Tag Archives: Judy Millar

Save Yourself and Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

5 March 2010 – 9.36am
My last post was about the installation of Judy Millar’s 2009 Venice Biennale project Giraffe-Bottle-Gun. This and Francis Upritchard’s Save Yourself are now open here at Te Papa, so as promised this post features images of the completed installations.
Save Yourself

Francis Upritchard, Save Yourself, 2009. Installation view. Image: Michael Hall.

A long view of the three works that make up Save Yourself. In the foreground is Dancers, the middle Long and the background Lonely.

Te Papa has acquired Dancers for the collection.

Francis Upritchard, Dancers from Save Yourself, 2009. Installation detail. Image: Michael Hall.

Francis Upritchard, Dancers from Save Yourself, 2009. Installation detail. Imgae: Michael Hall

Francis Upritchard, Save Yourself, 2009. Installation view. Image: Michael Hall

Francis Upritchard, Long from Save Yourself, 2009. Installation detail. Imgae: Michael Hall

Francis Upritchard, Lonely from Save Yourself, 2009. Installation detail. Image: Michael Hall

 

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

Judy Millar, Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, 2009. Installation view. Image: Michael Hall

Judy Millar, Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, 2009. Installation detail. Image: Michael Hall

Te Papa have purchased three works from Giraffe-Bottle-Gun. This shaped work  leaning on the wall  in the above image and the single shaped painting in the image below.

Judy Millar, Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, 2009. Installation detail. Image: Michael Hall

The third piece acquired by Te Papa from Giraffe-Bottle-Gun is not so easy to see in the current installation. It is the painting at the left of this image below – the one behind the other work.

Judy Millar, Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, 2009. Installation detail. Image: Michael Hall

Both the installations look great in the spaces and I recommend a visit if you can.

If you are interested in finding out more about the works and the Biennale, coming up on 18 March our Art After Dark is dedicated to the Venice Biennale.

The evening kicks off at 6.15pm with a floor talk by project curators Leonhard Emmerling, Director of St. Paul Street Gallery, Auckland, who curated Judy’s Giraffe-Bottle-Gun and Heather Galbraith, Senior Curator/Manager Curatorial Programmes, City Gallery Wellington, who co-curated Save Yourself with Barbican, London Curator Francesco Manacorda.

After the floor talk there will be a panel discussion on the Marae. For more detail go to our Art After Dark page:

http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/allevents/Pages/ArtAfterDarkToiotePoVeniceBiennale18march.aspx

 

By charlottehuddleston | Posted in Art | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Installation in progress

22 February 2010 – 1.52pm
Early last week we began the installation of Judy Millar’s Giraffe-Bottle-Gun.

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun was Judy’s project for the last Venice Biennale and was on show in Venice, Italy from June to November 2009.

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, 2009. Installation shot, La Maddalena, Venice. Photo: Kerry Brown

The works are scaled up versions of her paintings – scanned and enlarged by computer, then printed onto the same vinyl used for billboards.

Judy had specially made shaped plywood frames to stretch the vinyl over. The works are between 5 and 8 metres on their longest side. They are made to be installed almost any way and there is not necessarily a right way up.

The plywood frames for Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

When installing them Judy works with the space to engage with the archtitecture and create a situation where the works are responding to the pecularities of that space and of the experience of being in it.

The other major part of Giraffe-Bottle-Gun is the cylindrical painting. It is made by the same proces as the other works, but the vinyl is stretched over a 5 metre high and 6 metre in diameter wooden frame to make a towering cylindrical structure. It’s not quite a cylinder though – there is an ovelapping part. The shape is based on a curled strip of paper.

Giraffe-Bottle Gun cylinder during construction

Scaffold is assembled inside the cylinder and a scissor hoist is used outside to attach the ply panels.

The cylinder almost completely assembled.

The team beginning to roll the vinyl around the cylinder

The installation team has been assembling these in preparation for Judy’s arrival this week. The team has been working to Judy’s layout plan that she sent through earlier on. Once it is all laid out we will work with Judy to make any adjustments to where the works are placed and make the decisions about the final layout of the exhibiton in time for the opening on Friday 26th February.

The photography team has been up in the space too and they have set up a camera to record the installation as it progresses. Once the installation is completed we will do a short video interview with Judy which will be available here on the Blog through Te Papa’s YouTube page.

So now you have seen the progress shots come back soon to see the video footage and if you are in Wellington come and see the show. It is on show here in Toi Te Papa, Level 5, until 15 August 2010.

For more information about the New Zealand at the Venice Biennale 2009 exhibitions follow the links below.

