Dane
Mitchell
Crafty
August 10 - September 3, 2001
What's wrong with
mastery?
Everything!
And proving that point
well and truly, Auckland based artist Dane Mitchell produces a miniaturized
version of the Kiosk itself this month, painstakingly, if clumsily constructed
from card, glue and tape, minus the slick engineering, and looking a little
unsteady on its feet. Playful, critical, and painfully observant, Dane's
work has often drawn on the surrounding art world for its subject matter,
interrogating and exploring the norms of cultural practice today and placing
art world icons and institutions under investigation. In Crafty he looks
forward to a perhaps inevitable deterioration of the Kiosk's physical
structure, ever vulnerable to the ravages of posters, taggers and bird
poop, yet simultaneously looks back to an era when a bit of card and some
felt-tips were the perfect vessels for creative output.
And if the miniature ever needed a home, a place to rest its tricky little
head, it would undoubtedly be the Kiosk. After all the Kiosk is
the gallery's own equivalent of the miniature in art, most obviously
due to the dimensions of the given space, but also in its demands
for detail and precision. Simply in the way in which the Kiosk articulates
its viewing public as the viewer peering down on object is suggestive
of a Lilliputian relationship between giant and human. The proximity
of the viewer allows the eye to scrutinize for detail, precision
and realism, and the enclosure frames and defines the work as a
fixed and self-contained entity.
KIOSK is a permanent
public art site for temporary installations of new audio, screen-based,
and object based work, twenty four hours a day / seven days a week.
Located on the corner
of High and Manchester Streets (outside Java Cafe) in Christchurch, New
Zealand. Check out the web site for documentation and further info.
The Physics Room Programme
- July to Dec 2001
The Physics Room programme
is proudly supported by Creative New Zealand/Toi Aotearoa
Thanks to 0800 Phantom
and Christchurch City Council.
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