The Bernini Effect

Last year, whilst in Italy, I had the priviledge of seeing two of Baroque sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini's masterworks: The Rape of Proserpine, and Apollo and Daphne at the Villa Borghese in Rome. Previous to this encouner, whilst I had studied sculpture, it had never really struck me as something overwhelming or inspiring, didn't move me in the way painting and photography did. Largely because my main exposure to sculpture was via a slide projector in a lecture hall, and frankly, when this is the mode of viewing, poor old sculpture just doesn't stand a chance. In hindsight, this seems like a poor excuse -- after all, slides or no, I have plenty of opportunity to see contemporary Australian sculpture in the flesh -- but prior to standing before Bernini's marble virtuosities, completely overwhelmed, I really wouldn't have been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it.

Let's backtrack a bit. Why Bernini, why so overwhelmed? Well, for starters, over the course of my month in Rome, my fellow students and I came to learn that one Gian Lorenzo Bernini was The Man as far as Baroque sculpture is concerned. During the Renaissance, sculpture was largely concieved as something static, to be viewed from a fixed point. Flemish sculptor Giambologna began to challenge this static notion of sculpture, with works such as The Rape of the Sabine Women being characterised by intertwined figures and a sense of dynamic movement. Bernini takes Giamobologna's initial advances and perfects them, and with Apollo and Daphne and The Rape of Proserpine there is most certainly not a fixed viewing point, but rather the sense that from every angle, a new aspect of the narrative is conveyed. Moreover, at every angle, the marble seems to take on a different character. Pluto's fingers stab into Proserpine's thigh, making deep indents. Her leg looks fleshy and soft, as if it would wobble when touched. At the other side of the statue, Pluto's leg is entirely different - an epotiome of chiseled musculature. As we move around, our focus shifts from Pluto's sheer masculine power, to Proserpine's sheer terror. Her toes are curled and a tiny tear winds its way down her cheek.

So there you have the starting point for my blossoming relationship with sculpture. Fast forward to June 2009 when I was back in New Zealand. Left in my hometown on a weekday with my friends and family all either at work or school, where else did I go but to the Auckland Art Gallery. At present, the gallery is in the middle of a multi milion dollar renovation and extension, and as such only the "New Gallery" across the road from the older, main gallery is open. Disorganised as I was, I arrived not even knowing what exhibitions were showing, and was pleasantly surprised to find an entire floor dedicated to an exhibition of the gallery's recent acquisitions. Whilst all the works on display were fantastic in their own right, my clear favourite was in the very last room, and in fact had the entire room to itself. Michael Parekowhai's The Song of the Frog is massive, dominating the entire room. It is hard to capture its impact in words: essentially it is a giant fibreglass ballerina, lying prone on the gallery floor. But a closer look reveals that despite her Barbie-like pink legs, the ballerina's face and hands are brown. This, coupled with Parekowhai's use of fibreglass and automotive paint, gives a starting point for exploring the undercurrent of satire and social commentary contained in his work.

So, Bernini, then Parekowhai, and I still have yet to mention the artist who has inspired all this sculpture related verbosity: Ricky Swallow. That's right, I managed to see his show four times but somehow missed posting about it until the damn thing had finished. And given how wordy I have been about Bernini and Parekowhai, I'm not even going to tell you anything about Swallow right now - that will have to come tomorrow, as The Bernini Effect part two. You see Ricky Swallow's NGV show was so awesome that a rushed description at the bottom of a mammoth post will just not do it justice. Oh no, it deserves verbosity all to itself. Stay tuned.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne from here and here

Gianlorenzo Bernini, The Rape of Proserpine from here and here

Michael Parekohwai, Song of the Frog taken by me

Michael Parekohwai, Horn of Africa from here

Michael Parekohwai, Kapahaka from here

Riding the paper-cut train...

 A video for the New Zealand Book Council produced by Kiwi advertising agency Colenso BBDO and animated by English design duo Andersen M Studio. At first I was sad to see that the animation work hadn't gone to someone from NZ, but in hindsight, I really like what Andersen M Studio have done, and it's enough to hear that Kiwi accent reading Maurice Gee (Halfmen of O, anyone?).

Image credit: designboom. 
Video found via amalia chimera (who takes some pretty amazing polaroids, by the way).

More from the motherland: Laurence Aberhart

So, 2009 was supposed to be my 'Year of the Photo.' Over it may be, but that certainly doesn't mean the obsession with photography has come to an end. If anything, it's only growing. These works from Kiwi photographer Laurence Aberhardt make me
a) itch with the desire to learn darkroom developing
b) homesick for the quiet, sunbaked spaces of Northland (the buildings depicted are all Maori churches)
c) appreciate yet again, the skill with which photographers wield inherent geometry to create pleasing compositions.

