More Mueck Ladies

A continuing parade of the little of ladies 'spying on Christchurch.'

Ron Mueck continues at Christchurch Art Gallery until January 23, 2011.

www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Ron Mueck - Two Women

Above: Two Women 2005.

Photographed at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

February 2010.

When Kelly Gellatly wrote of Ron Mueck's Two Women 2005 in the Ron Mueck catalogue, she spoke of the artist's ability to undercut the stereotypes into which old women normally fall - "the warm, loving, cuddly grandmother-type...wise, generous, jolly....or the wizened old crone of fairytale fame." And in Mueck's major touring exhibition, now showing at Christchurch Art Gallery, I am reminded again of Gellatly's words and her observation that "part of the shock of seeing Mueck's women," is the fact that they would be so ordinary, so indistinguishable and unremarkable in a crowd.

Above: Two Women 2005 Photographed at Christchurch Art Gallery, Nov.2010

Christchurch Posters "From their ashen faces, thinning hair and osteoporosis-ridden backs, through to their slip-on shoes and bunched, wrinkled tights collected at their ankles," she writes, "there is a conspiratorial, gossipy and decidedly critical air to their encounter....." There's a distinct feeling they're watching you, talking about you, sniggering perhaps, or tut-tutting as they consider the modern world passing them by - both within the gallery and outside on the street, as they peer at you from posters scattered throughout the city.

Mueck's show first opened in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria on February 21, 2010 and then went to Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane before coming to Christchurch. When I was visiting the Melbourne show in February, I interviewed NGV's Curator of Australian Art Exhibitions, David Hurlston, who spoke of Mueck's work, the artist's reclusive nature and his own visit to Mueck's North London studio. He spoke of the compelling nature of Mueck's giant sculptures - their 'WOW factor', and their links back to Rennaissance, Medieval and Greek portrayals of the human form. He talked about Mueck's studio and the artist's traditional approach to working and his sketching and absorbing of a wide range of influences. "He draws influences from the people around him, from people in the street, a moment he sees, a smile, the stance of a woman looking in a window - they're etched in his mind and he takes those back to his studio where he begins with sketches and a clay marquette," says Hurlston. "He has an incredible gift of being able to give life to those observations."

Mueck's North London studio is located in a beautiful old stable building at the end of a lane - "a very romantic, storybook artist studio," says Hurlston. It is a mass of 'body parts,' scaffolding, boxes filled with eyeballs and mannequins - "a head here, an arm there; a level of disarray but also an incredible orderliness. He knows where everything is. You look at the finished pieces and there is a quality about them that alludes to a clean environment; but it's not, it's messy, dirty and over 100-years-old."

Mueck has been quoted as saying "I am a misanthrope." Hurlston describes him as "shy, an enigma, someone who often chooses to be alone." He doesn't like talking about his work either and normally shuns all media interviews. He's very self-effacing. "We had a journalist interview organised to promote the Melbourne show but Mueck vanished ten minutes before it was due to take place. That was no surprise to me," says Hurlston.

Ten years ago Mueck was virtually unknown as an artist and his meteoric rise to international fame has given rise to critics as well as fans. "There are some in the art world who say he hasn't done the hard yards, that he has no art school training, that his work is gimmicky. He's gone from an unknown to the top of the heap in a very short time. His work is attention-grabbing but he's very honest and having seen him at work, having seen his artistic sensibility at play and heard him talk about his observations and his work, I don't think that's true. The proof of how his work touches and attracts people is in the exhibition numbers - over 50,000 in Melbourne in the first 36 days of the show and on average around 1,200 people a day. He sees himself as an outsider in the contemporary art world and he doesn't aspire to sensationalist antics. I believe he's ultimately going to be judged as one of the really important artists of our day," says Hurlston.

www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz www.ngv.vic.govt.au www.qag.qld.gov.au

Ron Mueck continues at Christchurch Art Gallery until January 23, 2011

Art on High

Christchurch Art Gallery's Worcester Street wall has had a change of exterior art work. Jae Hoon Lee's spectacular Himalayan mountain scene 'Annapurna' is the latest work in the gallery's excellent OUTER SPACES programme that showcases art works in specific locations away from the main interior exhibition galleries. This huge digital piece is a compilation, or rather a merging, of dozens of travel photographs that Lee took on his recent travels to Nepal. I appreciate that technology has its limits but I would have liked to have seen this work made even bigger - at least half as big again. I can't help thinking that despite the immensity of the mountains themselves, the work looks a little bit lost on the giant gallery wall. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

On the Surface

"One for the Mother - Allsorts" - 2010.

