Courtesy of the artist
Mark Curtis will realize a new glitter carpet for J.J. Morgan & Co that will be unveiled during the International Arts Festival 2010 in Wellington.
December 4, 2009
First LoveLab Initiative: Mark Curtis in Wellington for the International Arts Festival 2010
Courtesy of the artist
Mark Curtis will realize a new glitter carpet for J.J. Morgan & Co that will be unveiled during the International Arts Festival 2010 in Wellington.
November 19, 2009
Exhibition of the week
Madeleine Child and Philip Jarvis @ Mary Newton Gallery
The Age of Aquarius
Artists are obsessive magicians that constantly challenge the ways we connect with the world, by means of engagement and creativity; and there is a growing tendency amongst them to (re)use and recycle everyday objects and give a new life to detritus or "left-over". There is also a growing fascination, perhaps echoing our current environmental situation, for the mineral and the organic, that are capable of evolving ways to survive... So the idea of a growing obsession can quickly come in to minds when looking at the work of Madeleine child and Philip Jarvis presented at the Mary Newton Gallery, and described by the artists as coral from obsessive compulsive nervous fiddling.
Out of rubber bans, paint-saturated sponges, ceramic polyps and pottery, they made joyful and bright sculptures , that mirror both complex marine life systems and sophisticated embedded decorations, raising questions about nature versus culture; but also male/female, authentic/inauthentic, funny/serious...etc. With a contagious humour, and through an engagement with the everyday, whether they imitate domestic detritus (as seen in their previous work) or they use them, they express something crucial about being in and of this planet, about the here and now.
November 13, 2009
Call for proposals
Looking for multi-media artists that deal with the city as an image. Proposals to be send before the 1st of December 2009.
November 11, 2009
A new artists-run space in Wellington!
Finally, a new artists-run space is about to be launch in Wellington, thanks to Justin J.Morgan! We should be able to invest it from February 2010, but I can already tell you that the space is great and big! Already working on some exhibition proposals. Sounds promessing.
September 15, 2009
Call for artists and collectives
LoveLab Initiative is looking for innovative and under-recognized artists who are making significant contributions to their respective fields and are interested to share their ideas with like-minded colleagues within an environment conducive to experimentation and cross-disciplinary explorations.
LoveLab Initiative aims to organize temporary projects in various locations around Wellington, in order to create epic and/or ephemeral works for the love of art's sake of love. Works should deal with dualities such as creation/destruction, life/death, serious/amusing, etc. Thus, works will deal with the notion of ambition with irony, by means of questioning the intrinsic reality of art to be honoured and to honour (whether it's life and/or art) knowing that nothing really matters: what is important, and will remains, is the love, the experience.
As a hint, the various projects/phases will include a proposal for the new arts hub at Toi Poneke, in order to engage with the arts communauty as a ressource for interaction, networking and collaboration; proposals for empty shops in Wellington, aiming to develop significant new projects based on collaborations and cross-disciplines, and in the public realm.
Look forward to hearing from you!
LoveLab Initiative aims to organize temporary projects in various locations around Wellington, in order to create epic and/or ephemeral works for the love of art's sake of love. Works should deal with dualities such as creation/destruction, life/death, serious/amusing, etc. Thus, works will deal with the notion of ambition with irony, by means of questioning the intrinsic reality of art to be honoured and to honour (whether it's life and/or art) knowing that nothing really matters: what is important, and will remains, is the love, the experience.
As a hint, the various projects/phases will include a proposal for the new arts hub at Toi Poneke, in order to engage with the arts communauty as a ressource for interaction, networking and collaboration; proposals for empty shops in Wellington, aiming to develop significant new projects based on collaborations and cross-disciplines, and in the public realm.
Look forward to hearing from you!
August 27, 2009
Launch of LoveLab Initiative
New project from LoveLab Projects, LoveLab Initiative, a collaborative project-initiative organized temporarily in various locations, in order to create epic and ephemeral works for the love of art's sake of love. Works should deal with dualities such as creation/destruction, life/death, serious/amusing, etc.
