Jeena Shin's stairwell wall

Jeena Shin
ARTSPACE stairwell Project
2009 – 2011

Jeena Shin is known for her fastidious wall paintings and portable panels that feature tightly interlocking or overlapping triangular shapes, all rendered with tonally matched sets of some selected hue. They look like fractals or tangrams masked off with tape so that the edges of the painted geometrical forms have become raised.

This particular work is sited on a high wall adjacent to a staircase that provides the entrance to Auckland’s ARTSPACE. Since the project began in 2009, Shin has been working on it in occasional (and deliberately unpredictable) bursts, devising complex evanescent configurations in light tones of grey, and later adding slightly darker geometric forms on top. The underlayers are never obliterated totally because of the ridges of the edges – brought out by the light raking across them from the two skinny vertical windows facing K’ Rd.

The result is a strangely unstable tension between flickering tonal triangles or diamonds lying over faintly visible pin-lined edges of painted forms that look like glued-on sheets of angularly cut paper. The two levels work independently of each other, sometimes hovering or floating free, or often interwoven and locked together. Overall – bearing in mind it is impossible to stand back and survey the wall in its entirety – there is a sense of faceted and tumbling flat prisms spreading out across the vertical, rectangular plane like a tree of multiplying crystal slivers, sometimes in sync with the layers beneath, sometimes contrary to them.

Besides having little space to move away from it in, the wall itself is an oddly awkward, lopsided shape that surprisingly, instead of being a nuisance, gives Shin an advantage. Its very eccentricity, with two very different viewing spots at top and bottom - and the diagonal stairs in between - allows her to create a striking downward movement with paler but modulated negative forms. A more obvious and more exciting dynamic appears here than with conventional rectangular formats. ‘Dead’ non gallery spaces such as this may be where her talent shines most.

The images above are not much help unless you have a very clean computor screen which is large. The tones on the wall are very subtle.

Watkins video and sound piece at The Film Archive

Clinton Watkins: Avalanche
Essay by Matthew Crookes
The Film Archive
10 December 2009 - 27 February 2010

Clinton Watkins is known for his memerising and subtle video and sound work. My favourites are his slow moving, brightly coloured, container ships that slowly creep across the screen and a swinging lamp shade projected on a roof.

This work, seen next door to ARTSPACE, features a loop of found film of an avalanche. We see it barrelling horizontally across the face of a mountain like a delicate small wave approaching a beach, only to change direction when the mountain suddenly gets steeper. Then the motion becomes vertical, cacophonous and churning. Its mood alters from that of a rippling crest to that of something enraged, thunderously chaotic and swirling - and filling the whole wall.

At first 'loop' the only sound is a continuous rumble but gradually Watkins adds an electronic aural backdrop that gradually becomes more dominant. Spatially the ominous, grinding roar and ‘lyrical’ electronics seem distinct and separate, clearly defined and not interchangeable or blending.

The image is so hypnotic with its spectacularly terrifying but beautiful violence that added sound doesn’t seem necessary. Its cascading falling motion and billowing clouds of thrown up snow are so riveting that even with no sound at all you wouldn't take your eyes off the projection wall. The mountain is transformed from a massive solid object specked with tiny fir trees to something liquid and flowing like the sea. Movement here becomes oddly abstract, while gravity seems to be approaching its most pure state – even simpler than falling rain - but thankfully so much rarer.

Leatinu'u at Te Tuhi

Jeremy Leatinu’u
Te Tuhi
13 February - 11 April

Video artist Jeremy Leatinu’u is the Iris Fisher Scholar of 2009, picked as an outstanding student from within Auckland’s tertiary art institutions. His exhibition involves a project in a Te Tuhi gallery with two projections on each side of a small wall in the centre of the space, and also a sculptural installation outside the room’s entrance - in the large communal room that links the café to the bookshop. It is a stack of desks and bookcases displaying four video monitors facing in four directions.

The main dual-projection work shows the artist sitting quietly cross-legged in the main pedestrian thoroughfare of the Otara market on a crowded summer's day. This act of nonchalant obstruction is filmed in real time in broad daylight, from parked cars positioned in front and behind, as weaving groups of shoppers bustle and jostle their way around him, trying not to hurt themselves or him.

