Billboard of the Week

Spotted in SOL Lanes

Christchurch

September 2009 Ajr

One Pink Finger

This is Digitus Impudicus by Sean Kerr.

Currently showing at Christchurch Art Gallery.

I'm not sure I have anything more to say.

www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

From the Food Files

Denheath Custard Squares!

Say No More.

Words, Words, Words

Christchurch. September 2009. Ajr

Blax Espresso Bar on Montreal Street here in Christchurch has long been a favourite coffee spot of mine - well, until my favourite barista, Darryl went walkabout. Sadly it's never been quite the same since he left. However, I called in last week and found the winds of change have blown through again. Much of the adjacent deli has gone - or at least been shifted into the back corner - and a new seating area with mirrored walls, snappy red seats and a blackboard filled with words have arrived. I like words. I make no secret of that passion. And not just because I'm a writer by profession and intrigued by the expressive power of words; it's also about the actual visual beauty of words - the typography, the shapes, the curvatures and of course, the spaces between - those rich breeding grounds of allusion and thought. By chance, the team at Blax have topped this wordy expanse with another of my favourite things - cheese boxes, more than that even, cheese boxes covered in words! The cafe itself may not have quite the zing and atmosphere it used to have but I will return - if only to sit and gaze at this wordy wall and allow my thoughts and memories to bubble up between the chalked-out list.

Len Lye - The Book

Image Courtesy Govett-Brewster Gallery & Len Lye Foundation

And so to another stunning publication from Govett-Brewster Gallery, this time in partnership with the Len Lye Foundation. Co-edited by the gallery’s Len Lye curator, Tyler Cann and poet, writer, critic, Wystan Curnow, ‘Len Lye,’ the book showcases one of New Zealand’s most inspirational and influential artists, throwing fresh light on the incredible diversity of his career. Len Lye (1901-1980) is best known in New Zealand as a kinetic sculptor but his international reputation was built around his experimental work in film. Poet, painter, experimental filmmaker and sculptor, Lye was born in Christchurch and travelled throughout the South Pacific and Australia, later working his passage to Britain on a steamship in 1926. He moved to New York in 1944. His work has featured in over 50 major exhibitions worldwide including in Paris’ Pompidou Centre, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and London’s Tate Modern. For this new look into his life and work – the most comprehensive visual presentation to date – over 1,000 new photographs were created and hundreds of them have been included in the book. The publication coincides with the largest and most comprehensive Len Lye exhibition ever, currently showing in the heart of Melbourne at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. In addition to all of that, I love the fact that Scottish poet, Alastair Reid declared Lye “the least boring person who ever lived.” Len Lye, the book is available through bookstores nationwide and it will be officially launched at the Govett-Brewster Gallery on September 25. http://www.govettbrewster.com/

StreetscapeNZ - 44

Queen Street & Mayoral Drive

Auckland April 2009. Ajr

Signs of Art

Christchurch. September 2009. Ajr

I'm not sure what it is about the word ART but I find myself driven to photographing it - often, over and over! Maybe it's about the multiple resonances the word has for me personally; maybe it's about the fact that this one tiny, three-letter word packs such a powerful punch - for so many people in so many ways. I'm not going to analyse my attraction to the word beyond that. I'm just going to bring you my latest ART sign - this one imbued with so much more by virtue of the accompanying words. I ground to a halt underneath it - at Riccarton Rotary Market. Suffice to say, I wasn't driven to photographing the goods for sale underneath the sign.

The Art of Buildings

Christchurch. September 2009. Ajr

We're a little sparse on detail here given that I photographed this work from at least six feet away, but I hope it gives a tiny hint of the beauty of Sukjoon Jang's binary-like photographic slithers of the stone buildings within the Christchurch Arts Centre. South Korean Jang was artist-in-residence at the Arts Centre earlier this year and many of her works are currently on show on bus stops and billboards around town - I featured some of them here last week in fact. I particularly like this series and the way the works turn the architectural heft of our Victorian Gothic stone buildings to something ephemeral and delicate. The location of this work too - tucked away under the elaborate staircase in the huge clocktower - is a nice surprise. It's like discovering a small glowing jewel in a dark corner.

It's all in the Title

Christchurch. September 2009. Ajr

I photographed this work last week in The Kiosk, that terrific little miniature exhibition space that stands amid pedestrian walkways at the juncture of High, Manchester and Lichfield Streets in central Christchurch. It’s gone now. I’m not sorry. The rather amorphous looking, glazed (ceramic?) mass had me scratching my head. Apart from its rather pleasing colour, nothing about it ‘sung out to me;’ I could make no associations to anything in the interior filing cabinet of my visual storehouse. Then I went around the other side of The Kiosk and saw ‘Adam Willetts: Sludge Beast from the Cosmic Nostril,’ written across the top of the glazed box. Quite frankly, the title and the reflections of the city beyond grabbed my attention far more than the work itself – which, if I’m at my cynical best, looks like a studio accident that the artist then decided to use anyway, christening it with the first title he could think of that somehow described it. I’m looking forward to a more arresting Kiosk placement next time round - it is after all, one of my favourite ‘gallery’ spaces. And if you'd like to see other works that have been displayed in The Kiosk, click on Kiosk or Physics Room in the label line below this post. The Physics Room website also has a comprehensive list (with photos) of all recent exhibitors. www.physicsroom.org.nz

Small Moments of Greed

Hokey-Pokey Cheesecake

An Afternoon Sin

In Sumner

Showtime 4 - Putting on a Show

It’s been a long time since I went to an A&P show - Agricultural & Pastoral for those overseas who may not know what an A&P show is. But as a kid growing up in the Waikato, they were part of the annual calendar. I wasn’t a farmer’s daughter but A&P shows have a way of luring in entire communities wherever they are held in New Zealand – and in Australia. My last association with A&P shows was as an agricultural journalist in the Wairarapa about 20 years ago – reporting on show events, interviewing stud farmers, photographing shearers and wood-choppers – all the fun of the fair as they say. And then last year, when I was in Melbourne and its rural environs for three weeks – that’s Australia by the way, not New Zealand – I visited the Kyneton Show. What a treat. Everything much the same as our smaller rural shows – the cows, the poultry, the horses, the dogs, the machinery demonstrations, the side shows and ferris wheels – with the added bonus of something distinctly Australian – red dust and a poisonous snake display.