Photo Ajr

It seems more than a little fitting that this bright, playful work by Wayne Youle (Ngapuhi, Ngati Whakaeke), has delivered a colourful new surface to the usually staid, grey car park bunker in the forecourt of Christchurch Art Gallery. Youle, after all, is a man known for his attention to surface detail and for slick, 'pop-art-style' works that playfully challenge bicultural stereotypes. For me personally, this work is less challenging, more fun. It's as if some giant licorice allsort has fallen from the sky and landed on the tiny patch of green in front of the gallery. It reminds me of some of his earlier tiki works - brightly coloured tikis that had the look of lickable lollipops. The work is part of the gallery's excellent OUTER SPACES progamme that promotes art works outside the main gallery building - a concept I'm right behind. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Ron Mueck - Prepare to be Amazed.

When the Ron Mueck Sculpture show opens at Christchurch Art Gallery this Friday night, there will be plenty of astounded viewers. Mueck has an uncanny ability to create astonishingly life-like works, as you can see from these photographs that I took at his Melbourne show at the National Gallery of Victoria in February.

And it doesn't matter how many times you see the images, or how many times you stand in front of the actual sculptures, there is still a sense of wonder about them. Yet for all the realism, Mueck's distorting scale is what generates the most power I think - the gigantic man (above), the tiny, fragile doll-like old woman in bed (the most powerful and moving of all the works for me), and these two adorable old ladies standing on a plinth, hardly as big as a five-year-old. It becomes realism with a disturbing twist that you will continue to think about long after leaving the exhibition. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Observation / Action / Reflection

I met New Zealand sculptor, Andrew Drummond, twenty-three years ago - in 1987 - when I was living in Wanganui. He arrived there as the Sarjeant Gallery's Artist-in-Residence at Tylee Cottage. Wanganui was a small community, especially in the arts field and it wasn't long before we crossed paths. Later, when Andrew was beginning work on a major installation in the Sarjeant Gallery Dome, he needed some 'manual labour' to help weave the forms that would make up the installation. It just so happened that I had spent several years previous to that - in my days as a young married mother in Auckland - weaving baskets as a sideline. And so we took to willow weaving in a big way. And, being the stickler for detail that I am, I also photographed the entire process - right through to an opening night fortified by copious champagne cocktails - and compiled the images into a handmade book. (I was working as an artist myself at the time and handmade artist books were, and still are, a particular passion).

I've included a few photographs of some pages from the resulting book (above), which hides away in a cabinet with the dozens of other books I've made at one time or another.

"Viewing Device, Counter Rotating" 2008-10. Christchurch Art Gallery Foyer. Image AJR

All that, by way of a convoluted introduction to the fact that Andrew Drummond opens a major exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery this week. Observation / Action/ Reflection is Drummond's first comprehensive survey exhibition and when it opens on Thursday night, it is bound to intrigue and mesmerise. As his foyer work above demonstrates - Drummond has come a long way from weaving organic works like his "Coming and Going" of twenty-three years ago - materially at least, for even then his gigantic, ambitious works had a seductive power. But his commitment to art, his ideals, his philosophies have never wavered.

Andrew Drummond Counter-Rotating andEarthing Device 2000. Brass, glass, copper, electrical system. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. A visit to Drummond's Christchurch studio is an eye-opener. Like his sculptures, the environment is huge and technical - more like an engineer's workshop in fact. And yet the resulting kinetic works that come out of it - sleek, shiny, mechanical wonders - have a disconcerting power that draws you in, a kind of robotic humanity that sets you to thinking about all manner of things.........."where quirky, individualistic machines, making use of water, air, electricity and light parody your own individualism, bodily mechanisms and human sensory systems," wrote art historian John Finlay recently.

