Sights and Sounds: New Zealand
Sights and Sounds: New Zealand features new work by Sriwhana Spong, Shannon Te Ao, Blaine Western, and Gavin Hipkins, selected by Natasha Conland.
The four works selected for this program come from a remarkably broad set of artistic interests, reflecting the diversity of New Zealand video art since the 1970s. Together, they present an intertwined set of concerns. A new generation of video artists in New Zealand has focused on the environment—a subject that for some decades appeared to have been forgotten. In these provocative works, the land is seen less within the framework of the picturesque or the touristic than through the lens of contemporary issues of ownership, subjectivity, and personal freedom within public, commercial, or politicized spaces.
In 1975 the innovative and globally influential Waitangi Tribunal was established, a unique forum for hearing indigenous claims to land taken by the Crown. The tribunal stimulated a deep questioning of land use and value that goes to the core of society. The discussion began during the period when these four artists were growing up, and they are now operating within that conversation. Whether consciously or not, New Zealand artists are bound to think about the visual occupation of land in ways that ask larger questions, which are infinitely transferrable to geopolitical contexts locally and globally.
Language is also emphasized in these works through notation and spoken commentary. The words are not always tightly linked to the visual narrative; the dislocation of subject, text, and environment suggests the complex dialogues among them, establishing an open forum for viewing.
Natasha Conland
Curator
Natasha Conland (b. Algiers, 1974) is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand. Selected recent exhibitions include The Fundamental Practice: NZ at the Venice Biennale (2005); the 4th Auckland Triennial: Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon (2010); Freedom Farmers: New Zealand Artists Growing Ideas (2013); and A Puppet A Pauper A Pirate A Poet A Pawn & A King (2013).
About Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video
This long-term series offers a rotating selection of vigorous film and video works by contemporary artists from around the world — with a particular emphasis on work being made outside western Europe and the United States.
Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video is a long-term presentation of new film and video works made in the sphere of the visual arts. The series offers a rotating selection of vigorous works by contemporary artists from around the world. It introduces New York audiences to the latest developments in filmmaking within the art context and underlines the Jewish Museum’s holistic and global approach to the understanding and presentation of art and culture.
Sights and Sounds takes advantage of the straightforward way film and video travel: shipped on discs or streamed online, these works provide an instant connection to new creative practices from even the most remote locations.
Twenty-five international curators have selected new film and video work from their respective regions of the world—ranging from Argentina to Vietnam, Nigeria to Romania, New Zealand to China, and many places in between. Their picks are screened for one month each in the museum’s media center, which has been turned into a miniature cinema for the occasion.
The works in Sights and Sounds touch on themes significant to both Jewish culture and universal human experience: spirituality, exile, language, conflict, family, humor, history. The series creates a broad network of artistic expression and curatorial perspectives that takes stock of what is happening in film and video art at this moment in time across the globe—with a particular emphasis on work being made outside western Europe and the United States.
Sights and Sounds will culminate with a selection of highlights from the series. One work from each country will be presented in the gallery from February 5, 2016 to June 30, 2016.
Jens Hoffmann
Deputy Director
Exhibitions and Public Programs
Installation view of Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video in the Goodkind Media Center. Photo by David Heald.
Exhibition highlights
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Sriwhana Spong, still from Beach Study, 2012, 16mm film, transferred to HD video, 7 min., 30 sec. Artwork © Sriwhana Spong, provided by the artist and Michael Lett, Auckland
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Shannon Te Ao, still from Two Shoots That Stretch Far Out, 2013–14, video, sound, 13 min., 22 sec. Artwork © Shannon Te Ao
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Blaine Western, still from The Fold of the Land, 2013, HD video, sound, 17 min., 18 sec. Artwork © Blaine Western
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Gavin Hipkins, still from The Port, 2014, HD video, sound, 17 min., 24 sec. Artwork © Gavin Hipkins, provided by the artist, Starkwhite, Auckland, and Hamish McKay, Wellington
