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For text about this exhibition
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Comment on the Exhibition Evergreen
There is a complex weaving of themes in every aspect of the exhibited work, by the aesthetic – anti-aesthetic stance, the choice of materials, cored cardboard, vinyl, wood veneers and china cups. One enters the work by passing through ‘The Chocolate box’ otherwise described as ‘The Gates of Hell’( Rodin, and also referenced to the Gates Of Privilege) celebrated by being covered by cardboard cut-outs, ‘a sprawling pattern of Convolvulus, Stinkwort, and Old Man’s Beard’. But here, are we also supposed to be thinking of Duchamp and the work of grinders? Except in this case the chocolate boxes are real thanks to Cadbury. We pass two large cardboard standing columns with half a gate leaning against one and the other lying sprawled against the opposite base. They are ‘pitted with holes and gaps’ of the applied cut-outs. Here then is the entrance to “Evergreen.’The vista is one of a drab cardboard environment leavened by two standout structures but underneath the work is dancing, but hardly with the stars, more like Southern Minimalism and a gas fire gothic ghost of our architectural gems. On the left is a McCahonesque (a question of faith) standing deluge, a waterfall of china cups. They could have been railway cups but that would have been another story. Instead they are a shower of greened and flowered painted cups. A proud aspect of New Zealand culture on the move in this case downwards. To the right is a Gazebo, a South Western Pacific viewing platform of an antipodean view of culture significantly titled ‘The Wreck of Hope’. The Gazebo is encrusted in part by the delicate flower drawings of Fanny Osborne rendered in wood veneer, this with the adjacent assemblage cut-outs of extinct native birds jigs the memory of a once pristine environment.The overall argument is serious with a host of historical and theoretical frameworks clamouring to be taken into account. The cored cardboard no matter how delicately cut inevitably conveys an undercurrent of cynicism and despair.
The planted garden in Princes St., Dunedin was a successful way of incorporating the iconic extinct Moa into the general strategy and frame of ideas which is “Evergreen.” The garden is a cheerful open public space and over the matter of months became a site of reincarnation of the legendary flightless bird. Starting with a plot of prepared ground the moa planting overtime slowly emerges into full bloom and then with seasonal change progressively diminishes and finally disappears. As with the other now extinct New Zealand birds (58 known, Muirhead) Moa in its own dramatic way joins the other selected seven of the species chosen for commemoration in this exhibition.
This is my reading of it. I think it is a great work of social and cultural awareness. Thank you Anna!
Jim Allen
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