Art Seen: January 14

James Dignan reviews some recent Dunedin exhibitions.

‘‘Archives: Te Wahi Pounamu'', Areta Wilkinson and Mark Adams (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)

‘‘ARCHIVES: TE WAHI POUNAMU'' features the work of Maori jeweller Areta Wilkinson (Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Waitaha) and Pakeha photographer Mark Adams. Between them, they explore the moment of contact between the two peoples in the South and their intertwined path to the present day.

Wilkinson's jewellery is an analogy of interaction between cultures. In many of the pieces, traditional Maori jewellery forms have been carefully recreated in European materials - resin, metal - producing a cross-cultural hybrid. In the artist's major display, bright, artificially coloured pendants hang from silhouetted tribal figures. A further small series of works comprises fine, delicate brooches featuring images of the past encased in sterling silver cases, the land and its history becoming miniature museum specimens.

Adams' photographs re-create and reimagine early European paintings of the new land. His multipanel sweeps have a sombre, moody air, the landscape simultaneously tantalising and threatening. Other pieces by the artist display the bleak river flats which were important sites in pre-European Aotearoa.

A final collaborative series of works features taonga which have been directly placed on photographic paper and then exposed to the light. The resulting photograms become an almost medical examination of the structure and solidity of the decorative forms.

---

‘‘The Future is a Do-Over'' (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)

‘‘THE FUTURE IS A DO-OVER'' is a group exhibition exploring the concept of the remake and reprise. Each of the works becomes a cultural game of Chinese whispers, as the six artists use other earlier art or narrative as their starting point in an exploration of the nature of reality.

The display is dominated by four large-screen video works. Shannon Te Ao's melancholy work reprises a Listener article in spoken text and slowly drifting images. Bridget Reweti's reinterpretation of promotional film This is New Zealand subverts the original, yet simultaneously reinforces the artist's connection to the land. Rebecca Ann Hobbs' video places two sisters in different parts of a historic site as they attempt to communicate with each other telepathically.

Amie Siegel's Berlin Remake is a star of the show, with its simple, effective pairing of scenes from an East German film from the 1950s with images and re-enactments of the same locations today presented alongside. The effects of displacement in time are both poignant and revealing.

Two interactive works complete the exhibition: the immersive environment of Ted Whitaker's helmet Videodrome asks us to question the nature of our reality. Tony de Goldi's massive distorted polyhedron, equipped with tiny viewing holes, becomes an exhibit within an exhibit, the inner tableau recalling exotic specimens in Victorian exhibitions.

---

‘‘Untitled'', Rebecca Baumann and Brendan van Hek (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)

The main foyer of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery is at present home to a large installation by Australian artists Rebecca Baumann and Brendan van Hek.

The work is an exploration of colour and public space, and takes the form of three large reflective surfaces in the print-primary colours of yellow, magenta, and cyan. The three panels, each several metres square, are arranged such that they form a roughly equilateral triangular space between them.

Gallery visitors passing between the panels see the gallery space reflected in these three colours, and re-reflected in the combined hues created from them. The patrons themselves become part of the display, as it is difficult to enter the vicinity of the mirrored surfaces without being personally reflected in them.

The work is a continuation of earlier work by Baumann, who is this year's International Visiting Artist at the DPAG. Her work often focuses on the reimagination of space, both from a physical and a psychological viewpoint.

In the current display, we and our surroundings become bathed in unexpected colour, leading to a re-evaluation of the space and of our perception of it. The reversed mirror forms (and their own repeated reversal) also forces us to look again at ourselves and our surroundings.