Art News New Zealand Winter 2018

On Deaccessioning

Like cicadas, elected officials seem to follow a periodical cycle: driven by some hidden biological cue, on a regular basis around the country one group of councillors or another will be found mooting selling off star artworks from the municipal gallery to fund its activities, or support infrastructure and operational costs elsewhere in council. On an equally biological level, these threats trigger an allergic reaction amongst the staff at the institution concerned, and around the country. The spectre of forced deaccessioning strikes at the heart of our sector's commitment to permanency, history, and public service.

However, deaccessioning - the considered removal of a work or object from a museum's permanent collection - shouldn't be a taboo topic. The Museums Aotearoa Code of Ethics states that it is the responsibility of every institution to have a clear policy on collection development, care, and deaccessioning, and the corresponding responsibility of the governing body to ensure funds raised from approved deaccessioning are invested back into the collection. Reasons for deaccessioning a work might include that it is irretrievably damaged, that it has no relevance to the wider collection or mission of the organisation, or that the museum should not have accessioned the item in the first place; "raising money" is not one of the criteria. These statements are replicated by museum associations around the world. They emerge from a concern that incompetent or short-sighted governance bodies will shore up shaky finances by plundering public collections - the bodies of work built up to represent and make freely available a population's cultural heritage and stories.

A complex debate has been running in the United States for the past year over the decision by the trustees of Massachusetts' Berkshire Museum to sell 40 artworks in a bid to raise US$55M, to alleviate a budget deficit and invest in an expansion that would direct the museum further away from art and more emphatically into science. The legal battle went all the way to the state's Supreme Judicial Court; the sales have gone ahead through public auction at Sotheby's and private treaty. The Association of Art Museum Directors has censured the museum, and imposed sanctions that prevent other members from cooperating with the museum on loans and other activities.

Things are considerably more sunny in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where earlier this year the Philbrook Museum of Art deaccessioned a single 18th century Chinese porcelain vase, donated in the 1960s and only rarely displayed; it was sold in a special one-lot sale at Christie's for US$14.5million. Philbrook director Scott Stulen said the proceeds would be placed in a restricted fund, to be used for the acquisition of "potentially .... hundreds of other artworks".

And in Baltimore, the Baltimore Museum of Art has undertaken a strategic and highly publicised act of deaccessioning, deaccessioning seven 20th century works by white male artists, to create funds dedicated to acquiring works by women and artists of colour. More than US$7.5M was generated by the sale of works by Warhol, Kline, Rauschenberg and others that curators deemed could be spared from the collection; the first round of resulting acquisitions has just been announced, including pieces by Jack Whitten, Amy Sherald and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. In a recent op-ed for Frieze, BMA director Christopher Bedford described this as a "aggressive but responsible deaccessioning process", that would "provide the war chest necessary to correct the canon looking back, and allow us to buy without compromise the most important work being made today". Bedford also noted the often jubilant press coverage of the decision to sell works by deceased white artists in order to buy new work by artists of colour; he described this as "true, but only partially by design ... a function of history and testament to the prejudice that has structured museum collecting, that of the BMA as well as most institutions".   

It is interesting to contrast reactions to these three actions. The Philbrook has been quite straightforward - a pot "languishing" in the collection has been released to enrich the wider collection: it's hard not to think "You lucky buggers, I wish I had one of those". The BMA example has raised angst from some commentators, but largely been embraced as the action of a woke 21st century museum. The Berkshire Museum meanwhile has been roundly and bitingly condemned - although one could argue that shoring up finances, keeping the doors open, and pivoting to science in order to better serve the needs of its community is actually a more necessary and meaningful goal than adding more items to a collection store.

I often reflect that we as the museum sector makes up our own rules. We might feel like they're graven in marble, but actually, they're relatively new and far from immutable. Rather than waiting in quiet fear for a group of councillors to turn their roving eyes upon our collection stores, perhaps it's time to look to American institutions and how they are taking (or losing) control of the deaccessioning narrative, in order to develop our own practice.