Andrew Drummond Vented Hanging Device with Shelter 1994. Mixed Media. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. Photograph: Lloyd Park. Drummond never shies away from testing his creative, physical and intellectual limits - nor those of the viewer - no matter what it takes. He has an idea - and he does everything in his power to bring it to reality. And in the lead-up to his survey exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery, I for one am eagerly anticipating a spectacular show of innovative, captivating works with a 'presence' that will send many away re-thinking what art is and can be.

Andrew Drummond room for Observation (detail) 2003. Mixed media. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. Photograph: Brendan Lee.

Andrew Drummond: Observation / Action /Reflections opens at ChristchurchArt Gallery on May 14 and runs through to September 5, 2010.

www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Art Meets Engineering

Christchurch Art Gallery is currently teasing us with two spectacular foyer works by acclaimed Christchurch sculptor, Andrew Drummond. They're the forerunner to Drummond's first comprehensive survey exhibition - Observation/Action/Reflection - that opens at Christchurch Art Gallery in May. The survey show covers a diverse range of works from 1980-2010 - everything from sculpture, installation, documentation of performance art, drawing, photography and technology. The above work is "Viewing Device, Counter-Rotating" steel, aluminium, air-system, paint 2008-2010. Partially-funded by Creative New Zealand, it is suspended the full height of the gallery's glass foyer - a powerful, mechanical presence that quietly glows and rotates, catching the exterior light and instilling a sense of wonder in viewers. Higher up on an interior wall, Counter-Rotating and Earthing Device, 'hisses and whirrs' as it brushes past a glass and copper earth-plate, causing a visible and audible electrical charge. Together, they provide obvious clues to Drummond's passion for technological innovation and precision engineering - and to his ability to "combine aesthetics and technology to create machines that reference both nineteenth-century and cutting-edge inventions. His full exhibition runs from May 14 to September 5. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Outer Spaces

One of the latest work's in Christchurch Art Gallery's 'Outer Spaces' series, is the very appropriately-named 'Things To Do With Paint That Won't Dry' - a laminate and digital print on vinyl adhesive that artist, Andre Hemer has applied to the gallery's waterfall. I like it. The bands of coloured paint that appear to flow over the edge of the water feature remind me of graffiti and I fear that, once removed, their absence will only draw attention to just how unerringly dull and grey that side of the building is. It's just another of the Outer Spaces series that I think, should be permanent fixtures. www.christchurartgallery.org.nz

Sara Hughes - For Kultur

Both images: For Kultur - Sara Hughes, 2010, Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Photography David Frost The last time I featured work by Auckland artist Sara Hughes, was when she embellished Christchurch Art Gallery with her sensational coloured stripes....and you can see that work by clicking on Sara's name in the label line below this post. If nothing else, it will give you an excellent counterpoint to her current show at Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery - a warm, enticing show that is proving to be a winner with visitors to the gallery.

Three images above: For Kultur - Sara Hughes, 2010, Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Photography David Frost For Kultur is colourful installation and Hughes's first exhibition in New Zealand since returning from her pretigious art residency in Berlin. The work is Hughes's unexpected response to the wealth of objects held by the Hawke's Bay Cultural Trust and it brings a fresh perspective to the positions museums play in preserving the stories of our communities, histories and cultures.

Bottom image above: For Kultur - Sara Hughes (Detail), 2010, Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Photography David Frost.

Top image above: For Kultur - Sara Hughes, 2010, Hawke's Bay Cultural trust/Ruawharo Ta-u-Rangi, Pincushion, R165/18d, Photography David Frost. With over 100,000 individual items collected over 150 years, the Hawke's Bay Cultural Trust's collections offered the ideal place for Hughes to explore these ideas. Over the past six months she has been working closely with the the Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery team, discovering and uncovering different items within the collection. This research sparked an interest in how diverse objects can come together to create new meanings.

