Jason Kahn and White Fungus
Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zürich whose work includes drawing, sound installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Kahn has been exhibiting his sound and visual works since the late 1990s, and has had solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and arts spaces pretty much everywhere in the damn world.
And he’s playing in Wellington on Sunday night.
Art on the streets
Let’s say this for the record: the Wellingtonista hates tagging. It’s just an inane and territorial fury of poodle-pissings scrawled around the town signifying nothing but a terrifying lack of imagination on the part of the tagger.
That said, there’s more to the world of graffiti than tags. And at some point graffiti changes from mindless and wanton property damage into ART, somewhere across boundaries as ragged and ill-defined and debatable as any cultural warzone. Around central Wellington, it’s all there to be discovered and mapped, tucked away in the alleys and byways of Te Aro mainly, but also scattered around the wider inner city.
[We show you some great street-art, after the jump]
Living City
Did anyone see the installation on Wakefield Street yesterday?
I’d popped out to the central library, and someone had outlined a parking space with small, potted pansies.
It was right next to the zebra crossing outside the West Plaza.
The cutest bit was the meter ticket put into one of the plants!
If you were involved in that, or knows who was, could you get in touch with the Wellingtonista? Thx.
Exhibition: Cameo Appearance
The exhibition Cameo Appearance at Mary Newton Gallery brings together eight artists working in the area of the portrait — Tony Bond, Gavin Hurley, Anna-Marie O’Brien, Gary Freemantle, Tanja Nola, Octavia Cook, Areta Wilkinson and David Cauchi.
And then my magical art powers failed me, 2007 by David Cauchi
Crafting at Pataka
Saturday June 9, 10am – 4pm
CRAFTING is a part of THE BIG LOOK-SEE at Pataka this weekend, which is an open day event for galleries and museums in the region.
CRAFTING will also celebrate one of Pataka’s exhibitions called Arts Society by Judy Darragh. The exhibition is an art installation that celebrates ‘craft’ and the handmade.
There will be a stunning range of fun and funky jewellery, art objects, cushions, toys, clothes, accessories and loads more cool stuff.
You can also play a little game of ‘Spot the Wellingtonista’, as there will be no less than THREE of us there. Come and say a big “hola”, and buy us a gin. Man, there’d better be some gin.
Hamish McKay Gallery reopens
(via White Fungus News…)
The new Hamish McKay Gallery is now open at Level one, 39 Ghuznee Street.
More info after the jump.
A sharp intake of breath
A new photography group, “gasp!”, has an exhibition entitled “a sharp intake of breath” at Finc Café from now until 10 June.
[Photo © Geraldine Downey, 2007]
The group (Geraldine Downey, Andrew Ecclestone, Stella Ramage, Paul Holley and Jordyn O’Keeffe) gave themselves the wide brief for the exhibition of creating images inspired by the word ‘enigma’. The brief exhibition catalogue explains that they were “Aiming to make space for a slower, deeper vision amongst the torrent of visual information that swamps us everyday. We wanted to produce images which asked more questions than they answered, to arouse a flicker of intrigue, a shiver of unease, or create a pause for thought.”
Rusticity
Following the success of the recent Wellington Flickr Group’s exhibition at the Paramount, cames yet more photographic goodness from a Wellington flickr-ite legend A Different Perspective (aka Jim Henderson).
He’s putting on an exhibition of his work down at Island Bay’s The Bach café, from the 1st to the 30th of April.
To get a feel for what you might be seeing, check out his awesome flickr photostream here.
A Friday night and a Saturday morning
Down at the City Gallery on Friday night they are running another one of their Late Night Sessions, where you get to cruise around the big exhibition (this time it’s the biennial Prospect show) in relative peace and listen to lovely live music while you do so. And all for free.
City Gallery’s popular late night Friday returns. Wander through Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand to a backdrop of independent and electronic sounds by local performers. Featuring Peneloping, Tc Wedde with Luke Buda, and Aspen.
The lovely Luke Buda is of course in The Phoenix Foundation, as is (the equally lovely) Tc Wedde. Aspen is also lovely and also known as Signer, and is one half of Over the Atlantic and one half of Skallander. And the “medium-core girl-boy plinkpop!” Peneloping also have a very good reputation as a live act. Having experienced Late Night Sessions many times before — from the point of view both of a performer and a patron — I can heartily recommend this event.
Sounds of the city
Frey (aka Damian Stewart, aka Mr bleep) is putting together a reactive sound and light installation for next month’s Fringe Festival, and he wants your help. Specifically, if you know of any interesting sounds around Wellington that he can record and use in the installation, drop him a line.