Reading list, 7 July 2018

An excellent and topical piece by Adam Goodall for the Pantograph Punch, The Difficult History and Precarious Future of the PACE Programme.

And more bias ahoy - Francis McWhannell for Pantograph Punch on Simon Gennard's curatorial project Sleeping Arrangements, currently on show at The Dowse.

The latest issue of reliably excellent Gray Market Weekly is reliably excellent, and looks at - amongst other things - expansionist activities by the mega-galleries, such as Hauser & Wirth's three bars/restaurants. It also points to Richard Polsky's op-ed, Why the Passing of Interview Magazine and the Rise of Gagosian Quarterly Represents a New Era for the Art World.

Two wonderful profiles - Thomas Chatterton Williams on Adrian Piper for the New York Times and Steve Rose on Theaster Gates for the Guardian

Off topic, but too good not to share - Judith Newman's He’s Going Back to His Former Wife. Sort Of., published in the New York Times Modern Love section, is a beautifully written piece on the death and complicated burial wishes of an older husband.

Reading list 30 June 2018

A deeper than expected article on artist-branded merchandise from The Guardian - Van Gogh leggings and Tracey teacups: how art merch broke out of the gift shop.

One of my nightmares: He Couldn’t Refuse a Deathbed Plea. Now He’s Got 10,000 Pieces of Art. (I genuinely feel for the friends and family who have to care for the artworks and studio left behind by a loved one - especially if they were unprepared.)

Shelley Bernstein's next move. Always pay attention to Shelley.

Such an interesting edition of The Gray Market: On the Reason Museums Might Soon Take Political Positions, a Bold New Approach to Provenance, and a Telling Quirk of Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Market.

Biased much, but - Matariki Williams for The Pantograph Punch, The Singing Word: On Shannon Te Ao’s my life as a tunnel.

The reliably insightful Colleen Dilenschneider on Why the Percentage of Families Visiting Cultural Entities is Declining (US data) - not because they hate museums, but because the number of households with children is proportionally declining.

Teju Coles's latest for the New York Times, Take a Photo Here, looks at how buildings and built environment 'ask', or have been constructed, to be photographed.

Reading list, 23 June 2018

Creative New Zealand recently released New Zealanders and the Arts, their regular research into how the arts are being experienced and perceived across the country. Likewise, Arts Council England has released a data map of arts engagement across England, which will guide their investment through a new £24m programme. And in Canada, Culture Track: Canada, a similar report but one funded by an advocacy group with contributions from corporate sponsors and institutions. (One interesting finding there: it's people who don't have English or French as their first language who are most culturally engaged.)

Jason Farago breaks down *that* video: At the Louvre, Beyoncé and Jay-Z Are Both Outsiders and Heirs.

Rachel Wetzler on the "that photo is just like a Renaissance painting!" meme:

A contemporary photograph simply can’t be “like a Renaissance painting” because it partakes of another kind of social relationship, conditioned by a different set of conventions for making and seeing images.

I've kinda missed reading good old-fashioned deep dive explanations of fairly straightforward digital projects, like Colin Brooks's Answering the question “what’s on today?”, about the changes made to the Whitney's 'what's on today?' feature, which also successfully flowed through to their public wifi log-in.

Is the Art World Too Big for Its Own Good? - The NYT's T Magazine gathers NYC dealers Paula Cooper, Elyse Derosia, Bridget Donahue and Sean Kelly to 'discuss art fairs, auctions and staying in business'.

This account of a new gallery in the Uffizi to house some of their Renaissance heavy-hitters cracked me up: on the one hand, the director is receiving updates on climate control around the works on his cellphone; on the other hand, there's this photo from the transfer of the paintings, which my registrar would shoot me if I posted on Insta:

Museum workers carrying the dual portraits of Agnolo Doni and his wife, Maddalena Strozzi, from the Palazzo Pitti to their new location in Room 41 of the Uffizi. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

And this beautiful piece: Natural Causes by Annie Godfrey Larmon, on environmental change and America's heroic 20th century land art icons.

