The Wonderful and Terrible World of David Wojnarowicz

One of my favorite artists is David Wojnarowicz (September 14 1954 – July 22 1992). It is nearly 21 years since his passing and the significance of his art increases every year. As a photographer and writer, he belongs with artists like Nan Goldin, David Armstrong and Mark Morrisroe. Finally, Cynthia Carr has written a great biography of him. You can read some of the book here.

Cynthia Carr, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz
ISBN: 9781596915336
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. Publication date: September 2012

Publisher’s announcement:

‘In December 2010, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington made headlines when it responded to protests from the Catholic League by voluntarily censoring an excerpt of David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly from its show on American portraiture. Why a work of art could stir such emotions is at the heart of Cynthia Carr's Fire in the Belly, the first biography of a beleaguered art-world figure who became one of the most important voices of his generation.

'Wojnarowicz emerged from a Dickensian childhood that included orphanages, abusive and absent parents, and a life of hustling on the street. He first found acclaim in New York's East Village, a neighborhood noted in the 1970s and '80s for its abandoned buildings, junkies, and burgeoning art scene. Along with Keith Haring, Nan Goldin, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Wojnarowicz helped redefine art for the times. As uptown art collectors looked downtown for the next big thing, this community of cultural outsiders was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. The ensuing culture war, the neighborhood's gentrification, and the AIDS crisis then devastated the East Village scene.

'Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of thirty-seven. Carr's brilliant biography traces the untold story of a controversial and seminal figure at a pivotal moment in American culture.’

Image credits: Arthur Rimbaud in New York, from a 1979 series of 24 gelatin silver prints. Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York

New York Times special issue on Museums

Yesterday, the New York Times published its regular special issue on Museums. If you have never checked these out here’s the link
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/artsspecial/?ref=arts
The current issue has some fascinating back-stories like how visitors use cameras to experience art, what curators do and the growth in museum based education. Recommended.

Kura Te Waru Rewiri

Kura: Story of a Māori Woman Artist was launched 21 January 2012 at Mangere Arts Centre — Ngā Tohu o Uenuku. The book takes its title from the exhibition currently on display at the Centre, which was curated by Nigel Borel and opened 16 December last year. Conceived as a retrospective exhibition of a senior Māori woman artist, it offers an experience of quality ideas and achieves all it set out to celebrate. The exhibition highlights the art practice of Kura Te Waru Rewiri, a founding member of the 1970s protest group Nga Tamatoa, a fine arts educator and contemporary arts advocate, and contemporary painter.

The book launch attracted whānau, friends and artists. Tributes were made to Kura for her contributions to contemporary art and attendees were invited to take away signed copies of the publication. It is a handsome 80-page book, an example of Kura’s connoisseurship as a painter and the development of her contemporary art journey. The essays in the book form strong relationships with contemporary Māori art and the Mana Wahine art movement.

 Kura shares this legacy with painters Emily Karaka and Robyn Kahukiwa, and a range of strong women leaders who worked for Māori visibility while analysing the Treaty of Waitangi (ToW). You could say that art then was a perfect vehicle to bring Māori and the ToW to the public’s attention. Those wahine toa who were inspirational at the time were Hana Te Hemara-Jackson, Donna Awatere, Eva Rickard, Dame Te Atairangikahu and Dame Whina Cooper.

Kura publishes new writing by Nigel Borell, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Deidre Brown and myself. It brings forward the artist’s ideas and shows their relevance in today’s arts environment. The essays provide a context for the array of kaupapa Māori that Kura has explored over time, including the ToW. In this way, the exhibition and book can be thought of as history lessons you might now have learned.

We hear that Kura’s double conundrum of being a woman/Māori artist belongs to the 20th century because this is no longer politicised – even though her present-day content is just as challenging as her painting practice of the 1980s and 90s. Her 2000s’ exploration of kōwhaiwhai patterns, for example, challenge some Māori male practitioners and kōwhaiwhai is not well understood by contemporary practitioners and critics. Perhaps part of this problem is that today’s detractors still think kōwhaiwhai is what Gordon Walter and Theo Schoon painted. Yet, as is shown, by the end of the first decade of the 2000s Kura took control and brought forth new understandings, theories and a new appreciation for Māori art forms, patterns and meaning.

The book also presents information and facts not previously published about the artist. Kura changed her name by deed-poll when she was 21 years as an act of liberation. You can see this freedom in the 1971 photograph of her and Tame Iti, taken during her University of Canterbury days. She told me that she loved to go op-shop rummaging on the lookout for fur coats and Christchurch certainly had a startling array of them for a young Māori woman from the North to purchase for $1 – which was a lot of money in those days.

Kura’s personal and professional relationships are enduring and she maintains friendships with people from all cultures and walks of life. Her influence is felt in the practitioner community in her support, guidance and mentorship of artists and contemporary Māori art curators such as Nigel Borell. James Pinker, visual arts manager of Mangere Arts Centre has this to say about the launch.

‘It was a great honour to host not only the exhibition but the launch of this substantial publication and to have it in Mangere especially was of great significance to us all.’

Last words go to Nigel Borell, ‘We are all very proud and pleased with the results and look forward to finally sharing the publication with the public.’ Copies can be purchased from The Mangere Arts Centre at a very reasonable $20 each.

Eric Resetar

Rod MacLeod asked me to post his tribute to Eric Resetar:

"I would just like to let people know that Eric Resetar, one of the original pioneers of comics in New Zealand, has died at the age of 83. He was well known by much of the front of house staff for his visits to the art gallery over the last few years, usually to visit me and exchange DVDs of old movies that we shared. Eric was one of the main stars of the Cartoon Show in 2001-2 where his original comics were shown in the NZ comic art section. He was also honoured with a huge blow up of his early drawings in the specially built and decorated room alongside the work of Barry Linton, Cornelius Stone and the late Marty Emond.



I met him while researching the show and we got on like a house on fire. He was living in a tiny clutter filled pensioner flat in Onehunga and was quite bemused by being the centre of attention for a few weeks. He famously made comics while still a teenager during the war, with help from his brother Ian who saw his younger brothers talent and passion. Inspired by Buck Rogers he created Crash Carson, and most famously, Crash O’Kane, an All Black on Mars, selling up to 10,000 copies of his titles, many to American GI’s. Eric never married and ran a number of second-hand bookshops throughout Auckland. Held in high respect by comic makers in New Zealand, the annual comic awards, the Erics, are named after him."
Rod MacLeod

Harvey Benge

I am often asked which camera artist has published the most photography books in New Zealand. Twenty years ago, the answer would have been either Brian Brake or Robin Morrison. Not now.

At last count, Harvey Benge has published 35 books. That is a phenomenal achievement. Harvey is a natural maker of books.

His two latest books are Truth and Various Deceptions and Paris Diary, November 2011. He thinks carefully about how his photographs are sequenced. Frequently, there is an undercurrent of narrative in his editorial choices. I have long been a fan of how he sees people – it is both intimate and revelatory. He likes young people and understands their world with notable empathy.

Where once there was a humour, now there is a deeper underpinning of an emotional bandwith, Instead of taking a superficial smarty-pants approach to street photography he applies a forensic eye on what he is discovering.

His Paris Diary is tantamount to being an artist’s book that exists as a visual travelogue. Nothing is left to chance. I sense how he created his book as he walked about Paris, as if the book is a sequence of cinematic stills that he intuits will result in stimulating pairings and groupings. Recommended highly!

CREDITS:
Harvey Benge
Paris Diary, November 2011 (four top images)
Truth and Various Deceptions (four lower images)
Photographs courtesy of Harvey Benge

Angels and Aristocrats

It seems a lot of Kiwis still tend to dismiss New Zealand's collections of art as fuddy-duddy and parochial. But the handsome new book Angels & Aristocrats, by the Gallery's very own Mary Kisler (Senior Curator, Mackelvie Collection, International Art) blows that idea out of the water.

Angels & Aristocrats: Historic European paintings in New Zealand Public Collections (to give it its full title) examines New Zealand collections of European art from the 15th to 19th centuries, with more than 240 works featured. It's a treasure trove of pieces from the Auckland Art Gallery, Te Papa, Christchurch Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui.



Mary spent four years researching and compiling Angels & Aristocrats, which is neatly divided into religious art, landscape art, narrative and genre painting and portraiture. It's a true thing of beauty, being a decent size - weighty, but not intimidating, with heaps of gorgeous glossy pictures.

It's the kind of book one could read right through, or enjoy dipping into over a cup of tea (or a glass of wine). What i love is how her infectious passion for art and her fondness for the paintings she discusses shines through - especially in the book's conclusion, in which she likens them to naughty schoolchildren!

Angels and Aristocrats is getting great reviews. According to NZ Herald reviewer Peter Simpson, "To read this well-produced book is to be educated not only in the treasures held within our collections but in the rich history of art itself."

Graham Beattie has also reviewed it - read his thoughts here.

And you can download a free podcast of Mary discussing the book with Kim Hill here.

You can get a signed copy of Angels & Aristocrats: Historic European paintings in New Zealand Public Collections (Random House/Godwit) at the Gallery shop for $70 (RRP $75). It'd make the perfect Christmas present for any art lovers/bibliophiles/students in your life. (Excuse me while I send my parents a link to this post - hint, hint...)

Mary has produced some great posts for this blog as well - catch up on her archive here. I'm hoping to persuade her to return to the blogosphere soon!