Dual Booklaunch at Objectspace

Michele Leggott launching Bronwyn Lloyd's book

Well, the booklaunch duly took place, on Sunday 27th at Objectspace. There was quite a crowd gathered to hear Michele Leggott launch Bronwyn's book The Second Location, and Paul Janman launch Scott Hamilton's new book of poems Feeding the Gods (both available for order from the Titus Books website).

Michele Leggott & Bronwyn Lloyd
[Photograph: Farrell Cleary]

Michele reciting her poem

& here's the poem itself...
[copyright: Michele Leggott
(reproduced by permission)]

The catering, by Bronwyn and her sister Therese, was especially delicious -- there wasn't a cheesy scone or a madeleine left in the place by the time it all wrapped up, well after 5.30 pm. (As I carried off the last box of books to Brett Cross's car, I heard Richard Taylor calling after me, "Even Jack's doing some work for a change ...")

Bah! Sour grapes ... Here I am in full spout, sharing my views with the assembled company:

Jack Ross
[Photograph: Farrell Cleary]

& again

& again

& again (though it's hard to say why anyone would want to take so many pictures of me -- at least this one shows the crowd: Mike Lloyd and my mother June prominent in the front row)

Unfortunately we didn't get any shots of Paul and Scott playing their celebrated game of monopoly, but you can read about it on Reading the Maps here & -- Stop Press -- I see that he now has pictures of it up here.

Scott Hamilton & Cerian Wagstaff

Scott & Karl Chitham
[Photograph: Farrell Cleary]

Richard Taylor & Cerian
[Photograph: Farrell Cleary]

Isabel Michell, Margot Nicholson & Scott (in profile)

Isabel checks out the gallery show
[Photograph: Farrell Cleary]

Phew! It took a bit of putting together, but everything seems to have gone very well indeed -- I guess that's what happens if you just live right. Time for a well-earned rest ...

By now Olive had had quite enough ...

The Second Location

[Bronwyn Lloyd: The Second Location]

Dual Titus Books Launch

at Objectspace
8 Ponsonby Road, Auckland
Sunday 27 November, 3-5pm:

Bronwyn Lloyd's first book of stories
The Second Location

Scott Hamilton's second book of poems
Feeding the Gods


The MC for the event is Auckland poet and academic, Jack Ross
Special guests Michele Leggott and Paul Janman will introduce Lloyd and Hamilton respectively
Refreshments and home-baked food will be served
A range of Titus titles will be available to purchase for Christmas presents.

ALL WELCOME

[Scott Hamilton: Feeding the Gods]

So obviously this is pretty exciting news in our household. My brother and sister-in-law are flying up from Welilngton for the event, and it's great that we'll be able to have the launch at Objectspace, where Bronwyn's exhibition Lugosi's Children has just been held.

If you want to know more about the book, and the event, check out Bronwyn's blogpost at Mosehouse Studio.

And if you'd like to read Scott's thoughts on the likelihood of this being a happy post-election extravaganza, clebrating the political demise of John Key and his right-wing allies, go to Reading the Maps ...

But seriously folks, a very special thank you should go to Brett Cross at Titus Books, for being the bastion of alternative publishing that he is. And another one to Ellen Portch, for her cool cover design for Bronwyn's book. And to Graham Fletcher, for letting Bronwyn use that image. And to Margaret Edgcumbe, for allowing Scott to use those Kendrick Smithyman photographs in his book. And to Cerian Wagstaff, for her promotional expertise. And to Michele and Paul, for contributing their time to this mad venture ...

So come along. Buy a book. Support the mavericks. You may need us one of these fine days.

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!'

•

"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.

•

[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.