Applying these ideas to her practice as a visual artist, Hughes embarked on creating a collection of her own, exploring the different voices and associations that develop between her new objects and those held by the collections of the Hawke's Bay Cultural Trust.

The end result is a charming assembly of familiar objects that (literally) throw new light onto the subject of collecting. Unlike many installation shows that often strike terror into the hearts of the 'artistically uninitiated', For Kultur, is an inviting display that is drawing in enthusiastic audiences. It is the final major exhibition at Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery in the lead-up to the gallery's closure for re-development during 2010. A separate artwork by Hughes will become a significant feature of the new Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery wing when it re-opens. For Kultur runs until June 27. All images supplied by Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery. www.hbmag.co.nz

It's All in the Feet.

Excuse me for seeming a little preoccupied with feet. I don't have a foot fetish - nothing even slightly resembling one; but I do believe an artist's skill can be measured somewhat by their ability to execute human feet and hands, whether that be in painting or sculpture. Thus it was, that I found myself intrigued by the feet of the Ron Mueck sculptures at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. So lifelike as to be surreal. Ranging from the 'tiny' toes of a (giant) newborn baby to the hairy toes of 'Wild Man' and the mesmerising feet of "Dead Dad," each pair of feet seemed more expressive than the last. London-based, Melbourne-born Mueck is internationally known for the astonishing realism of his sculptures - all of which capture something of the timeless human condition. His show continues at NGV until April 18th and then moves to Queensland Art Gallery (may 8 - August 8), before crossing the Tasman to open at its only New Zealand venue, Christchurch Art Gallery (Sept 30 - January 23, 2011).

Mueck on Show

How delighted was I, when I discovered on a recent visit to Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria, that London-based, Melbourne-born artist Ron Mueck is all for new media; and all for gallery visitors photographing his astonishing sculptures. He's happy for people to take snaps and send them out into the technosphere via facebook, blogs or Twitter - a refreshing stance given that most major galleries still prohibit photography (certainly flash photography), regardless of the fact that they must be losing the battle against tiny modern cameras and cellphones.

Ron Mueck's NGV show is currently breaking all projected visitor records. Viewers are enchanted and enthralled by his realist sculptures and the same thing is sure to happen in Brisbane, when the show moves there in a few weeks' time. And New Zealanders will also get the chance to stand and gaze in awe, when the show comes to Christchurch Art Gallery in October. In preparation for interviewing the gallery's Curator of Australian Art, I had read masses of publicity material on Ron Mueck, seen dozens of images of his works and felt I knew exactly what to expect when I stepped into the show. Suffice to say, I was wrong. No amount of pre-reading prepared me for the emotion impact of the works, their eerie realism, or the degree to which Mueck has captured the essence of humanity in each of them.

Nor was I prepared for the general audience reaction to the works - and being a consummate observer - that's one of the elements of the exhibition I enjoyed the most. While gallery visitors shuffled slowly through the show, I was taking photographs of them taking photographs of the sculptures. I did feel slightly voyueristic at one point and my actions seemed to amuse the security guards but I 'fought bravely on.' I think you could have a very successful second Mueck exhibition - the audience reactions captured in photographs. I wonder if that's ever been done before?

In the meantime, here are a few of my audience photographs for you to browse. And for any New Zealanders checking in, this is one show at Christchurch Art Gallery you won't want to miss - and don't forget to cast your eyes about at the other visitors trying to absorb the uncanny realism of Mueck's works.

www.ngv.vic.gov.au www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Where's the Art?

It seems almost unbelievable that people would walk into a major art gallery and ask ‘where’s the art?’ But that’s what was happening at Christchurch Art Gallery. Hence this new signage – bold and colourful on either side of the central stairwell. I like it but then I’m a sucker for a good sign anyway - I have whole series of photographs dedicated solely to signs of assorted themes. (Click on Signs in the label line below this post if you're interested in seeing some). I never personally had any trouble ‘finding the art’ but I think this injection of pictorial information at the bottom of the stairs is a very good addition to the gallery’s foyer…..a foyer I love but some do find cavernous and slightly daunting. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz