Unnerved: The New Zealand Project
1 May – 4 July 2010

The Gallery presents the second in a series of country-specific exhibition projects focusing on its contemporary collections with ‘Unnerved: The New Zealand Project’.

Holdings of contemporary work from New Zealand have grown rapidly since the early 1990s, partly through increased awareness and interest in the Asia Pacific Triennial exhibitions.

'Unnerved' explores a particularly rich dark vein that recurs in New Zealand contemporary art and cinema. Psychological or physical unease pervades many works in the exhibition, with humour, parody and poetic subtlety among the strategies used by artists across generations and genres.

Major sculptures by Michael Parekowhai, installations by Lisa Reihana and Michael Stevenson and photographic series by Yvonne Todd, Anne Noble and Greg Semu will feature alongside video art by Sriwhana Spong and Nathan Pohio. This exhibition will travel to the National Gallery of Victoria in late 2010.

Artists
More than 120 works by over 30 artists feature in ‘Unnerved: The New Zealand Project’ — from intimate works on paper to large-scale installations and major film works. Bringing together works from 1967 to the present, the exhibition engages with New Zealand’s changing social, political and cultural landscape as the country navigates its indigenous, settler and migrant histories.

These works explore a changing sense of place, the continued importance of contemporary Māori art, bi-culturalism, a complex colonial past, the creative reworking of memory, the importance of cinema, and the often interconnected mediums of performance, video and photography.

Laurence Aberhart | Mark Adams | Duncan Cole & Shigeyuki Kihara | Shane Cotton | Bill Culbert | Flight Of The Conchords: Jemaine Clement  & Bret Mckenzie | Jacqueline Fraser | Max Gimblett | Florian Habicht | Gavin Hipkins | Julian Hooper | Lonnie Hutchinson | Richard Killeen | Peter Madden | Alex Monteith | Anne Noble | James Oram | Fiona Pardington | Michael Parekowhai | Campbell Patterson | Peter Peryer | Nathan Pohio | John Pule | Lisa Reihana | Greg Semu | Ava Seymour | Michael Smither | Sriwhana Spong | Michael Stevenson | Lorene Taurerewa | Yvonne Todd | Yvonne Todd and the Victorian Tapestry Workshop | Sima Urale | Ronnie Van Hout | Ruth Watson

Publication
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project

Maud Page, Wystan Curnow and more
192 pages paperback colour illustrations

This richly illustrated publication — bringing together more than 120 works by over 30 artists, from the late 1960s to the present — explores a particularly rich, dark vein in contemporary New Zealand art and cinema and includes a strong focus on photography and moving-image works.

Lead essays by Maud Page, Senior Curator, Pacific Art, and Wystan Curnow, Professor of English at the University of Auckland, examine New Zealand’s contemporary artistic practice in terms of complex traditions and histories, as well as a changing social, political and cultural landscape, while short essays explore the work of each artist in turn.

Major sculptures by Michael Parekowhai, installations by Lisa Reihana and Michael Stevenson, and photographic series by Yvonne Todd, Gavin Hipkins, Anne Noble and Greg Semu feature alongside film and video art by Sriwhana Spong and Nathan Pohio, as well as the work of emerging artists James Oram and Lorene Taurerewa.

The exhibition ‘Unnerved: The New Zealand Project’ is at the Gallery of Modern Art and Australian Cinémathèque until 4 July 2010, and will travel to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, later in 2010.

The publication is available from the Gallery Store and <online>b>online