Home And Away: The Chartwell Collection

Home And Away: Contemporary Australian And New Zealand Art From The Chartwell Collection

2 February – 31 March 2001

Founded in 1974 by Hamilton businessman RBK Gardiner, the Chartwell Trust is dedicated to the purchase and presentation of challenging contemporary art which reflects the innate qualities of culture and environment in Australia and New Zealand.

This collection of over 600 works is now administered by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, with Home and Away being the first substantial exhibition drawn from the collection since 1991, and the first to tour extensively.

Curated by William McAloon, the exhibition draws on trans-Tasman similarities and differences to showcase significant pieces by Colin McCahon, Rosalie Gascoigne, Tony Tuckson, John Reynolds and Imants Tillers. It highlights the ongoing commitment of the Chartwell Trust to emerging artists (Giovanni Intra, Mikala Dwyer, Hany Armanious, Seraphine Pick) and indigenous artists (Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Billy Stockman Tjapaltarri, Shane Cotton, Jacqueline Fraser) in both countries.

RECENT ACQUISITIONS FROM THE CHARTWELL COLLECTION
2 February – 31 March 2001
The City Gallery will curate and present an exhibition of recent acquisitions by the Chartwell Trust. Occupying the East Gallery, this exhibition will run alongside Home and Away.

PROSPECT 2001 – NEW ART NEW ZEALAND ART
11 April - 1 July 2001
This celebration of contemporary New Zealand art will be the country’s first, confirming City Gallery’s commitment to exploring new directions in New Zealand art. Occupying the entire Gallery, it will bring together recent work by young artists and the work of more senior practitioners completed within the past two years. The exhibition will showcase work in all media including painting, sculpture, photography, installation, moving image and new media.
Initiated by the City Gallery and curated by Lara Strongman, the show will facilitate the interaction and debate essential to developing artistic practices.

RITA ANGUS
July – September 2001

Initiated by the Hocken Library, University of Otago, this is the first exhibition of the work of New Zealand artist Rita Angus since 1982. The exhibition brings together three aspects of Angus’ oeuvre. The largest section of the show focuses on Angus’ self-portraiture and is curated by Vita Cochran. In the second, Peter Simpson examines links between Rita Angus and artists Lawrence Baigent and Leo Bensemann. These three artists lived and worked together, and painted each other as subjects. For the City Gallery exhibition, Vita Cochran will include ‘Rita Angus’s Wellington’.

City Gallery, Wellington will contribute to this exploration into the work of Rita Angus by co-publishing the papers presented at the Rita Angus conference to be held in Dunedin in October this year. This publication will be a significant contribution to New Zealand art history as there has been no recent scholarly discussion of Angus’ work.

MICHAEL ILLINGWORTH SURVEY EXHIBITION
July – September 2001

Michael Illingworth is something of an enigma in New Zealand art history: a well-respected modernist painter about whom very little is known or recorded. Although Illingworth’s emblematic figurative paintings are featured in all major New Zealand public art collections, and have been collected by many private patrons, there has been no published research on his work. As part of its commitment to further scholarship into key figures of New Zealand art, the City Gallery will commission leading younger curators Damian Skinner and Aaron Lister to curate this important survey exhibition designed to bring Illingworth’s work to public prominence. The exhibition will explore Illingworth’s images of suburbia and the social context of his work, placing this idiosyncratic figure into the canon of New Zealand art history. The exhibition will feature a publication and will be offered for tour to major New Zealand venues.

GAVIN HIPKINS – THE HOMELY
July – September 2001

This artist’s project initiated by City Gallery, Wellington, will show recent photographic work by the Wellington based artist and university lecturer Gavin Hipkins. Exhibiting regularly throughout New Zealand and internationally, Hipkins has emerged in the 1990s as one of New Zealand’s foremost young photographers. He was included in the Sydney Biennale of 1998 and his programme for this year includes ‘Arte 2000, 16 artists from 16 countries’ in Turin, Italy.

The City Gallery project, The Homely, cites a history of New Zealand and Australia by re-presenting elements that have been used to define nationhood(s) and historical folklore. As well as imaging colonial links to the late British Empire, The Homely explores the ongoing attempt by Pakeha to define their nativeness, and in so doing, to call their country ‘home’. Themes of Western suburbanisation, Catholicism and Americanism are explored in the latter part of the show.

The Homely is envisaged as a photographic frieze with images, or cultural fragments, sitting close to each other – relying on each other – for narrative thread. Images of museums, war memorials, statues and parts of paintings are part of this narrative. While many photographs have their place of origin in domestic settings, The Homely also ventures away from the domestic to explore the representation of New Zealand as an apparent natural paradise.

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