Thus, works will deal with the notion of ambition with irony, by means of questioning the intrinsic reality of art to be honoured and to honour (whether it's life and/or art) knowing that nothing really matters: what is important, and will remains, is the love, the experience.
Thus, works will deal with the notion of ambition with irony, by means of questioning the intrinsic reality of art to be honoured and to honour (whether it's life and/or art) knowing that nothing really matters: what is important, and will remains, is the love, the experience.
Projects for (con)temporary initiatives
LoveLab Projects aims to create a temporary structure and platform that will present exhibitions around New Zealand and through phases, for discourse surrounding ways in which we might consider our contemporary conditions. From focusing on emerging practices and ideas that are still in the process of being formulated, to profile different ways of thinking and doing, questions will be posed in the form of programming and address relevant and pressing issues pertaining to the changing landscape of (con)temporary art.
LoveLab Projects will feature artist interventions, site-specific projects, one-night performances and events, as well as exhibitions. The programme will emphasize cross-disciplinary approaches, forms of artistic research, projects that are situated in the public realm, and collaborations on many levels. The initiative will cross traditional boundaries to form a consortium interested in responding quickly to the major philosophical and economic shifts impacting culture, and more specifically within a New Zealand context.
LoveLab Projects will also develop LoveLab Initiative to provide innovative artists, working in the media, visual, literary and performing arts, with exhibition and performance opportunities to create and present new work that do not fit into the commercial market place.
LoveLab Projects will feature artist interventions, site-specific projects, one-night performances and events, as well as exhibitions. The programme will emphasize cross-disciplinary approaches, forms of artistic research, projects that are situated in the public realm, and collaborations on many levels. The initiative will cross traditional boundaries to form a consortium interested in responding quickly to the major philosophical and economic shifts impacting culture, and more specifically within a New Zealand context.
LoveLab Projects will also develop LoveLab Initiative to provide innovative artists, working in the media, visual, literary and performing arts, with exhibition and performance opportunities to create and present new work that do not fit into the commercial market place.
August 23, 2009
So beautiful that it hurts (Polly Morgan)
"Within beauty and tradition so as to integrate all types of violence and the most extreme eroticism" (Salvador Dali)
Courtsesy of the artist
August 21, 2009
August 16, 2009
Artism
The birth of a new utilitarian ideology: Artism.
-Principle of democratization, extending the principles of meritocarcy to an artocracy, in favor of creative ability and initiative talent, based on collaboration and collectives, and beyond commercial endeavours
-Collapse of divisions (i.e: low and high art or culture, art and life, public and private, viewer and artwork, original and manufactured...), as well as historical determinants such as content, form, aesthetic, structure, but also market, institutions,
-Platform for debates and open propositions, within a wide ranging conditions of participation
-Highly concerned by political and social intentions and/or subjects, and presented as a social, political and economic alternatives to the current governances
-Principle of democratization, extending the principles of meritocarcy to an artocracy, in favor of creative ability and initiative talent, based on collaboration and collectives, and beyond commercial endeavours
-Collapse of divisions (i.e: low and high art or culture, art and life, public and private, viewer and artwork, original and manufactured...), as well as historical determinants such as content, form, aesthetic, structure, but also market, institutions,
-Platform for debates and open propositions, within a wide ranging conditions of participation
-Highly concerned by political and social intentions and/or subjects, and presented as a social, political and economic alternatives to the current governances
August 12, 2009
Exhibition of the week
Second Life @ Pataka Museum, with Eve Armstrong, Judy Darragh, Niki Hastings-McFall, Joanna Langford and Peter Madden.
August 2, 2009
A Dazzling Little Death (project)
La petite mort, French for "the little death", is a reference for the refractory period following sexual orgasm. The term has generally been interpreted to describe the post-orgasmic fainting spells or unconsciousness some lovers experience. More widely, it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm, or a short period of melancholy or transcendence, as a result of the expenditure of the "life force".