Te Papa’s website page for New Zealand the the Vencie Biennale 2009:


http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/exhibitions/Pages/NZatVenice.aspx

New Zealand at the Venice Biennale 2009 official site:


http://2009.nzatvenice.com/

Te Papa’s YouTube page:


http://www.youtube.com/user/tepapamuseum

By charlottehuddleston | Posted in Art | Also tagged , , | Comments (3)

The art life in Venice

3 July 2009 – 2.10pm
The Grand Canal from Rialto Bridge

The Grand Canal from Rialto Bridge

Avid art blog followers will now be familiar with Creative New Zealand’s NZ at Venice blog site. The project curators of Judy Millar’s Giraffe-Bottle-Gun and Francis Upritchard’s Save Yourself, and the venue attendants have been blogging regularly since the beginning of the installation period.

La Maddalena

La Maddalena

Posts are coming in thick and fast and it’s great to be able to get a sense of the daily life in Venice during Biennale time.

So now it’s my turn on behalf of Te Papa to post a report on the 53rd International Art Exhibition, known as the Venice Biennale, after my recent visit.

I was in Venice between 1 – 8 June to view Judy Millar and Francis Upritchard’s projects and to support them at the openings along with the folk from Creative NZ. It was a wonderful time to be there in the lead up to the openings and vernissage period that kicked off in earnest on 4 June.

Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana

Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana

The projects both look great in their respective spaces and they respond really well to the architecture. One of the amazing things about Venice is the architecture and the ornate interiors that are usually inaccessible except during Biennale time when many of them are opened and used for exhibitions.

In Save Yourself, self absorption that shuts out all else seems to be the common thread between Upritchard’s figures. The installation is in three parts – one for each room of Uprtichard’s space in the Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana - each part unified by a table either scaled up or otherwise subtly altered by Upritchard from her own furniture or other tables she likes. The figures on each table ignore each other. They are placed so that they are facing outwards. Each named figure has its own character seen in their expression, colouring, posture and features.

Save Yourself, Dancers

Save Yourself, Dancers

Save Yourself, Lonely

Save Yourself, Lonely

Upritchard has commented that she thought long and hard about how to work with the opulent space and her use of the mirrors adds to the distance and self interest of the figures. Several of the figures are facing the mirrors and their separateness from their fellows becomes emphasised by their apparent interest in watching themselves.

Yet they are fascinating to look at, as curator Heather Galbraith writes in an essay in the new publication Save Yourself that ‘the seekers in Upritchard’s work are fallible, engaging and charming’ and she goes on to say that Uprtichard acknowledges Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel as influential here. Additionally Uprtichard references Erasmus Grasser’s Morris dancing figures among other things.
 
 
Judy Millar’s Giraffe-Bottle-Gun is in the beautiful La Maddalena alongside the permanently installed paintings.
 
Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

In 1990 Millar studied in Italy and it was a formative period for her as she absorbed the numerous paintings in churches and, as written by Anthony Byrt in the new book Judy Millar You You, Me Me, published in time for the Biennale, Millar ‘decided that painting had contemporary potential’. Byrt goes on to explain that this type of painting brings performance, illusion and material fact together with the purpose of the buildings. Millar’s large scale shaped canvases certainly operate similarly although their purpose within the church architecture is not the same.
 
Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun

The works are scanned and scaled up ten times from paintings of Millar’s and reproduced on billboard canvas. The effect of enlarging the gestures and the size of the paintings is quite spectacular. What surprised me is that although they dwarf the viewer, they are not overpowering or overwhelming but are really approachable and even welcoming.
The play with scale in both artists’ projects is appropriate for Venice, which is a place of oddly shifting scale in relation to the human – you find yourself emerging suddenly from narrow alleys into open piazzas or from a maze of streets and stone to unexpected water views. Millar’s towering gestural paintings against the white stone of the circular La Maddalena and the dramatic figures of the paintings.
Canvas close up

Canvas close up

Millar’s colours are carefully chosen and the orange matches almost exactly the colour of the robe of one figure, the flesh colour is close too. Some of Millar’s enlarged gestures echo the figures movement, one looks almost the same as the sweep of an angel’s wing.
You may have already heard that Te Papa will be showing both artists’ projects in February 2010 to coincide with the New Zealand International Arts Festival here in Wellington. Of course when we exhibit the projects back here at Te Papa we won’t be recreating the ambience of the Venetian spaces, the works will be in the Level 5 high stud gallery spaces where Toi Te Papa is.
By charlottehuddleston | Posted in Art | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)
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