Mass

or, Further adventures with my iPhone ... please excuse the picture quality

I'd be interested to know how many people could draw an overall conclusion about the five works included in 'Under Construction', currently on show at the Dowse. While the description of the show holds water

a collection of artist projects that respond to notions of space, location and environment. Joanna Langford, Karin van Roosmalen, Douglas Bagnall, Fiona Connor and A.D. Schierning each have differing practices, but all provide comment on the constructed environment and our relationship to it.

the actual experience as a visitor is as divided as the five spaces the works are shown in. Compared to the very easy to 'get' watercolour show, 'Under Construction' is rather oblique.

Having said that, I was utterly taken by the contrast between Langford's typically spidery, tenuous structure and the weightiness of Connor's stairs sculpture. Those two alone would have been enough for me.






The best word I can think of for the pairing is 'flattering'. It may be intentional and smart, or great dumb luck, but it's worth going and seeing for yourself.

Doozy

Opening tonight at Enjoy is Joanna Langford's new installation 'Brave Days'. I haven't enjoyed an Enjoy email so much in ages:

Like the Doozers of Fraggle Rock creating their intricate architectural constructions, Langford’s primary activity is doing. Structures are built intuitively and re-enforced as necessary. Her work also shares a symbiotic relationship to its environment, as she utilises cast-off materials to create new environments. While Langfords work is more complex than the doozers compulsive behaviour ­– building ad infinitum – there are similarities. The Doozers said they actually want the muppet Fraggles to eat their constructions because "architecture's supposed to be enjoyed" and also so they can go on to build again.

For those of you not watching children's TVin the mid-1980s (they were good times, I tell you) the Doozers page on the Muppet wiki may be illuminating.

Calling Langford's work more complex than the Doozers could be taken as a slight. Fraggle Rock, was a very deliberate consideration of the different ways of building and living within society, and the Doozers and the Fraggles had a symbiotic relationship: the Doozers live to build, the Fraggles eat their constructions, and thus the Doozers have room to keep building. So, my question is: if Langford is a Doozer, and the audience is a Fraggle - who is Majory, the sentient trash heap?

PS I forgot to say - I'm looking forward to seeing the show, after enjoying the Sarjeant Gallery installation linked to above.

Image: Doozers. From the Muppet wiki.

While in Wanganui

Wanganui. It used to be 'well worth the journey' but now it's 'welcome home'. Yup.

In the weekend an article by Grant Smithies on NZ's river city noted that although a "long-overdue upgrade was quashed by an unsympathetic council, much to the disgust of the local artistic community, ... the Sarjeant Art Gallery on Queens Park hill remains the most beautiful art gallery in the country, with the kind of sharp curation normally found in major metropolitan galleries."

Visiting the gallery before Christmas, I was taken aback by the sheer amount of work that solo curator Greg Donson churns out. There are currently six shows or installations up, and the gallery felt a bit crammed, but exciting.

The highlight for me was Joanna Langford's soaring, complicated installation in the dome space - one of the best I've seen there. (Apologies for the crappy image, it's the best available on the Sarjeant's site).

The lowlight was possibly the 'Woodwork' show, which gave a nook or two's space to five artists: Regan Gentry, Warren Viscoe, Glen Hayward, Harry Watson and Ben Pearce. Brought together under the premise that they all work with the same material, although in different ways, the presentation somehow flattened out the differences between each artist's work.

Matt Couper's show 'The Museum of Inherent Vice' sprawled and scrawled its way through the end gallery. It's interesting to wonder if impolite art has some trouble with the Sarjeant's genteel spaces. Both Couper's and Langford's works resulted from their residencies at Tylee Cottage last year, which I guess goes to show that the council hasn't suceeded in ruining everything yet.

Image: Joanna Langford, Down from the nightlands, 2007.