Jim Allen
Alberto García Alvarez
Edith Amituanai
Ruth Buchanan
Philip Dadson
Alicia Frankovich
Marti Friedlander
Simon Glaister
Murray Hewitt
Simon Ingram
Janet Lilo
Len Lye
Judy Millar
Dane Mitchell
Alex Monteith
Simon Morris
Fiona Pardington
Campbell Patterson
Rachael Rakena
Lisa Reihana
Peter Robinson
Sriwhana Spong
Francis Upritchard
Daniel von Sturmer
John Ward-Knox
Leonhard Emmerling
Aaron Kreisler
Artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand.The exhibition title derives from a 1974 performance by Jim Allen at Auckland Art Gallery that was based on a broad definition of 'contact' as a mental, physical, and social interdependency and reflects a time in which New Zealand artists sought various paths to confront the past and its cultural context.
curated by Leonhard Emmerling (DE, Munich) and Aaron Kreisler (NZ, Dunedin)
On the occasion of the participation of New Zealand as Guest of Honor at the 2012 Frankfurt
Book Fair, Frankfurter Kunstverein presents the group exhibition CONTACT. ARTISTS FROM
AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND. The title derives from a 1974 performance by Jim Allen at
Auckland Art Gallery that was based on a broad definition of “contact” as a mental, physical, and
social interdependency and reflects a time in which New Zealand artists sought various paths to
confront the past and its cultural context. “Contact” refers to the interrelationship between the
two dominant ethnicities in bicultural Aotearoa/New Zealand: the indigenous Māori and the
white settlers, “Pakeha.”
The exhibition at Frankfurter Kunstverein unites paintings, photography, films, and installations
by 25 New Zealand artists, creating a complex portrait of artistic production in the last forty years
in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It offers a multifaceted perspective on a highly active and
heterogeneous artistic scene within the context of contemporary discourse.
New Zealand was and is a country in which diverse cultural influences manifest themselves in
numerous ways. Some 850 years ago, Polynesian seafarers settled on the South Pacific islands
where previously only birds, reptiles, and insects had lived. In the late 18th and early 19th
centuries, the descendants of these explorers, today’s Māori, were faced with an increasing
number of primarily British settlers. They signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which promised
the Māori sovereignty over their land and at the same time established the supremacy of the
British Crown. This treaty, whose original exists only as a fragment, forms the basis of the
bicultural identity of New Zealand, which has been official policy since the establishment of the
Waitangi Tribunal in 1975, and which is still much debated today. Several new immigration waves
from European countries, the Pacific Islands, South Africa, Black Africa, Asia, and the Arab
region, challenge the previous agreement of biculturalism with a multicultural reality that is still
being negotiated, sociologically, theoretically, politically, and practically. Especially in the
Auckland metropolitan area, this conflict has led to segregation, ghettoization, gated
communities, violence, and crime.
Well into the middle of the 20th century, Great Britain dominated New Zealand not only
politically, but also artistically. It was only in the 1960s that painters such as Colin McCahon and
Gordon Walters looked to North American art alongside that of the European continent and
returned to New Zealand with modernist ideas. Other artists were like Len Lye, a pioneer of
abstract film, who left his homeland early on and was fully disregarded until the 1980s.
For Jim Allen (* 1922, Wellington), his travels to France, Great Britain, the United States, and
Mexico signaled turning points in his artistic practice. In Paris, London, Chicago, and New York
he was witness to student revolts; in Mexico he became acquainted with the work of Hélio
Oiticicas, whose Parangolés he referenced in one part of the three-part performance at Auckland
Art Gallery in 1974. As the most important exponent of Post-Object Art and a teacher at Elam
School of Fine Arts in Auckland, Allen has considerably influenced later art scenes, including
video and sound artist Phil Dadson (* 1946, Auckland). Dadson is represented in the exhibition
with a documentation photograph of an action piece from 1971, in which he and some friends
sweep a beach on the country’s west coast—unaware of the artist Josef Beuys and his own action
piece in the Krefeld Forest from the same year.
The fundamental paradigm of contact in a country like New Zealand, which has been so strongly
affected by the postcolonial debate, is the “first contact,” that often baneful encounter made by an
indigenous population with its European settlers. This encounter, oscillating between
uncertainty, condescension and respect, pride, sadness and aggression, is the subject of the multi-
part video Native Portraits (Drama) by Lisa Reihana (* 1969, Ngā Puhi). New technologies and
old myths intertwine in the works of Rachael Rakena, while Francis Upritchard creates new
hybrid forms with reinterpretations of historical objects. The issues of a multilayered,
multicultural society in the wake of the influx of immigrants from the Polynesian Islands as well
as fates of lives in exile are reflected in the photographs of Edith Amituanai. CONTACT presents
not only artistic confrontations with socio-cultural conflicts in contemporary Aotearoa/New
Zealand, but also offers poetic approaches to the subject, such as in the works of Dane Mitchell, or
the site-specific installations by John Ward-Knox. Artistic methods and processes by painters
such as Judy Millar, who alongside Francis Upritchard represented New Zealand at the Venice
Biennale in 2009, or Simon Ingram, who in his Automata Paintings elevates programmatic
processes devoid of subjective intervention to works of art, expand the exhibition concept.
Participating artists: Jim Allen, Alberto García Álvarez, Edith Amituanai, Ruth Buchanan,
Philip Dadson, Alicia Frankovich, Marti Friedlander, Simon Glaister, Murray Hewitt, Simon
Ingram, Janet Lilo, Len Lye, Judy Millar, Dane Mitchell, Alex Monteith, Simon Morris, Fiona
Pardington, Campbell Patterson, Rachael Rakena, Lisa Reihana, Peter Robinson, Sriwhana
Spong, Francis Upritchard, Daniel von Sturmer, John Ward-Knox
“Contact. Artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand” was made possible by Manatū Taonga –
Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Wellington and Creative New Zealand. It is supported by
Goethe Institute.
PRESS CONTACT:
Anne Kaestner (Head of PR)
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Steinernes Haus am Römerberg,
Markt 44, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: +49.69.219314-30 /-40, Fax: +49.69.219314-11
E-Mail: presse@fkv.de, www.fkv.de
Press preview: Thursday, October 4, 2012, 11 am
Opening: Thursday, October 4, 2012, 7 pm
Frankfurter Kunstverein
Steinernes Haus am Römerberg, Markt 44, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
HOURS OF OPENING: Tue., Thu., and Fri.: 11 am – 19 pm, Wed.: 11 am – 9 pm, Sat. and Sun.: 10 am – 7 pm, Mon. closed
ADMISSION: 6 € (reduced: 4 €)
GUIDED TOURS: Every second Wednesday at 7:30 pm and every second Sunday at 4:30 pm,
fee: 2 € plus admission.