28 March – 17 May 2009 adamartgallery
Opening 28 March, a new Adam Art Gallery exhibition documents activities undertaken by artist Billy Apple in New York between 1969 and 1973.The exhibition focuses on a short but intense period in the artist’s career, when he operated a small not-for-profit gallery at 161 West 23rd Street. Over the course of four years he created a venue for artists to produce works that tested and re-defined the nature of sculpture, at a time when the art scene in New York was beginning to be galvanised by such radical gestures.
This exhibition draws on the artist’s substantial archive to present photographs, slides, video, film, artefacts and ephemera that have survived from the 1970s.
Billy Apple studied graphic design in London and contributed to early pop art in Britain before leaving for New York in 1964. He lived in New York between 1964 and 1990 before returning to New Zealand where he continues to work and exhibit internationally. He has consistently devoted himself to testing the boundaries between art and life, exploring the social, economic and architectural contexts within which art is made and circulates.
The exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery will addresses the relation between ‘live’ action and documentation, setting out to offer various solutions to the problem of how to re-present ephemeral, site-specific work at the same time as exploring how this was already a concern of the artist at the time of his work’s production.
This period of Apple’s work has not been seen in New Zealand in any concerted way, and will build on the 1974 survey exhibition of Apple’s work at the Serpentine Gallery in London, to reveal a wider range of documentation than was seen on that occasion.
Significant works on show will include a re-staging of an iconic window cleaning action originally undertaken with the assistance of Geoff Hendricks at 112 Greene St in 1971, the 1968 film Gaseous discharge phenomena with soundtrack by artist Nam June Paik, and a large-scale installation of arranged coloured neon tubes reconstructed to address the remarkable architecture of the Adam Art Gallery.
The exhibition opening is timed to coincide with a major international symposium organised in conjunction with One Day Sculpture, a New Zealand-wide series of temporary public art works, conceived by British curator Claire Doherty for the Litmus Initiative at Massey University, Wellington. Apple has been commissioned to undertake Less is Moore, a project for this series which will take place over a 24-hour period on Saturday 28 March 2009. This will translate his 1970s’ activities to a new time and place, enabling Apple’s conceptual practice to confront an iconic work owned by the city of Wellington: Henry Moore’s Bronze Form (1985-6) which is located on Salamanca Lawn in Wellington’s Botanic Gardens.
Billy Apple’s work can be seen in Europe in May – September this year in a major two-part survey curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Zöe Gray at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam.
ONE DAY SCULPTURE
Billy Apple®
LESS IS MOORE
Saturday 28 March 2009, 00.00–23.59
Salamanca Lawn, Botanic Gardens, Wellington
http://www.onedaysculpture.org.nz
DISCUSSION
Is less more? Debating Apple on Moore
One Day Sculpture discussion
von Kohorn Room, Museum of Wellington
Thursday 23 April 2009
5.30-7pm
If you require further information please contact: Laura Preston.
Email: laura.preston@vuw.ac.nz Phone: + 64 4 463 5229
The Adam Art Gallery is the university gallery of Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. It is a forum for critical thinking about art and its histories as well as the professional structure within which the Victoria University Art Collection is managed. The gallery has built a considerable reputation for its programmes that explore the full range of media available to artists and which aim to test and expand art form and disciplinary boundaries. The gallery is a remarkable architectural statement designed by Ian Athfield, one of New Zealand’s foremost architects.
Adam Art Gallery
Victoria University of Wellington
Gate 3, Kelburn Parade
PO Box 600, Wellington 6140
New Zealand
Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 5pm
FREE ENTRY
+ 64 4 463 5489 / + 64 4 463 5229
adamartgallery@vuw.ac.nz
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/adamartgallery