In this examination of the social context of ‘body space’, no tempers flare; there is no confrontation, even though being low down he is quite difficult to see in his wilfully inconsiderate stance. The rear camera is further away than the front, and Leatinu'u back is hard to detect. At Otara, it is probably a different ambience from say that found on the busy footpaths of lower Queen St on Friday night.

Mind you, with his body language the artist looks unaggressive and purposeful. He clearly is not a genuine nuisance in the sense of being obnoxious, drunk or drugged out. He is in control of his body, vertically poised, with a subtle sense of serenity that would help diffuse most antagonism.

Leatinu’u is interested in the unstated rules of polite social behaviour, where while protocol is never explicit, it is still nevertheless grasped by the wider community. His other project with the four video monitors looks at various activities folk do for money that are often legally dodgy and of low prestige – though people who interact with them rarely openly say so. His video includes footage of a busker, car windscreen cleaners at an intersection, and somebody on a footpath holding a sign promoting the activities of a local brothel. Situated amongst desks and bookcases the videos add a blue versus white-collar distinction – while on another monitor the artist continually washes his (Samoan) hands with pink Lux soap as an acerbic comment on social and economic mobility.

It will be interesting to see where Leatinu’u goes from here. It’s smart work, but not haunting. Clever but not truly memorable. However it’s early days and I look forward to seeing more.

Simon Glaister on the review

of the Munn curated exhibition at ACFA

Urban panoramas from Shanghai

Jin Jiangbo: Shanghai, Ye! Shanghai,
Starkwhite
15 February – 20 March 2010

With a population of over 20 million, Shanghai is the most enormous of Chinese cities, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. In 73 days it launches World Expo 2010, the largest event in China since the 2008 Olympics. Currently in Starkwhite the Chinese installation and multi-media artist Jin Jiangbo has presented a set of eight panoramic images of this city, the images the result of digitally enhanced, medium format, analogue photographs.

Since 2007 Jiangbo has been creating works like the series The Great Economic Retreat, which scoffed at the notion of China’s ‘economic miracle’ and examined the fragility of the labour market, notably the consequences of corporations moving their enterprises around in search of the cheapest labour source possible - and the devasting effect that has on the migrant labour supply. He recorded the architectural detritus left when such factories are abandoned.

Last year he came to New Zealand as a recipient of the Govtt-Brewster Art Gallery’s International Artist Residency Programme and made work for a New Plymouth show using the dilapidated freezing works and processing plant (now recently demolished) at Patea that closed in the early eighties as a consequence of Britain entering the EEC.

The Shanghai images at Starkwhite are a stark contrast to the hauntingly quiet Patea photographs of rural isolation. They are taken from much higher elevations and are more spectacular as outdoor vistas of urban chaos. These large (but not huge, as Jiangbo's work can be) smokey blue-grey images, with their tightly controlled, muted colours, look like the results of some sort of camera obscura or ancient plate camera, with their softly darkening edges. They are a blend of fact with fiction. Despite their initial use of film, many are not strictly documentation – some elements are digitally repeated or distorted - though you might be easily fooled into not noticing that.

Packed with detail, Jiangbo’s delicately hued panoramas raise questions about a manic building programme that is being propelled along to reach the Expo deadline - ripping down whole suburbs to erect new architectural marvels for a potentially profitable, but temporary, fair. They examine the global recession and its consequences on the Chinese industrial landscape, critiquing the ruthless destruction implemented in the communist government’s pursuit of capitalist prosperity. Within these stunning panoramas the glories of contemporary architecture linger in the distance, while it is ruins and collapsed structures that we tend to scrutinise close-up.

What is interesting is that the Chinese government helped Jiangbo create these strangely moving images, assuming he would be glorifying the economic growth, and giving him easy access to construction sites and demolished city blocks, as well as remarkable vantage points like the tops of arched, steel-girdered bridges. It is a double game because contemporary art is now a highly profitable and respected industry in China.

Two vertical photographs by the Starkwhite office look at the Bund, the old part of Shanghai, now thoroughly modernised with colourful modernist buildings and towers on a bank of the Huangpo River.

