Saturday event at Objectspace

[Sait Akkirman: Arts Diary]

The purpose of this post is not to draw attention to these beautiful images of the opening of Lugosi's Children by Sait Akkirman at Artsdiary.co.nz (though I certainly recommend that you visit his amazing site).

Actually it's to advertise a Saturday event in the Objectspace public programme:

Dr Jenny Lawn & Dr Jack Ross
Saturday 24 September, 11 am - 12 noon.

A discussion of the gothic as a recurring theme in contemporary New Zealand film, literature and art.

Here's Jenny at the opening:

[Sait Akkirman: Jenny Lawn & Olivia]

& here's me on the far side of the table (glass in hand, as usual):

[Sait Akkirman: Jack & Shelley Norton]

We're planning to discuss Jenny's Gothic course, which she's been teaching at Massey Albany now for almost ten years; also the anthology she co-edited with Misha Kavka & Mary Paul, Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2006):

[Gothic NZ]

After that we'll be throwing things open to the audience, I think: just why is this "darker side" of things so dominant in Kiwi culture? Is it simply that we see what we want to see? That we create this "trend" by imposing it on a lot of diverse and value-neutral materials? Or is there really some deeper fear or malaise within our society which manifests itself in this way?

Is it just that we lack a sense of the numinous and supernatural in our surface-obsessed official culture? As Jenny once put it, "Vampires don't wear shorts" ...

Is it, in the final analysis, a European fear of the depths and mysteries of the indigenous culture of these islands which masks itself under these Gothic tropes?

Come along, if you're curious to hear more. And be sure to leave a question for the Oracle when you do. It will be answered within seven days ...

[Sait Akkirman: The Oracles]

Lugosi's Children

[Objectspace]

The opening of Bronwyn's new show is on Friday (26/8). You can find her write-up about the show here. And here's the advertising copy that's gone out about it (copied from Eventfinder):

"Listen to them. Children of the night! What music they make!"

Few can forget Bela Lugosi in his famous role as the blood-sucking Count in Tod Browning's 1931 cult classic Dracula, delivering these immortal lines of dialogue in his sonorous Hungarian accent as a pack of wolves howls outside in the darkness.

The idea of Lugosi's offspring, his children of the night, and the music that they might make, is the concept that underpins the thematic group exhibition Lugosi's Children at Objectspace, but the works of the eleven exhibitors are not simply an evocation of the darkness that is an ever-present part of our lives. On the contrary, each of the works deals, in some sense, with the ways in which we cope with, understand, and confront the darkness through humour and parody; through observations of the beauty and symmetry of the natural world; through rites, superstitions and spiritual beliefs; through myth and story; and through history and memory.

Lugosi's Children, then, are the antithesis of escapists. They examine their own inner space for clues to the true nature of our experience of the world - in all its majesty and horror. A trio of oracles, a ceramic cross-dresser, a set of sutured goblets, a stuffed aunty, a vinyl curse, a plastic bag Olympia, a Freudian thought forest, a bejewelled gosling, a trio of predator/prey brooches, boxed addictions and charms, a floral memento mori, and three inedible cakes are all clues, potential maps of this numinous area where we confront our deepest hopes, memories, desires and fears.

When you examine these strange, dreamlike works of Lugosi's Children you will see that their wisdom may be intuitive; their 'music' a response to the logic of darkness rather than that of the daylight world, but sometimes those can be the only answers one can bear to listen to.

'Listen to them. Children of the night! What music they make!'

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"Lugosi's Children" features works by Bronwynne Cornish, Julia deVille, Jane Dodd, Katharina Jaeger, Steph Lusted, Rosemary McLeod, Tim Main, Shelley Norton, Ben Pearce, Paul Rayner and Tanya Wilkinson.

Exhibition curated by Bronwyn Lloyd, and designed by Karl Chitham.

Publication: available online (from 26 August) at www.objectspace.org.nz. The Exhibition catalogue essay is written by Auckland writer and exhibition curator Bronwyn Lloyd, with an introduction by Dr Jack Ross.

Associated Objectspace public programme:

• Curator Bronwyn Lloyd in conversation with various makers, Saturday 27 August, 11am.
• Dr Jenny Lawn (Massey University) and Dr Jack Ross - a discussion of the gothic as a recurring theme in contemporary New Zealand film, literature and art, Saturday 24 September, 11am.

This exhibition is Part of the REAL New Zealand Festival.

Image credit: Jane Dodd, "Ursus Arctos" (brooch), 2011. Lignum Vitae, 18ct gold, sterling silver, stainless steel, 39 x 15 x 30 mm. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph: Studio La Gonda.

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[12/9/11]:

There's a cool review of the show by Graham Reid in this Saturday's Weekend Herald:

& a lot more pictures of the opening on Bronwyn's blog here.