This exhibition is now closed
Cerith Wyn Evans is an artist with a rich conceptual practice. This work was acquired and displayed to mark the retirement of Christchurch Art Gallery’s long-standing and much-loved director Jenny Harper.
Wyn Evans often works with light and text, setting up situations which encourage thought and deep personal reflection. He proposes ideas which connect people across time and space: “I have an incurable desire for the impossible”, he says.
Of Things are conspicuous in their absence… he writes: "The neon work is a gesture, a dance of sorts rife with interior folds revealing veiled and unveiling paradox… the ‘absence’ it refers to [is] flaunted as presence in its conspicuousness. The ‘things’ [offer] a challenge to interrogate the nature of object relations… and in turn, the nature of objects."
-
Date:
29 March – 4 May 2018 -
Location:
Burdon Family Gallery Monica Richards Gallery -
Exhibition number:
1058A
Collection works in this exhibition
From the Store
Related
Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword
Welcome to the winter 2018 edition of Bulletin—my first as director of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
Commentary
Raising the Stakes
On the opening of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū Jenny Harper, then at Victoria University Wellington, wrote that the challenge for the newly opened Gallery was ‘to raise the stakes by acknowledging it is no longer the McDougall but is poised to become the force in the New Zealand art scene that Christchurch deserves.’ When, three years later, she became director of the Gallery, that’s exactly what she set out to achieve on several fronts. One of those was developing the collection.
Commentary
Zero Degrees of Separation
The New Zealand art world is an intimate place but my connection to Jenny Harper runs deeper than the usual bonds of a small community. Admitting this is a necessary disclaimer. I’m not an objective commentator; Jenny is family, literally. And professionally, I owe her plenty. What follows are some personal recollections about the Jenny I know through the associations we share, on the occasion of her imminent departure from the Christchurch Art Gallery, where she has been director since October 2006, making this the longest role in her distinguished career.