This year, I’m priming myself for a return to the A&P show scene – yes, already – for the Canterbury A&P Association’s annual show, which has been delighting visitors every year since its inception in 1862. The association was granted the rights to host the Royal New Zealand Show until 2012 inclusive and that has inspired a new level of excellence among livestock competitors and judges alike. It’s the most prestigious agricultural event of the year – over 120,000 people attended in 2008 - and whether you’re a food and wine lover, a daredevil or an animal fan, you’re going to find something to please. There will be over 7,000 livestock and feature competition entries, a grand parade, and around 600 trade exhibits; and during the three days of the show over 3,000 horses, 1,000 sheep, 900 cattle, 300 alpacas and hundreds of other animals from dairy goats to sheep dogs, converge on Canterbury Agricultural Park at Wigram, in Christchurch. It’s all part of New Zealand Cup and Show Week, the 10-day festival that contributes over $27-million to the local economy. If you want to check out this year’s programme and get yourself some of the first tickets, check out http://www.nzcupandshow.co.nz/ and there’s additional info at http://www.theshow.co.nz/ This year’s Royal New Zealand Show will be held on Wednesday, November 11, Thursday 12 and Friday 13th. All images courtesy Christchurch City Council, NZ Cup & Show Week.

Shoe Shuffle

Red Shoe

With Roses

Merivale Mall If you're a shoe fan click on Shoes in the label line below this post to check out others I've featured in recent months

Thinking of Japan

Last weekend when I was cycling around the inner city, I took a side track down Poplar Lane and was delighted to find this Japanese chef at work outside a new 'hole-in-the-wall' Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. A number of people, including me, stopped to ask him what he was making - cheese balls as it turns out, which seems decidedly un-Japanese to me but who am I to quibble? I was just delighted to find something new and interesting in the area. For all the good that Poplar and SOL Lanes have done to invigorate the city by night, they are, more often than not, empty, cold and uninviting by day. I've never seen a crowd in there yet....well.....maybe in summer but that's only at the bars; retail foot traffic is virtually negligable. In the end, I forgot to note the name of this little Japanese place, which is a perfectly good excuse for me to go back there today to sample the food. It reminded me of the cute little eateries that filled the back lanes in Japanese cities. No matter where I went, I was never far from a tiny restaurant or sushi bar where I could almost guarantee tasty food and attentive service.

Billboard of the Week

Christchurch Town Hall

August 2009. Ajr

Cool Cars - 53

One Red VW Combi Van - Spotted in a Christchurch back street.

One Morning at ......

mondo

High Street, Christchurch

August 2009 Ajr

Barry's Provocative Unpublished Minutes - 65

"Information." Another in the ink-jet print series by one of New Zealand's leading printmakers

Bennett Reflections

Christchurch. August 2009. Ajr

It’s been a while since I brought you any works by Christchurch sculptor, Graham Bennett so here’s one that I snapped at The Art House as I biked passed the gallery last weekend. I was captivated by the shadows as much as the work – no slur on Graham’s sculpture, that’s just the way I am. If you click on Graham Bennett in the label line below this post, you’ll be able to see other beautiful Bennett sculptures and he also appears in my Artist Studios series. www.bennettsculpture.biz www.thearthouse.co.nz

Art in the Back Lanes

Christchurch. August 2009. Ajr

Further to my post about Korean artist, Sukjoon Yang and 'art in the streets' earlier in the week, here's some more new art (of a different kind) in the streets. These two pieces have beeen created in Poplar Lane and I love the injection of colour set off by the rust-red brick walls. I'm not going to prattle on about the beauties of street art; I always seem to be doing that. Suffice to say I am celebrating the placement of these two works.

Art in the Streets

Art has once again taken to the streets in Christchurch. I like that. I’m a great believer in art ‘going out to the people.’ I love the unexpectedness of coming upon a work of art in the everyday environment; and, placed among the flotsam and jetsam of our everyday existence, it has so much potential power to make us reassess our approach to art. I’m one of those people who actually sees art everywhere, in every corner of every street and I still believe most people move through their daily lives with their visual stimuli completely numbed over, missing a million visual miracles. That’s largely what this entire blog is about – communicating the small visual treasures that I see and experience everyday.

SO…. when someone like Korean artist, Sukjoon Jang ‘formalises’ art in the environment, I get very excited. Jang was artist-in-residence at the Christchurch Arts Centre in April-May this year and her large work, “Toyland” has been on show in the windows of SOFA Gallery in the Arts Centre for several months. Its stained glass, jewel-like colours give this grand old building a subtle visual lift. From a distance it looks like its always been there – just like stained glass; but when you get up close, you notice that Yang has compiled a colourful photographic montage of ‘a thousand’ coloured doors that she photographed in Christchurch industrial areas. Singly, the images are nothing special, but fused together into her enormous jigsaw-like montages, they take on a glowing new life. Who knew our industrial areas could look so good? Now Sukjoon Yang’s works have ‘marched’ beyond the Arts Centre to colonise the advertising spaces of notice boards and bus stops. I love the idea – and the way her large photographic prints (“social landscape photography” she calls it) are lighting up otherwise dull corners of suburbia.