A world undone

Installation View of A world undone, Auckland Art Gallery, 2014

A world undone

Where

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
When

8 November 2014 - 6 April 2015

Gestures, chance, materials, space, senses, vision, thought, making - all words used to describe something essentially non-verbal – a conundrum for sure that challenges our ability to interpret visual abstract information but one that Chartwell investigates through its collection of contemporary art works.

As viewers, we perceive, access and respond to artist’s ideas – the challenge is to take those ideas and run with them, explore them further, test them, unravel them, embrace them, echo them, and answer them with ideas of our own.

The image shows a long white corridor, looking from one end down to the other. On the floor of the corridor is a series of spray-painted black waves, which run horizontally down the length of the corridor. Black paint residue is smudged on the walls at the end of each of the waves. On the left hand wall is a small, light pink artwork hung high up from the floor, and further down is a large reflective dark blue square artwork. Another two tall sculptures are just visible leaning against the wall at the other end of the corridor. On the right wall, a white canoe hung vertically on the wall is just visible at the end of the corridor, and closer to the viewer is an easel opened out and leaning precariously against the gallery wall. At the end of the corridor a tall cardboard structure is visible but far away.

Centre floor: Andrew Barber, The Sea, 2013.

The image shows a large cardboard structure in the right hand foreground. To the left the corridor stretches into the distance, showing at the other end lots of tall thin sticks in black and white alternating colours all leaning up against the wall. The cardboard structure has a small bench built into it, and some writing in black printed onto the cardboard side facing the viewer. The title of the text, 'Editions' can faintly be seen.

Installation view

The image shows a closer view of the freestanding tall cardboard structure, which acts as its own bespoke gallery space. Mounted on the walls are three paintings: the first is a black screenprint with irregular oblong bright orange shapes scattered within it, the next has a white background with small vertical lines of red text running down it from the top of the print, and the third is a small white square with a round yellow circle centred in the middle. Each is contained in its own space next to one another. The entire structure sits within the main gallery space.

Left: Günther Förg, Untitled, 1991. Centre: Eddie Clemens, The End of the Waterfall (No. 2), 2007. Right: Dan Flavin, Guggenheim Tondo, 1992.

The image shows one edge of the freestanding structure. A square of white with a rough-edged purple circle in the middle of it is displayed on the edge of the structure. On the main gallery wall next to the structure hangs the 2D found cardboard artwork described in the last image; now it is clear that the work is made up of reused cereal boxes, as the lettering 'cornflakes' in a stylised font is clearly visible.

Left: Robert Rauschenberg, Cardbird, 1970. Right: Dan Flavin, Guggenheim Tondo, 1992.

Another side of the freestanding cardboard structure is depicted. Here a tall, black sculpture shaped like a tall oblong is placed over to the left side. In the centre of the structure a horizontal glass vitrine has been built into the structure, with black and white photographs laying inside.

Left: Jim Speers, House, 2010. Right: Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher, Förderturm Zeche Waltrop, Waltrop, Germany, 1982, 2009.

The image shows another part of the cardboard structure. On this side, another horizontal glass vitrine is visible in the left hand side of the structure, with two objects inside which aren't clearly visible. On the wall to the right of this vitrine hang two large framed collages of photographs and newspaper and magazine clippings arranged in a jumbled order.

Right: Christian Marclay, Postcards, 2003.

The image shows the corridor space from the other end of the room. The black and white waves ripple across the floor, and a tall narrow plinth edged in bright green with brown sides sits at the nearest end of the corridor with a smaller white painted figure perched on top of it. On the wall a little further down the corridor hangs a long white canoe flat on the wall, covered in large pieces of spiky dried paint which has been layered to produce a heavily 3D effect. These large masses are dotted all over the canoe hull. Further down the corridor, a small wooden stepladder leans against the wall, violently tilted so that its back legs are off the floor.

Floor: Andrew Barber, The Sea, 2013. Left to Right: Hany Armanious, Ikebana, 2013. Rohan Wealleans, Bearer of the light, 2013. Jessica Stockholder, A-H, 2013. Dane Mitchell, Hypnosis Venn, 2013.

The image shows the other angle of the gallery corridor. The ladder leaning against the wall is visible again, as well as the wavy-patterned floor. In the distance the canoe is visible and so is the cardboard structure at the end of the corridor space. In the background of this is a doorway into another room, painted in a dark black colour with blue light emitting from it.