Another key to why I like Aberhart so much can be found in his subject matter: Maori churches. Despite their quiet stillness, the churches also occupy a difficult (even fraught?) territory in that they are a strange fusion of Maori and Western culture. He who says 'look at the awful missionaries, forcing their faith on the maori' forgets that the Maori were active participants in cultural exchange at the time of settlement, and that the Ratana church arose from Maori taking elements of Western religion which they approved of and melding them with pre-existing tribal religion. To stand in a Maori church is to stand at the borderline of multiculturalism, Aberhart treads this borderline with delicay, and the result is the poignant beauty seen above. In an article by Dutch curator Marja Bloem, Aberhart is quoted as saying that he is "an eclectic collector of cultural debris, as it washes up, and before it disappears." I think the debris he collects is very breathtaking indeed.

Meels' Year of the Photo part four - Patriotism and Boredom via Derek Henderson

I stumbled across kiwi photographer Derek Henderson on online archive Tiny Vices, which, despite being somewhat peripheral to this post, is fantastic in its own right. Curated by photographer, curator and publisher Tim Barber (pop culture word du jour for this is a 'slashie,' however I reserve the right to not ever type the word again), Tiny Vices has an ever growing collection of up and coming photographers and artists. Big fat art nerds may recognise names like Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley, the first of which I am ambivalent about, the second of which I quite like. Big names notwithstanding, not even I have enough patience to wander through all of the portfolios, but having read Henderson's name somewhere on the webs before, and in a moment of pure Kiwi parochioalism, I checked it out. Wow. Henderson's photos aren't showy or elaborate, yet somehow they are still breathtaking. Call it waxing lyrical but I get a really strong sense of achey, smalltown boredom, coupled with (contrasting with?) a sense of stillness and calm. I guess the way in which we identify with and understand home, both as an actuality and a concept can hardly be extracted to one sole feeling, so this contradictory nature is probably closer to the truth than it initially seems. Anyway, less philosophising, more looking at Henderson's photos. They really are quite incredible.

EDIT: These come from the series "I Go Down to the River to Pray," but the very best are available to view as a slideshow on Henderson's website. And, coincidentally, the series featuring my favourites is called "The Terrible Boredom of Paradise." So I guess I wasn't imagining that sense of boredom after all. Also, check out the series of Maori teenagers. Wow. That is all.

From the road

Shot from the window of a moving van on the way from Auckland to Wellington, June 25 2009. Weather alternated from impenetrable fog, to clear blue skies and back again. Oh and there were roadworks all over State Highway four. Ahhh New Zealand, will you ever win? I particularly like the "drive to the conditions" sign, which we struggled to see in the first place.

Waikato taniwharau, he piko he taniwha, he piko he taniwha*

This is a brief glimpse of a high school photography project that never was. Problem number one -- I had no car; problem number two -- subject clashes meant I never actually took photography back at Macleans. The idea, then and now, was a photo essay on life and death on the Waikato river. The thing that had really caught my attention was the series of roadside crosses that can be found up and down State Highway One, the thought that someone's story had ended too abruptly. The people whose lives had ended on SH1, their stories had ened, but the end of their lives had inextricably linked them to the place - a place they didn't in fact belong to. Yes, this is sounding pretty morbid; just bear with me. In stark contrast with these roadside shrines is the Maori graveyard on Taupiri mountain, just out of Huntly. The people buried there belonged to that land - birth, life and death by the side of the Waikato. The river itself wove through their lives, now they watch over it. Ok, so before I was morbid, now I'm sickeningly metaphoric. It's hard to express in words. In photos, it would have been awesome. My photos are of the Taupiri cemetary, plus another cemetary past Taumaranui, which is dominated by the silhouette of Mt Tongiraro. The Taupiri ones turned out better than I could have ever hoped, considering they were taken from the window of a moring car. Hooray for the crappy little Coolpix!

*Waikato of a hundred taniwha, a taniwha on each bend//Waikato of a hundred chiefs, a chief on each bend

This is old...

but I really like it. I have been rediscovering a bunch of photos taken a fair while ago, including this one, taken in Lille in Feb 2005. Other oldies having a bit of a renaissance at the moment:

(Centre Pompidou, Paris, Dec 2004. This, as I recall, was called Fibonacci Crocodile, and the neon numbers behind the croc were, of course, the fibonacci numbers)

(Water tower at the back of Te Irirangi Drive, Auckland, March 2005. My 19th birthday)

(Morton Bay Fig - my farourite type of tree ever, just look at those roots - Auckland Domain, January 2006)