Exhibition: Sept 3 - Oct 16 2010, Corbans Estate Arts Centre, 426 Great North Rd, Henderson, Waitakere City.

Metonymy is an annual Auckland-wide collaboration project, now in its third year. It is creative blind dating in which artists from different disciplines – visual, literary, film, dance, theatre – are matched and given six weeks to create a work. Work in the exhibition will be selected by a panel of senior artists and writers including Christine O’Brien, Riemke Ensing, Simon Ingram and John Daly-Peoples.

Photographer Jenny Tomlin was one of those successfully selected. She has been partnered with performance poet Jerry Beale.

For more information on Metonymy click here

Bruce Gilden and Todd Hido will be presenting the 2011 AUT School of Art & Design Summer Photography Workshop over January 14, 15 and 16 next year. Both are masters in their own areas, each with a unique vision and position for their work. Gilden’s and Hido’s work is conceptually and stylistically diametrically opposed and this alone will make for a compelling and entertaining learning experience. Image: Bruce Gilden, Haiti, Plain-duNord Bruce Gilden is a New York based Magnum photographer and a master of the street. Known for getting up close with his subjects Gilden has established an expressive theatrical style with graphic hard-edged form that presents the world as a vast comedy of manners. A larger than life personality, his images of New York make it look like a frenetic and mad city. Japan is nasty, dark, full of tough yakuza guys with tattoos and cigarettes. His Magnum produced Fashion Magazine is an ode to mafia capos and beautiful femme fatales. He’s cool and blunt. Gilden has fourteen photobooks to his name from extended projects on New York, Haiti, France, Ireland, India and Japan. Gilden started exhibiting as early as 1971 and has since shown his work widely in museums and galleries all over the world. A recipient of numerous grants and awards for his work including three National Endowments for the Arts fellowships (1980, 1984 and 1992), a Villa Medicis Hors les Murs (1995), New York State Foundation for the Arts Grant (1979, 1992 and 2000), the European Award for Photography (1996) and a Japan Foundation Fellowship (1999). Image: Todd Hido, House Hunting Todd Hido is a San Francisco Bay area based contemporary artist and photographer. With a strong interest in the dynamics of the American city and it’s suburbs Hido produces large, highly detailed and luminous color photographs and startling photo bookworks. Hido’s photographs reveal isolation and anonymity in contemporary suburbia. Eerily lit rooms and suddenly abandoned homes increase the effect of loneliness and loss. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of Art; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as in many other public and private collections. Working closely with Nazraeli Press, Hido has eight published photobooks, the most recent, A Road Divided was published in 2010. With an M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California he is currently an adjunct professor at the California College of Art, San Francisco, California. To register your interest please email Neil Cameron, Registar, AUT School of Art and Design - neil.cameron@aut.ac.nz

Images: (L) Ans Westra, Karakia, Parikino Maori School, 1963. Illustrated in Handboek p28 & Maori p48. Vintage Silver gelatin print. (R) Jonathan Campbell, Bronzerrotype III, Bronze, 2010.

Capture exhibition 3 Sept - 2 Oct 2010

Opening reception with Ans and Jonathan, Friday 3 Sept 5.30 - 7.30pm

Suite Fine Art Gallery, 69 Owen St, Newtown, Wellington. Gallery hours: Tues to Fri 10.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10.30 -4pm

Capture, Suite’s first exhibition for spring, features works by bronze sculptor Jonathan Campbell and photographer Ans Westra.

Capture is Campbell’s first exhibition at Suite. A master of the lost-wax bronze casting process, he will exhibit amalgams of power plugs, birds’ skulls, leaves and cords.  His Bronzerrotype works are a sculptural interpretation of the Daguerrotype photographic process. Daguerrotypes - photographic images printed on silver-plated copper sheets - were commonly used in the 19th Century to record portraits. Symbolism within Campbell’s work reflects elemental relationships between origins, family trees, personality and character.

Westra’s ability to capture the spirit of our country has cemented her position as one of New Zealand’s celebrated photographers. An Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Artist, she is responsible for the most comprehensive photo documentation of the lives and cultures of New Zealanders during 50 plus years of cultural, social and generational change.

Washday at the Pa, which created some controversy when it was first published in 1964, has ensured Westra’s work sits directly at the centre of debates around Pakeha representation of Maori. Capture is Suite’s third exhibition of Westra’s works and includes vintage prints of well-known images from Handboek, Washday at the Pa and Witness to Change.

N.B. Ans will also have work on show at Waiwhetu Marae next week as part of their 50th Anniversary celebrations (6-12th Sept). Waiwhetu Marae, 4 Puketapu Grove, Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt.

On show at Photospace Gallery, 1st Floor, 37 Courtenay Place, Wellington.                                                   Gallery hours: 11-4 Wed to Sat, Mon & Tues by appointment

Exhibition runs from 3 - 25 Sept 2010.                                                                                                     Opening Friday 3 Sept from 5 to 7pm.

A selection of mainly personal images taken by Heinz Sobiecki over a period of 5 decades.

This exhibition, curated by James Gilberd, is based around a suite of photographs taken at a barbecue in the 1970s. The photos are simple group portraits showing everyone who was at this particular event (except the photographer!), as they were, in their casual clothes. The rest of the selection covers fashion, nudes, landscape, and some casual photos of things the photographer happened upon.

Heinz Sobiecki arrived in New Zealand from Germany in the early 1960s and quickly established himself as a leading fashion and product photographer. His work featured constantly in a range of magazines and other publications, and he worked for some of the leading advertising and talent agencies of the time. While being one of the busiest photographers around, he never stopped shooting images for himself, and a high proportion of the exhibition images are personal photos.

All of the photographs have been hand-printed by Heinz in his own darkroom, and each print is a one-off. This is his seventh exhibition at Photospace Gallery since 2003.

Images by David Van Royen, (left) Espit Auto Gas, (right) Village

DAVID  VAN  ROYEN [Australia]: Good Reason 2008 & Not Moving 2010

3 - 24 September 2010

Reception 5.30pm Friday 3rd Sept                                                                                                                     McNamara Gallery, 190 Wicksteed St, Whanganui

Gallery opening hours: Tues/Wed-Sat. 11am to 3pm (often open to 6pm) or by appointment. Check   website INFORMATION page for occasional closed days due to travel commitments.

Good Reason

A photographic series looking at the role/effect public portraits may play in our everyday life and the pressure these images (being “normal” and perfect people) place on our understanding of happiness.

The pieces display portraits that have been sourced in public spaces like a bus stop. Each image goes through a process of removing it’s text to leave only the image or “photograph” rather than the advertisement.

In the photographs we see the contrast between the surrounding world (reality) and that of the constructed image/portrait of love, happiness, fashion, youth, travel, money and sex.

“As I move through my everyday how much of the images I see good reason or just constructed happiness to play on my mind and desires?”

Not Moving

“Not Moving” is the exploration of Self Portraiture using photography to display no movement (a still frame). This photographic series examines becoming older by exploring that feeling that your “persona” or “inner picture” somehow remains the same inside your body during your life of change.

“We have our own self portrait inside our minds that does not move like a photograph”, our lives are not necessarily getting longer but rather we want to stay the same to when we took that portrait of ourselves.

Like so many self-portraits from artists that examine mortality, this series concentrates on the environment around the subject (me), as well as my own state within that particular place displayed. The portraits of me therefore don’t focus on my facial identity as such but rather on a person not moving in their space. What this makes clear in the photographs and highlights are the objects, things, places and body of the subject (I am getting older each day but still feel that I’m at the beginning of my exploration of life rather than the middle because of my own self-portrait that exists in my mind’s eye).

These photographic images display ideas that circle around in my life without relying on the traditional “Returned stare” that dominates the genre of Self Portraiture. Therefore the window to my soul/persona is the photographic frame rather than my eyes. In these images the “Release Cable” from the camera represents the physical action of taking the photograph, therefore symbolizing that I am attempting to “Refresh” the internal photograph of myself.

Artist mentor Josh Paki is working with a small group of young people from Wesley and Mt Roskill to provide access to art making opportunities for local youth. Part of this project includes the young people creating and organising a photographic exhibition. The exhibition is a photographic depiction of community through the eyes of the young people.

This exhibition is part of an Auckland City Council arts programmes youth arts project.

Lopdell House Gallery Corner Titirangi & South Titirangi Roads, Waitakere City.                                 Opening Hours: Daily 10am - 4.30pm (except public holidays as specified on website)

To visit the website of Liz March Photography click here

The year’s most confronting and compelling press photos from around the globe will be shown in Auckland from August 13th as part of the World Press Photo Exhibition 2010.

This exhibition, which travels the world, showcases the winners of an international photojournalism competition. The show will be brought to the city by the Rotary Club of Auckland.

“The exhibition is unique”, says Don Bendall, President of the Rotary Club of Auckland. “It brings together moving and thought-provoking images taken around the world, by the world’s best photojournalists. We are very pleased to make this outstanding collection of photographs available to Aucklanders”.

This year’s exhibition contains 162 photographs, chosen from more than 100,000 images submitted to the competition by photojournalists, agencies, newspapers and magazines from 128 countries.

The exhibition will be on display at Smith and Caughey Queen St, on Level 6, from 13th August 2010 to 5th of September 2010.

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

Mon – Thurs 9.30am – 6.30pm
Friday 9.30am – 7pm
Sat 10am – 6pm
Sun 10.30am – 5.30pm

School & group bookings available.

All proceeds from the entry fee of $5.00 will be donated to charity by the Rotary Club of Auckland.

Exhibition Opening at 6pm Friday 20th August 2010                                                                     Abundance Art Gallery, 617 Te Atatu Rd, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere City                                   Gallery hours: Tuesdays - Sundays 9.30am to 5pm 

Come along and support this exhibition of recent Te Atatu Peninsula images by John B. Turner, on show in this newly opened community based gallery. 

Image by John B. Turner: Te Atatu Meats, Te Atatu Road, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere, Auckland, 12 March  2005.  This well-known butcher shop soon  closed down and became Ebony Flowers

Joyce Campbell Te Taniwha [daguerrotype]

Te Taniwha                                                                                                                                                        6th - 27th August 2010                                                                                                                                  Reception with Joyce Campbell, 5.30pm Friday 6th August

 McNamara Gallery, 190 Wicksteed St, Whanganui

 Gallery opening hours: Tues/Wed-Sat. 11am to 3pm (often open to 6pm) or by appointment. Check    website INFORMATION page for occasional closed days due to travel commitments.

Te Taniwha, like Campbell’s two previous photographic series, Crown Coach Botanical and Last Light:Antarctica, is a meditation on gothic and sublime aesthetic traditions, nineteenth century spiritualist photography and ecosystems in a state of crisis. With these latest photographs Campbell’s attention was drawn homeward, to the waterways between Te Urewera and Wairoa, the region where she grew up and to which she has deep personal connections.

Te Taniwha is an ongoing project, of which this exhibition is the first manifestation. Spun from multiple threads, drawing on the mythology, history and ecology of Waikaremoana and its many tributaries and outlets, it traces the search for two great, serpentine water species: the Taniwha and the giant longfin eel.

Joyce Campbell has been working onsite in a field darkroom to produce ambrotypes and daguerreotypes at Te Reinga, home of the Taniwha Hinekörako. Contemporary cameras do not lend themselves to the depiction of mystery. Digital cameras have made photography an increasingly descriptive medium and also one that is open to greater manipulation than ever before. By contrast, the nineteenth century techniques of ambrotype and daguerreotype provide the photographer with extraordinarily detail, depth and richness while also having an innate tendency to produce artifacts from silver and ether that are spontaneous, open to interpretation and often extraordinarily beautiful. Campbell has taken photographs of caves, gullies, pools and cascades but her hope is that in the silver we might catch a glimpse of the Taniwha as well.