Here are the nominees for Best Art Experience

O art. You reflect back our lives to us through a prism made of …um…glass? Luckily some people are more artistically talented than we are.

Manky Chops opening
Street art finally got a venue from which to make a profit. Manky Chops’ opening night was crowded with so many good-looking and talented arty types that the balcony in this Cuba Street space almost gave way.

Parabox at the Farsite Gallery in Petone
Farsite is very much off the beaten track, but heading out there to experience [parabox] was well worth the effort. An entire gallery turned transformed by boxes and boxes, going into the little cave Jojo had created was like going camping at night, especially when you lay down on the carpet of cardboard and looked up at the twinkling world above you.

Shapeshifter
There is always something very fun about this biannual exhibition, with its outdoor theme. Most of the public art we love the most (the boxes by the road to the airport, the giant pebbles outside the Old Bank) were all first seen at Shapeshifter. So any art experience that encourages and supports outdoor art, we are totally there.

The Luminous Stickers of Newtown
Suddenly we were seeing spots. Was it the measles? Was it an escaped cheetah from the nearby zoo? No! It was some wonderful person or persons deciding that our lives needed a little more colour, and the power poles of Newtown became their canvas as fluorescent sticker dots were applied in intricate patterns. The best part about the stickers is that they’re so simple anyone can add to them, turning all of us into potential artists. We take our hats off to you, whoever started it.

Fiona Hall’s Force Field at City Gallery
A brilliantly curated look at the work of a brilliant contemporary artist. Force Field filled up every space in City Gallery and was a perfect final exhibition before City Gallery closed for its year-long building expansion work.