Public letter: Cuts to Art History at Victoria University of Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington is currently running a change proposal for the School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies. According to the proposal, academic positions in the Art History department will be reduced from 5 to 4, and the dedicated administrator role disestablished. A further review is indicated for 2019 with the possibility of further cuts; it is the only department in the proposal treated in this way. Changes (considerably more encouraging in tone) are also signaled in the change proposal for the Museums and Heritage Studies programme.

While this is not technically a public consultation, there's nothing stopping you from making a submission. The Support Art History at VUW website has been set up to help this; you can email  s.vuw.arthistory@gmail.com to obtain a copy of the consultation paper. Submissions are due by midday Friday June 29, and can be emailed to  Lillian Loftus, Faculty HR Manager at lillian.loftus@vuw.ac.nz.

Below is the text of the submission I made this week. Enrolling in Art History at Vic literally changed my life path, and I feel really strongly about this. Please consider adding your own thoughts to the submissions.

* * * * *

SUBMISSION ON CHANGE PROPOSAL – SCHOOL OF ART HISTORY, CLASSICS & RELIGIOUS STUDIES (SACR)

I provide this submission as a graduate of Victoria’s Art History Programme (Master of Arts, 2004), and in my professional capacity as Director of The Dowse Art Museum and Chair of Museums Aotearoa, New Zealand’s umbrella organisation representing 475 organisations.

I made an earlier submission on this change proposal which I have attached for context.

Specific feedback on the proposal as it affects Art History 

This submission is made from a position of strong support for the need and value of a vital, outward-looking and internationally-respected Art History programme at Victoria. With other universities cutting courses in the Humanities, VUW is positioned to exploit the strengths of its existing offer and develop new and deeply relevant programmes for New Zealand and international students – but only with the support and belief of university administration. As an employer and professional in a sector reliant upon art history graduates and professionals, many aspects of this proposal fill me with despair.

I acknowledge that falling enrolments are being at least partially attributed to a reduction in the number of secondary schools offering Art History. Having had a similar conversation with Massey University regarding visual arts intakes, I must say I am considerably more inspired by Massey’s approach of doubling down on outreach and student recruitment, compared to VUW’s slow bloodletting.

The University finds itself in a Catch-22 position. Falling enrolments are being used as an argument for reducing staff positions; at the same time, with a reduction in academic staff and the removal of the dedicated administrator, it will be difficult for the department to refresh papers, build public profile and offer the manaakitanga that has drawn generations of students into the department to date.

The proposal also indicates another review and round of changes in 2019. Such major disruption and uncertainty will not only impact staff hugely: it will undermine current and future students’ confidence in the programme and predictably negatively affect enrolments. I cannot see how this proposal achieves anything more than setting a course towards an utterly predictable failure.

Section 1.5.1 of the proposal contains one statement that puzzles me: “the current academic staffing in Art History, while mainly emphasising curatorial studies, ranges beyond the Gallery’s focus on contemporary NZ art.” This is erroneous on two counts; firstly, while some papers contain a small curatorial element and a number of the lecturers also undertake curatorial projects (a form of generating and disseminating research as valid as publishing), by no means would I describe the department as “emphasising curatorial studies”; and secondly, the Adam Art Gallery has a much wider remit than contemporary New Zealand art and in fact presents a varied programme of international, historical and modern exhibitions that are arguably more diverse than any other Wellington region institution – a major feat, given its staffing size and budget.

Specific feedback: Museum and Heritage Studies

I find the recommendations on Museums and Heritage Studies considerably more encouraging. This includes the recognition that an imbalanced EFTS ratio is appropriate for this course, but more importantly, the two areas of growth that are indicated.

Professional development at advanced levels of the sector is a topic that has already been raised with the Ministers responsible for Arts, Culture and Heritage. Speaking from my experience consulting on professional development needs within New Zealand’s museum sector, there is definitely appetite for the kinds of modular/blocked and executive development courses suggested in the proposal. These would be particularly valuable if they could be delivered in partnership with other areas of the university, including Māori Studies, Pacific Cultures and Languages, Public Law and Business.