The more common horizontal images are surprisingly varied. One has no people in it at all, another has distorted walls and tilted towers, while another still is almost perfectly symmetrical. They intrigue because of their hybrid technologies – imagine Laurence Aberhart combined with Andreas Gursky. Yet the result is an aura of romantic nostalgia mixed with an acerbic attack on economic ‘realism’.

Jiangbo is known primarily for his skill in multi-media. He has a reputation as a New Media wizard with an ability to create electronic spectacles to entertain large audiences, so this sort of show is quite modest - almost subdued - as a static, non-interactive display. It is immensely subtle work, chromatically and philosophically, requiring careful looking. It's sensational, but quiet and dignified.

Thank you Starkwhite and the artist for the images.

Here is an article from Yasmine Ryan, a Kiwi freelance journalist in Paris, on the Affordable Art Fair in Brussels.

The Affordable Art Fair, according to its founder, is based on the same concept that took wine into the supermarkets: to make it fun, accessible and affordable, a kind of “Art for Dummies.”

“They managed to take away that fear factor of ‘I don’t know about wine,” explained Will Ramsay, the brain behind the AAF.

First launched in London in 1999, the AAF has since become an international phenomenon. Ten fairs in cities around the globe – including Paris, New York, Sydney and Melbourne and, for the first time, Singapore – are scheduled this year.

This month, eyeCONTACT visited the fair in Brussels, where AAF was running for its second year, 5-8 February. Eighty galleries and more than 5,000 artworks, all on sale for 5,000 euros (NZ$9,770) or less.

From his purple socks and snake skin loafers, to the white handkerchief poking out haphazardly from his jacket pocket, all the way to square glasses, Mr. Ramsay certainly looks appropriately “arty.” Not that the founder of the Affordable Arts Fair, who lives on a farm “in the middle of nowhere” in Scotland, comes from an art background – unsurprisingly, he studied business at university.

“If I had a degree in art, maybe we wouldn’t be here,” Mr. Ramsay said. “I would come at art from a different angle.”

As with wine, however, art that is “fun,” “accessible” and “affordable” is not the same as that favoured by those with more of a gourmet palette.

Originality was a little harder to come by amongst the gallery stalls themselves, most were heavy with conservatively kitsch and ascetically-centered works. Crystal skulls were one of the least subtle examples of imitation (although Damien Hirst, himself accused of appropriation by John LeKay, is arguably fair game). Conceptual art, it would appear, has a very narrow place in the world of the Affordable Art Fair.

One highlight of the fair is the "Young Talent" section, where five young previously unknown Belgian artists, selected by a panel of judges, are awarded with unique access to buyers, journalists and galleries. Photographer Lisa Carletta's surreal and comical "Hotel Room" series was one of the most exceptional on display at the fair. The Belgian competition remains modest compared to the Young Talent section at the London AAF, which involves scouts scouring art schools throughout the UK for fresh talent.

The AAF does not particularly cater those who view art purely as an investment. One exception is limited edition series by big-name artists, which serve to make collectibles affordable - and easy to spot – for the masses. At Brussels this year, it was multiples by the German artist Ottmar Hörl (Roses in black, red or gold go for 160 euros signed and numbered, or 80 euros for the “non-investment” version).

To its credit, the AAF does not claim to be anything other that what it is. While its organizers hope that it will serve to demystify contemporary art to the general public, a gateway drug of sorts. Mr. Ramsay concedes that “some people never get beyond the visual,” but rightly points out that many collectors at bigger budget fairs are hardly interested in the intellectual side of the works they buy.

Many galleries do very well out of the AAF. After participating in the London fair since its early years, Richard Chapman of Sheridan Russell Gallery was also in Brussels this year. The gallery, which specializes in sculptures by artists based in Britain, did some research before coming to the city.

“Apparently, the Belgians are the biggest spenders [on art] in Europe per capita,” Mr. Chapman said, adding that research had also suggested that Belgians have a particular fondness for sculpture.

Works displayed by the Robinsons Art Gallery were amongst the most engaging at the Brussels fair. Chinese artist Zhu Yan was born in 1982 but her stark and idiosyncratic paintings tackle the violence and political idolatry of the generation that preceded her. Mixed media “flower” works by Zhuang Hong Yi hung near the works of his younger compatriot.

