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Hany Armanious, Magic Muffin Mountain (2003-06)

MATERIAL TRANSFORMATIONS

For the last twenty years Hany Armanious has been an increasingly key figure in Australian art. City Gallery Wellington is pleased to present Hany Armanious: Morphic Resonance, the most comprehensive solo showing of his work in New Zealand to date.

Hany provides us with an arresting and inventive take on everyday life through his re-working of our material culture. He works with such ubiquitous objects as the home work-station, the ink jet printer, the muffin, the billiard cue and the Croc shoe, shifting their meaning through irreverent and uncanny material transformations. Take for example the muffin, a curiously ubiquitous foodstuff. In Magic Muffin Mountain (2003-06), Armanious constructs a mound of voluminous muffins made from inedible expanding foam used in building construction.

Heather Galbraith curator says, “Armanious draws on images and objects from a diverse range of sources, morphing and overlaying styles and vocabularies to build playful, evocative and unexpected new configurations. His associations are intentionally far-fetched and comical, but are often very revealing about our priorities and preoccupations.”

Morphic Resonance has been developed in association with Institute of Modern Art (IMA) Brisbane. A new monograph on Armanious’ work produced in partnership with IMA Brisbane will be launched during the exhibition.

Biography: The Sydney-based artist has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. He was included in the Aperto section of the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1994 Sydney Biennale and the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. In 1998 he won the Möet and Chandon Fellowship. In 2001, his major installation work Selflok was showcased at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. In 2006 Armanious participated in the group exhibition Surface Wave at Foxy Production in New York. His recent work in New Zealand includes Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’ Turns in Arraba (2005).

Hany Armanious: Morphic Resonance
City Gallery Wellington
Civic Square, Wellington
12 May – 29 July 2007
Admission FREE

Exhibition developed in partnership with Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Principal Sponsor
Ernst & Young

City Gallery Wellington (www.citygallery.org.nz) is managed by the Wellington Museums Trust with major funding support from Wellington City Council.

ENDS