I would also encourage in due course further exploration of the concept of a “Heritage Hub”, and put forth Te Papa, National Services Te Paerangi, Heritage New Zealand and Museums Aotearoa as potential partners or stakeholders in this conversation.

Missed opportunities 

The more closely I look at this proposal, the more strongly I am struck by the fact that it appears to be entirely motivated by cost-cutting, and how void it is of aspiration, innovation or even – “even”! – attention to academic excellence or the student experience.

The potential is there for Victoria to look for growth from the separate and combined strengths of these two departments.

Aotearoa New Zealand is crying out for academic attention to be given to Māori and Pacific traditional and contemporary art forms and practices; there is a vibrant and ever-growing international discussion about decolonisation and indigenous regeneration Victoria could play a role in supporting, even leading, with a little strategic investment.

There is no postgraduate curatorial training course in the visual arts, and early career professionals regularly head offshore for this – despite the fact the Wellington region has a greater density of potential partners in this area than any other location in the country.

I urge the Decision Panel to consult with the cultural sector before making further decisions, and open your eyes to what you may be able to grow, rather than prune away.

Reading list, 9 June 2018

Wow. That was a long break. Back into it then ...

I've done a lot of thinking about Kaywin Feldman's (the director of Minneapolis's MIA) Museum leadership in a time of crisis. It makes interesting contrast reading to Olga Viso's Decolonizing the Art Museum: The Next Wave (written in the wake of leaving Minneapolis's Walker Art Center, in the wake of Sam Durant's Scaffold). It's worth taking a look at MIA's (short) Strategic Plan to 2021 to see how Feldman's thinking is reflected in organisational priorities. An amazing focus on visitors, members, audiences and communities, ("Mia 2021 is focused on relationships between the museum and: its diverse community, individuals who are sophisticated and loyal arts enthusiasts, and curious explorers seeking wonder and inspiration") but except for a mention of expanding the collection, nary a mention of artists as one of these communities to be focused upon, supported, or better understood.

Mary Louise Schumacher reviews the current state of art writing for Nieman in Critics and Online Outlets Leading the Vanguard in Arts Writing and also produced a focus on Hyperallergic, based on its ranking by other art journalists: Hyperallergic, at Age 9, Rivals the Arts Journalism of Legacy Media.

Yesterday Seb Chan published Ten things for my museum colleagues working in digital, an expansion of ten provocations he was asked to pose at this week's Museums and Galleries Australia conference. It's not just for people working in museums though, or in digital:

... US museums are disproportionately discussed in the global press. The international centres of finance and media remain New York and London, and as a result it should be no suprise that museums that are ‘visible’ to media companies located in those cities will be more widely covered. This is obvious, however it turns out that museum professionals are very good at amplifying these already loud media voices on social media. 

It doesn’t help that our world has become a slow motion car crash and all of our attention is being sucked into a vortex of US politics, but if you are in Australia it might be helpful to remind yourself that we have a different history, different beliefs, and different issues that are more pressing. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find allies with museum workers overseas, but even something as simple as comparing working conditions requires an understanding of the radically different contexts.

More on the digital front: the excellent Mitchell Whitelaw interviews the excellent George Oates on Making and Remaking Collections Online. I'm so fortunate that I got involved in the National Digital Forum when I did, and got to work with both these amazing people. The interview is part of the Remaking Collections grouping on the Open Library of Humanities, launched in late April and designed to keep growing.

Without a doubt the most dumbfounding art-tech story I've read in the past month: ‘Arrested Development’ Actor Portia de Rossi Has Invented a New Technology That She Hopes Will Render Art Galleries Obsolete.

An interesting piece from Australia's NAVA, Towards national standards for art in the public space:

Approximately 80% of the disputes that come to NAVA concern public art: regular reports of exploitative EOIs; lengthy and contradictory contracts issued after the work has started, or sometimes, after it’s been completed; having to work with third-party fabricators who neither like nor understand art; change of project direction or timeline without warning or compensation to the artist; confused approaches to maintenance, from short-termism to lengthy lifetime agreements; and so much more. 