The show is about the certain flamboyance, daring and fetishisation of glitter or shiny material as a mean of life. Idea of shining (the self and the support), and dazzle. In a sense, if you do put some sparkles in your life then incrementally your life is sparkling... It's about the idea of carnival, as a celebration of life, of being alive. But also the notions of covering, hiding something or hidden, of make-up. Fetishism/ hybridization. It's also about appearances used as a mechanism to maybe cope with the idea of death.
VANITAS
The idea for the show is also based on Roland Barthes who spoke of la petite mort as the chief objective of reading literature: he metaphorically used the concept to describe the feeling one should get when experiencing any great literature. By extension, the show is about feeling ans sensuality when experiencing art (also refers to Susan Sontag idea of sensuality in art, of a direct relationship against analytical interpretation).
The show is about the certain flamboyance, daring and fetishisation of glitter or shiny material as a mean of life. Idea of shining (the self and the support), and dazzle. In a sense, if you do put some sparkles in your life then incrementally your life is sparkling... It's about the idea of carnival, as a celebration of life, of being alive. But also the notions of covering, hiding something or hidden, of make-up. Fetishism/ hybridization. It's also about appearances used as a mechanism to maybe cope with the idea of death.
VANITAS
The idea for the show is also based on Roland Barthes who spoke of la petite mort as the chief objective of reading literature: he metaphorically used the concept to describe the feeling one should get when experiencing any great literature. By extension, the show is about feeling ans sensuality when experiencing art (also refers to Susan Sontag idea of sensuality in art, of a direct relationship against analytical interpretation).
July 27, 2009
Exhibition of the week
Plastic Maori @ The New Dowse, with Andre Te Hira, Aroha Armstrong, Christina Wirihana, Gina Matchitt, Hemi MacGregor, Inez Crawford, Jacob Scott, Michael Parekowhai, Ngatai Taepa, Rangi Kipa, Dr Robert Jahnke, Suzanne Tamaki, Tawa Hunter and Wayne Youle.
July 23, 2009
July 13, 2009
July 11, 2009
July 10, 2009
Contemporary legend: The Mythology of Urban Bohemia (article/project to develop)
Urban bohemia and creation of mythologies and personal tales, living on the edge.
Notes:
-Bohemian is defined in The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."
-Laren Stover, breaks down the Bohemian into five distinct mind-sets/styles in Bohemian Manifesto: a Field Guide to Living on the Edge. The five types are:
Nouveau:- bohemians with money who attempt to join traditional bohemianism with contemporary culture
Gypsy:- drifters, neo-hippies, and others with nostalgia for previous, romanticized eras
Beat:- also drifters, but non-materialist and art-focused
Zen:- "post-beat," focus on spirituality rather than art
Dandy:- no money, but try to appear as if they have it by expensive or rare items
-Bohemia's ongoing engagement with popular culture, urban experience and modernity
-The bohemian artist's identity is forged in dialogue with popular performance in urban spaces within the context of a mass market economy.
Notions:
legend (as in story and legendary), obsession, emotional life as subject, blurring distinction between life and art, apperance and reality, sexuality and gender, marginal and traditional...
Notes:
-Bohemian is defined in The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."
-Laren Stover, breaks down the Bohemian into five distinct mind-sets/styles in Bohemian Manifesto: a Field Guide to Living on the Edge. The five types are:
Nouveau:- bohemians with money who attempt to join traditional bohemianism with contemporary culture
Gypsy:- drifters, neo-hippies, and others with nostalgia for previous, romanticized eras
Beat:- also drifters, but non-materialist and art-focused
Zen:- "post-beat," focus on spirituality rather than art
Dandy:- no money, but try to appear as if they have it by expensive or rare items
-Bohemia's ongoing engagement with popular culture, urban experience and modernity
-The bohemian artist's identity is forged in dialogue with popular performance in urban spaces within the context of a mass market economy.
Notions:
legend (as in story and legendary), obsession, emotional life as subject, blurring distinction between life and art, apperance and reality, sexuality and gender, marginal and traditional...
July 9, 2009
Rust Never Sleeps (1981, 103 min, Dir. Neil Young)
Or how the dream of authenticity doesn't die easily.
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