Ludo Hanegreefs of Robinsons Art Gallery was rather jaded about the push to popularize the art market.

“There is a lot of intellectual pollution here,” said the Belgian gallériste. He argued that the role of the gallery as intermediary, to make an educated and informed selection, is just as important as ever.

New Zealand artists have featured recently in high-end collectors’ fairs such as the Basel Art Fair and the New York International Outsider Art Fair. Certainly the three AAF in the Asia-Pacific region are an opportunity for lesser known artists - economically speaking at least, and for profile.

Photos in descending order
1.) Overview
2.) Rottweiler by Ottmar Hörl, Maisenbacher Art Gallery, Polyvinyl chloride, 2005, Unsigned 300 euros, Signed and numbered 700 euros
3.) Roses by Ottmar Hörl, Maisenbacher Art Gallery, Polyvinyl chloride, 2005, Unsigned 80 euros, Signed and numbered 160 euros
4.) Hand-fed Jackal by David Farrer, Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, Wire, paper-mâché, horse hair, 2009, 2,900 euros
5.) Zhu Yan, Robinsons Art Gallery, Oil on canvas, 2009, 4,400 euros
6.) Flowers by Zhuang Hong Yi, Robinsons Art Gallery, Mixed media, 2009
7.) Sheridan Russell Gallery stand

When outside is in and inside is out

William Hsu
St. Paul St- Gallery 3 (39 Symonds St)
First show of Sculpture Season 2010
Curated by Melissa Laing
11 February - 20 February 2010

In her introduction to this series of AUT shows Melissa Laing writes about the project as ranging from ‘the laborious hand production of the sculptural object’ to ‘its dematerialisation’. Hsu’s project is inclined towards the latter, being mostly pencil drawings on tracing paper – with a couple of functional readymade objects.

The bunkerlike gallery has two halves, one lower than the other and joined by a railed concrete ramp. The higher half was empty but for a standing gas cylinder labelled ‘balloon gas’ and a silver torch resting on a window sill with its narrow beam aimed at an opposite wall that is visible from outside. Outside the building, trapped under the brick archways overlooking the Symonds Street footpath, was a floating white balloon - detectable through the tops of some partially walled over windows.

Most of Hsu’s activity was directed to the lower floor levels, and was a meditation on the flowing properties of water as envisaged through a set of speculative drawings leaning against the wall, of the space being flooded. Calculations of the amount required to fill the space (and time taken - 10 days) were scribbled alongside sketched images of expanding puddles generated by taps located on hypothetical sites on four different floor plans.

The theme of the liberated gas-filled balloon on the top half of the gallery was alluded to in other pencil drawings – made outside - of water leaking out from under the door and iron grill on the Mount St corner, flowing down stone steps, across the footpath and into the drain. Other sketches showed the AUT building towering above the space, it being the source of waste water flowing down through plastic pipes and audible within.

Hsu’s images make us examine the gallery space and its outer environment closely. The rendered concentric puddles look at first glance to be a metaphor for the spreading of ideas and circulation of information. However the pressurised water, constant torch beam and compressed helium also coincidentally seem to refer to a conversation Ross Birrell, the editor of the Scottish online publication Art & Research, had recently in that magazine with Jorge Heiser, the editor of frieze, about Heiser’s paradoxical notion of Romantic Conceptualism and the relationship of the individual to the wider community.

In their discussion Birrell quotes the writer Carl Schmitt’s comments that just ‘as the romantic emotion moves between the compressed ego and expansion into the cosmos, so every point is a circle at the same time and every circle a point. The community is an extended individual, the individual a concentrated community.’ Heiser responds by describing Susan Hiller and the unknown community of artists who made the readymade ‘Wild Sea’ postcards she exhibited in the mid seventies, saying that a single individual can be the ‘medium’ through which an anonymous community speaks.

It might be argued that the porous and interchangeable nature of these two entities is also brought out in Hsu’s show, where ‘compressed’ insides and ‘expanded’ outsides mingle, water leaks through doorways, released gas expands and light (at night) can be seen in distant rooms.

Thank you to the artist for the images.