Without a national approach to commissioning public art, including widespread recognition and mandating of best practice, it remains a relatively ad hoc industry. Public art commissions gone pear-shaped come to NAVA too often, and with so many inconsistencies, we risk seeing artists turn their back on this important opportunity. 

And finally, a beautiful piece from Edmund de Waal for the Guardian, after judging the Wellcome book prize: Breaking the silence: are we getting better at talking about death?

Reading list, 5 May 2018

The Baltimore Museum of Art has announced plans to sell seven works by white male artists from its collection, to create an endowment targeted at buying contemporary work by women and artists of colour. Compared to the shitshow that some recent American art deaccessioning has seemed to devolve into, the BMA's process looks immaculate and even includes donors of the works ticketed for sale heartily endorsing the idea.

It boggles my mind that there is such a thing as a "more notable startup" in the "digital art subscription space". Why anyone would invest in such a thing I don't know.

Tim Schneider takes on the blockbuster fallacy in his latest The Gray News column, building off reporting by Javier Pes on exhibitions plans at London's National Portrait Gallery and Colleen Dilenschneider's analysis of blockbuster exhibitions and visitation trends.

It is not easy to acknowledge one’s blind spots. What I had hoped would be an opportunity for public education and “truth to power” in the presentation of “Scaffold” was simply not possible because of the continuing historical trauma about an unreckoned-with colonial past. This was a humbling public admission for a person whose career has been devoted to providing a platform for underrepresented histories.

Olga Viso, ex-director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, reflects on what decolonising the museum might mean, in the wake of the Scaffold experience.

Reading list, 28 April 2018

Ioana Gordon-Smith for Pantograph Punch: From the Margins to the Mainstream: Pacific Sisters at Te Papa.

I'm fascinated by this model: a NYC dealer gallery, Postmasters Gallery, has launched a Patreon programme to build a kind of supporters club, to sit alongside actual buyers. Covered on (the very good) The Gray Market newsletter and on Artnet News.

Nina Simon has released the full text of her book The Art of Relevance online.

Simon Gennard's beautiful and insightful essay, accompanying his exhibition Sleeping Arrangements, now on at The Dowse. The exhibition bring together the work of four artists (Malcolm Harrison, Grant Lingard, Zac Langdon-Pole and Micheal McCabe) from three different generations, using the pivotal moment of the early years of the AIDS crisis in New Zealand at the start of the 1990s as a context for exploring their work.

I am FASCINATED by LACMA's Collectors Committee Weekend, a fundraising extravaganza in which they raise acquisition funds. I think it should be made into a reality tv show.

Shelly Bernstein writes about how the Barnes Foundation has rewritten visitor guides, visitors rules and host training to manage safe distances in their (small, stuffed-to-the-gills-with-extraordinary-objects) galleries.

It is hard to pick favorites in this exhibition which dishes out so many levels of weirdness my head starts to spin. There are serious book illustrations done for Sinclair Lewis, and a corncob chandelier for a hotel dining room. There is elegant silver work paired with painted metal machine parts wired up as eccentric flowers in clay pots. And learning details from the catalog about his life, like the tale of him attending a costume party dressed as an angel with wings, a pink flannel nightie and a halo, makes a definitive understanding of this work fruitless.

A fun and provocative review of Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables at the Whitney Museum by Dennis Kardon for Hyperallergic.

Reading list, 22 April 2018

“The Turner Prize changed all sorts of things,” she said. “Now, if I say I want something, people try and do it for me, and that’s never happened to me in the whole of my life.”

Hettie Judah on Lubaina Himid: She Won the Turner Prize. Now She’s Using Her Clout to Help Others.

This has been passed around incessantly (and deservedly) but I'm dropping it in here for future references: Junot Díaz's The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma.

Read anything Kyle Chayka writes: Style Is an Algorithm.

I honestly can't tell if the profession will learn from this, or beat its collective head against its collective desk (probably both, to be fair): What Is a ‘Narrative Art Museum’? 6 Things to Expect From George Lucas’s New LA Museum.

