February – April Exhibitions

Unpacking My Library; the traits of the collector exposed

New exhibition at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts

Collecting by definition is to gather together, to assemble and to accumulate. It’s that activity where collectors indulge in their personal obsessions. This month at Te Tuhi, those curious private fixations are being exposed.

The title of the exhibition Unpacking My Library comes from twentieth century cultural theorist Walter Benjamin’s essay of the same title. In this text Benjamin reflects on the peculiar traits of the collector. Like Benjamin, Curator Stephen Cleland says, ‘the exhibitions interest is the process of collecting rather than simply the content of a collection. The thought processes of the collector are exposed, revealing to the public the often subjective methods of collating and organising objects’.

The exhibition fills every inch of the gallery space and represents a mix of emerging, mid-career and senior artists. The works included actively explore collecting as a daily practice. In her ambitious ongoing project Found Time: Big Ben, London based artist Elizabeth McAlpine attempts to represent every minute in a twelve hour period (720 minutes total) through existing postcards of Big Ben. The work is exhibited in hourly grids with gaps for the missing minutes. ‘What becomes important in this work is the daily practice of itemising and organising the postcards, constantly keeping a look out for new acquisitions to her collection’ explains Cleland.

The exhibition also presents artists who reflect on and appropriate pre-existing systems of collecting. New Zealand artist Neil Pardington’s photographs of public art gallery store rooms reflect on these mysterious spaces dedicated to preserving and ordering cultural heritage. While filling an entire gallery room, Te Tuhi will present for the first time the life’s work of Lillian Budd, an artist who during her lifetime reflected on the rhetoric of institutional archives.

The exhibition takes a more is more approach, so visitors will need to allow a generous amount of time to view this major exhibition.

Opening: Saturday 13th February, 2pm

Unpacking My Library
13 February – 11 April, 2010
Dan Arps, Xin Cheng, Bill Culbert, The Estate of L. Budd, Peter Madden, Daniel Malone, Elizabeth McAlpine, Neil Pardington, Ann Shelton. Curated by Stephen Cleland

Also showing throughout February and April is a solo exhibition by Otara artist Jeremy Leatinu’u. Leatinu’u is the third recipient of the annual Iris Fisher Scholarship which rewards an outstanding visual arts student enrolled in an Auckland tertiary institution. Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts and Fisher Trustee Stephen Fisher were delighted to award the Scholarship to Manukau School of Visual Arts graduate Jeremy Leatinu'u. Jeremy was selected from a wide pool of applicants by a panel comprised of ARTSPACE Auckland Director Emma Bugden, Te Tuhi Director James McCarthy and Stephen Cleland.

The panel described Jeremy's work as conceptually unique and articulate. Jeremy has developed a body of work which explores the concept of ownership and human occupation of property. Recently Leatinu’u has turned his attention to everyday encounters within the cityscape. Recording opportunistic windscreen washers at traffic lights and street side buskers throughout Auckland, he focuses on figures that, through working either on the borders of or outside legally sanctioned employment, intervene in public codes of social behaviour. For Leatinu’u such figures highlight unconscious community protocols. He states: ‘in the public realm we are an audience to each other. We are fully aware of our own presence, movements and actions in relation to each other. We manufacture conscious decisions by adjusting our behaviour when needed or required, thus helping define our physical situation at a given time.’

Te Tuhi will announce the next recipient of the Iris Fisher Scholarship at the opening preview.

Jeremy Leatinu’u
13 February – 11 April, 2010