The Gallery is currently closed to the public. GALLERY SHOP FRIENDS OF CHRISTCHURCH Spring Our off-site exhibition space is upstairs at Tel: (+64 3) 941 7370 ART GALLERY September—November 212 Madras Street and the Gallery Shop is Email: [email protected] 2012 now open at 40 Lichfield Street. EDUCATION BOOKINGS CHRISTCHURCH ART CHRISTCHURCH ART GALLERY Email: artgallery.schools GALLERY TRUST TE PUNA O WAIWHETU @ccc.govt.nz Tel: (+64 3) 353 4352 Cnr Worcester Boulevard and Montreal Street, PO Box 2626, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand Tel: (+64 3) 941 7300 Fax: (+64 3) 941 7301 www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz Email: [email protected] B.169 EDITOR Bulletin Spring DAVID SIMPSON Christchurch Art Gallery September—November Te Puna o Waiwhetu 2012 GALLERY CONTRIBUTORS DIRECTOR: JENNY HARPER CURATORIAL TEAM: KEN HALL, FELICITY MILBURN, PETER VANGIONI PUBLIC PROGRAMMES: LANA COLES PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN COLLIE OTHER CONTRIBUTORS Pippin Barr, ROSE Campbell, Scott Flanagan, Jessica Halliday, Melanie Oliver, Ralph Rugoff, Flavio Villani TEL: (+64 3) 941 7300 FAX: (+64 3) 941 7301 EMAIL: [email protected], [email protected] PLEASE SEE THE BACK COVER FOR MORE DETAILS. WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE ARTICLES. CURRENT DIRECT SPONSORS OF THE GALLERY CHARTWELL TRUST CHRISTCHURCH ART GALLERY TRUST CHRISTCHURCH CITY COUNCIL CREATIVE NEW ZEALAND FRIENDS OF CHRISTCHURCH ART GALLERY GABRIELLE TASMAN GIESEN WINES MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC SPECTRUM PRINT STRATEGY DESIGN AND ADVERTISING TELSTRACLEAR THE PRESS DESIGN AND PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR: GUY PASK EDITORIAL DESIGN: MATT KITTO, LEON WHITE PRODUCTION MANAGER: DAYLE DIREEN PRINTING: SPECTRUM PRINT ISSN 1176-0540 (Print) ISSN 1179-6715 (Online) Contents B.169 4 DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD A few words from director Jenny Harper 5 EXHIBITIONS SCHEDULE A rundown of what we’re showing around town now 6 REMEMBERING TO Ralph Rugoff on contemporary FORGET TO REMEMBER monumania 12 OUT OF PLACE Felicity Milburn looks at the fourth entry in the Rolling Maul series 16 BORING AND Jessica Halliday on three INTERESTING Christchurch photographers 22 ALL YOUR BRINGIN’ Peter Vangioni looks at Jason IS DOWN Greig’s Jekyll and Hyde 26 TELLING STORIES Bulletin talks to pianists Rose Campbell and Flavio Villani 31 MAKING A DIFFERENCE Christchurch Art Gallery Trust 32 THE YEAR IN REVIEW A summary of the year in business at the Gallery 34 GET ON THE PROPERTY Peter Vangioni on Tony de LADDER Lautour’s Unreal Estate publication 36 GOOD GAME, BUT IS Pippin Barr on the art of IT ART video games 44 FROM WHITE DARKNESS Felicity Milburn talks to Ruth Watson 48 JUSTENE WILLIAMS Melanie Oliver on this Australian video artist 52 STAFF PROFILE Gallery Shop manager 53 PAGEWORK #15 Scott Flanagan 56 MY FAVOURITE Moata Tamaira makes her choice 58 BACK MATTER News bites from around the Gallery Cover: Michael Parekowhai Chapman’s Homer (detail) The Gallery Shop has now relocated to 40 2011. Bronze, stainless steel. LICHFIELD ST Courtesy of the artist and Michael Lett, Auckland THE GALLERY SHOP Lichfield Street, with a huge range of exciting DURHAM ST LICHFIELD ST new gifts, stationery, books, prints and cards. Inside cover: Installation COLOMBO ST COLOMBO view of Reconstruction: Please note: The opinions put forward in this magazine are not necessarily CENTRAL Conversations on a City, those of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. All images reproduced LIBRARY STATION See you there. Open 7 days / 10am – 4pm July 2012 courtesy of the artist or copyright holder unless otherwise stated. TUAM ST christchurchartgallery.org.nz/shop 3 Director’s Foreword Jenny Harper Exhibitions Programme September, October, November public consultation, Council agreed to fully base isolate the We have become increasingly active in cyberspace, WAYNE YOULE: I SEEM TO HAVE Pressed Letters: Fine PrintinG in Reconstruction: Conversations ON AndrÉ Hemer Gallery building as part of the repair schedule. There are attending to a lot of back-of-house work to enable a TEMPORARILY MISPLACED MY SENSE New Zealand Since 1975 A City 29 September – 21 October two key reasons for this: to allow us to once more become better and more authoritative web presence. We have OF HUMOUR Until 23 September Until 14 October André Hemer’s many-dimensioned Rolling a building which can attract loans from elsewhere; and made a number of substantial steps forward throughout Ongoing An exhibition presenting some of the finest Tracking the story of Christchurch / Ōtautahi Maul project combines projection, installation to ensure less operational downtime if we were to suffer the year, managing to get our entire collection online, Stretching more than thirty-five metres examples of letterpress printing produced from its earliest years, Reconstruction and a range of secondary outputs to play with a similar