images to marvel about here. Not one to miss.

(See images on the McNamara site. The image above is by Haruhiko Sameshima.)

Tasty fare

Paul McNamara has just sent me a link to an ‘online exhibition’ of Peter Peryer photographs, based on a selection of framed works on display in Wanganui, so I’ll treat it as a show, and refine it even further by picking out six images. Curate my own little mini-show of Peryers which you no doubt have just perused above.

Here’s the link.

The thing about Peryer is that his image scale is unpredictable. He keeps you guessing as to what mode of presentation, namely its size, he’ll go for, for each print. You have to forget all that when you look at an online display because everything is so evenly sized and spaced. The white background leaps out at you. It is a peculiar sort of 2D installation, a fabrication that kills the individuality of the works. Never mind. Look again at the six images. They are great fun. Let's work our way down;

That startled cat (actually made of china, Peryer tells us), frozen in space with the artificial-looking zigzag markings, looks amazing. The spiky leaves at the top reflect the angular fur pattern. With its low slung back and short legs it could be a corgi.

I hate kitsch chinaware, but the image of figurines and cupids on a table in a ‘junk’ shop is gorgeous. It is strangely flat like a painting, and unexpectedly even in its colour. There is lots of detail to be enjoyed within its saccharine complexity.

The soggy ice cream chucked on to a step is wickedly sexual. The oozing sticky mess is teeth-grindingly disturbing - with 'step' suddenly becoming a metaphor. Perhaps it is my age but this image really worries me.

Now the green buoy hanging from the ceiling, with diagonal wires and shadows, I find quite baffling. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at here, but I love the way it is tilted up. It is a wonderful puzzle and deliciously spare.

Glowing rock samples in museum cases are magical when experienced (a timer illuminates them so they absorb the light then makes the space go dark so they radiate), but this is a sensual image that is also oddly funny with the little authorative labels. They try to intrude on the geological samples’ mystery, but lose hands down.

Lastly, the image of the top of a staircase. It is a real wonder. The claustrophobic clamping together of angular-planed wall-paper and the floor’s floral carpet creates a sensation that is extremely visceral. It is immensely strange, with the planes being so distorted.

These are terrific images, I think. If you agree, check out the others.