Govett-Brewster unveils autumn exhibitions

A wealth of contemporary art is set to be revealed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery this autumn.

The Gallery welcomes New York-based Venezuelan artist Javier Téllez to New Zealand for the first time.

The work of Téllez reflects a sustained interest in bringing peripheral communities and invisible situations to the fore of contemporary art. His work deals with institutional dynamics, mental illness as a marginal condition, and borderline collective and individual behaviour. His projects have often involved working in collaboration with mental health patients or people living at the margins of society who at times are invited to contribute as participants.

Téllez’s film Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See (2007), extends his interest in otherness into the realm of the physically disabled. Téllez re-created the Indian parable “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” filming six blind people as they touch different parts of a live elephant and editing their “moments of tactile recognition” to coincide with their descriptions of what they feel.

Téllez has exhibited widely in international contexts and his work has been presented by major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, InSite 05, Queens Museum of Art, P.S.1 MoMA, ZKM, Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, as well as the Whitney Biennial, Moscow Biennale, Kwangju Biennale, Venice Biennale, Yokohama Triennale, Biennale of Sydney and Manifesta.

Téllez is the 2009 Govett-Brewster International Artist in Residence and will present a One Day Sculpture project on 22 March in Taranaki. The Govett-Brewster’s Artist in Residence programme is offered in partnership with Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki and with support from Creative New Zealand.

Entering its fourth decade of collecting, the Govett-Brewster is also pleased to present AM I Scared, Boy (EH): Collection works from then and now, showcasing the scope of the Gallery's significant contemporary and modern art holdings.

Curated by Gallery director Rhana Devenport, this exhibition draws attention to the relationships and connections between individual works through a process of presenting paired artworks alongside each other.

The depth and diversity of the Collection is revealed through long standing and recently acquired works by Colin McCahon, Yvonne Todd, John Reynolds, Tony Fomison, Takashi Kuribayashi, Ralph Hotere, Lisa Reihana, Anne Noble, Gordon Walters, Yuk King Tan, Peter Peryer, Billy Apple, Fiona Clark, Laurence Aberhart, Shaun Gladwell, Len Lye and Rohan Wealleans.

Fiona Hall: Force Field (selected works), presents the work by one of Australia’s leading and most inventive artists. Curated by Gregory O’Brien, Paula Savage (City Gallery Wellington) and Vivienne Webb (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney), Fiona Hall: Force Field (selected works) includes a major new work inspired by Hall’s recent time in New Zealand.

Adelaide-based Hall is not only renowned for her imagination but for her profound fascination with the wonders of nature and complexities. Her work highlights humanity’s increasingly problematic relationship with the environment.

“In my art I am finding ways of bring together the astounding, magical, uplifting world with the very sobering realisation that we are putting that world in peril,” says Hall.

Hall transforms everyday materials and objects, incorporating a diverse array of techniques that are often domestic in their origins. In Mourning Chorus, 2007-08, plastic containers with attached replica bird beaks are integrated into a startling coffin-shaped display case, as a lament for New Zealand’s extinct birds and in her most well known series of works (Paradisus terrestris, 1998-99), sardine tins are reconfigured into miraculous sculptures. Also on view will be Fiona Hall’s 2007 public garden installation, Mown, which inhabits a nearby memorial park.

Javier Téllez: International Artist in Residence
24 March – 21 June 2009

AM I Scared, Boy (EH): Collection works from then and now
28 March – 21 June 2009

Fiona Hall: Force Field (selected works)
4 April – 1 June 2009

ENDS