As I mentioned the other day, this weekend I visited the Auckland Art Gallery, and met up with a couple of chicks also interested in checking out the art on display, as part of our little #smackmyarts endeavour.
While the Taste exhibition is the main display at them moment, I actually enjoyed the free Picturing History: Goldie to Cotton display a little more.
One of my favourite pieces over all was a collection of five photographs from Laurence Aberhard, collectively known as The Prisoner's Dream. McCahon's Six Days in Nelson and Canterbury was also very cool, as was Tony Fomison's From a photo of Patara Te Tuhi. I also enjoyed the juxtaposition of the generalised and contrived vision of the "wilds" of New Zealand in William Hodge's view of Dusky Bay, and the more stark reality of of Mark Adam's four part photographic depiction.
Don't get me wrong, there were some really clever pieces in the Taste collection, from Ani O'Neill's giant crocheted octopus (and babies), to carved L&P bottles and painted gourds from Daniel Malone, to a large early seventeenth century work from Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
One of Bill Culbert's wine glass/light bulb works was present (and undeniably clever). Paul Beadle's The Last Supper is art you need to get close to appreciate, and Peter Peryer's Doughnuts are a fun, but carefully composed, confection, as are his Neenish Tarts (incidentally, there's a recipe for Neenish Tarts on the gallery website at the moment). There are plenty of wonderful artworks, some pretty, some not so (Boyd Webb's Wrack wring - meat and barbed wire - springs to mind).
With iconic New Zealand images (including fish and chips, and pavlova), and works from overseas, Taste is a diverse collection, and worth seeing. One international item I liked was from Jack Beal (new American realist, they say), called, funnily enough, Oysters, Wine and Lemon, featuring the subjects in the title with gorgeous blue and white tiles. It's simple, and complex all at the same time.
And lets not forget Koha, spelled out in chocolate fish (which visitors are free to take). One thing that struck me about this piece (apart from my initial impression that people were cheekily stealing bits of the art), was that all the fish were swimming in the wrong direction (to the left). I was very tempted to turn them around! Looking at the picture in the gallery's collection online, they're actually swimming the way I wanted them to - I guess that's a variation that depends on who is restocking the fish!
p.s. While looking for links for this entry, I came across a great site Feasting on Art, which is worth a look if you're interested in food and art, and it even has its own review of this exhibition!
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