major event in this region. forging on with the Getty Tagging project, launching our across a wall at the gateway to the suburb in New Zealand from 1975 to the present and offers a compelling visual account of how ideas of distance and deletion—with particular As our local readers will know, once we better understood mobile website and, of course, creating My Gallery. We’ve of Sydenham in Christchurch, Wayne Youle’s highlighting the collaborative ethic that often this place came to be. In acknowledging loss, reference to one very special work from the the length of time it would take to reopen, Gallery staff expanded into social media, and can be found on Facebook, gigantic shadowboard is a homage to all those exists between poets, artists and printers. the exhibition also asks whether the city can Gallery’s collection. quickly worked together to turn adversity into something Twitter, YouTube and Flickr—all forms of communication involved in the rebuilding effort in Christchurch, Featuring Joanna Margaret Paul, Ian Wedde, be rebuilt as a place of genuine quality and NG, 212 Madras St positive and to become a ‘gallery without walls’, dramatically that have allowed us to be more nimble and responsive in and a remembrance of the many precious Bill Manhire, Ralph Hotere, Alan Loney, Max interest if it undervalues the significance of its extending our concept of the Outer Spaces—a programme getting our message out. things that were lost in the earthquakes. Gimblett, Tara McLeod and Brendan O’Brien. rich architectural heritage past. Stereoscope: Kristin Hollis previously devised for the spaces around the Gallery itself. You may already have seen our shop in its new location Colombo Street, between Carlye and Central Library Peterborough Worcester Boulevard, between Durham and 12 October – 23 November So, as it turns out, we’ve exhibited quite a lot of art, opening in the Rexel Building on Lichfield Street—if you haven’t Byron streets Montreal streets Christchurch-based artist Kristin Hollis presentations of various sizes and scopes and working been yet, make sure you visit soon. We’re there alongside Scott FlanaGan: DO You RememBer ME provides the next instalment in the with artists of local and international repute to present the new Central Library Tuam. It’s another nice connection, Kay Rosen: Here are the people and Like I DO? Justene Williams: She Came Over Stereoscope series. work throughout the city. as we’re also co-presenting a major work by Richard Killeen there is the steeple Until 23 September SinGinG Like A Drainpipe ShakinG Spoon Christchurch Art Gallery Precinct AS YOU READ THIS, the public spaces of our Gallery building Across the other side of the red zone from the Gallery, and our Pressed Letters exhibition at the Central Library Ongoing Conceptual in origin, Scott Flanagan’s works Infused MIXers are largely abandoned and it all feels eerily empty—a we’ve been using the upstairs exhibition space at NG as a Peterborough. A mural project for the Gallery’s east rear wall, are often produced using a methodical Until 28 February Miranda Parkes/ TJallinG de Vries fact that we could easily be downcast about. But since Christchurch Art Gallery outpost to present the Rolling All-in-all, I’m extremely proud of the way that, as an inspired by the shape of the wall, by the words and labour-intensive approach. His latest Embracing outmoded and obsolete video 27 October – 18 November this edition of Bulletin comes at the end of our financial Maul project series, which will continue until early 2013. We institution, we have continued to approach what we do ‘people’ and ‘steeple’, by the recent and past installation includes a wishing well and mirror equipment in the production of her vibrantly Miranda Parkes and Tjalling de Vries share year and contains our annual ‘Year in Review’, it’s a good interrupted this series in July to show Michael Parekowhai’s and proud also of the new and interesting ways that our history of the city and by the children’s finger painstakingly woven from reflective black VHS theatrical video work, Australian artist Justene an interest in expanding of abstract painting moment also to consider what has been achieved despite breathtaking On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, staff have continued to present art. What I realise more game. The work hopes to send a large-scale tape and considers the surprisingly elusive Williams uses performance and ephemeral beyond its traditional borders. They join forces (or perhaps because of) our continued closure. which was a huge success. As in Venice, where it was New fully now than a year ago, is how privileged we are to be message about rebuilding a city by, and upon nature of civic memory. materials to produce a sensory overload in a new Rolling Maul show that explores When we published our last review in September 2011, Zealand’s 2011 Biennale presentation, a large number of in the position of doing what we do in this city at this the foundation of, its people.