This sounds like sheer horror to me, but I am a known kill-joy: The Post-Millennial Generation Is Here … and they're working at the Museum of Ice Cream. You might as well pair that with this recent Hyperallergic piece by Mitchell Kuga, How Corporations Harness — and Hijack — the Idea of the Museum. And seeing as we're on the topic, from the Culture™ newsletter: Must the museum be defended from branded content?

Honestly, I don’t expect my work to survive 100 years. Let it perish if it’s perishable. It’s like an emotion. Can you preserve an emotion for 100 years?

Palette cleanser: a recent interview with Sheila Hicks by Anicka Yi.

Art News New Zealand, Autumn 2018

Women getting fired

"The Museum World Is Having An Identity Crisis, And Firing Powerful Women Won’t Help", read a March 19 headline on the Huffington Post website. The article recapped three high profile layoffs of women from leadership positions in art museums: Queens Museum director Laura Raicovich, who resigned in January after what she described as "political differences" with the museum's board; Musée d’Art Contemporain director María Inés Rodríguez, let go on the International Women's Day because her programme was "too demanding"; and Helen Molesworth, chief curator at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), who according to the museum's press statement chose to step down "due to creative differences" - a piece of phrasing refuted by artist and MOCA board member Catherine Opie, who told Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight that the curator had in fact been fired by director Philippe Vergne for "undermining the museum".

All three departures have been covered by the international art press, but Molesworth's case has received special attention, perhaps due to the nature of the institution. Opened in 1979, MOCA is LA's only artist-founded museum, and has a strong history of progressive and groundbreaking shows. It also has a recent history of turmoil, especially during the divisive directorship of Jeffrey Deitch. A relatively small institution, the museum punches well above its weight in terms of influence.

Seeking answers for the surprise announcement, some reports focused on rumours of Molesworth driving out long-serving staff. Others speculated that Vergne's decision to curate several exhibitions of high profile white male artists' work defied Molesworth's programming efforts. But ultimately, as Julia Halperin wrote on Artnet News, "Molesworth’s personal priorities, progressive politics, and constitutional aversion to flattering donors put her on a collision course with the museum’s director and board."

Since the announcement, extracts from earlier interviews given by Molesworth have circulated widely on social media, including this from a 2016 interview with The Art Newspaper:

"Most museums still maintain a commitment to an idea of the best, or quality, or genius. And I’m not saying I don’t agree with those as values. But I think those values have been created over hundreds of years to favour white men. One of the things you have to say as a curator is “We are not going to present the value that already exists; we are going to do the work to create value around these woman artists and artists of colour that would just come ‘naturally’ to the white male artist.”

Molesworth's departure comes at a time when the equity of museums' exhibition programming and acquisitions is closely scrutinised. In a recent article for ArtForum on the work of Simone Leigh, Molesworth wrote:

"The museum, the Western institution I have dedicated my life to, with its familiar humanist offerings of knowledge and patrimony in the name of empathy and education, is one of the greatest holdouts of the colonialist enterprise. Its fantasies of possession and edification grow more and more wearisome as the years go by. ... I confess that more days than not I find myself wondering whether the whole damn project of collecting, displaying, and interpreting culture might just be unredeemable."

A widely identified point of contention was Molesworth's refusal to feign interest in the collections and priorities of board members and supporters if they did not match her priorities. In another article for Artnet News,  Felix Salmon analysed auction data for artists featured in MOCA solo shows over the past 15 years. Positing that donor management is one of the chief curator's primary responsibilities, Salmon showed that the number of shows devoted to top-tier market figures had dropped precipitously during Molesworth's tenure. Molesworth, Salmon states, was "sending a very clear message to the kind of collectors who love to bask in the reflected glory of their Ruschas and Rauschenbergs and Murakamis: Your kind of artists aren’t going to get big solo shows at MOCA any more." He concludes: "Very few boards of trustees would be happy putting their support behind such a message; MOCA’s clearly weren’t."

In March I attended the Australian Public Galleries Summit in Sydney. On a panel of artists invited to describe about what galleries would look like if artists ran them, Deborah Kelly noted that secure public funding would be in place, which would eliminate the unsustainable business models of appealing to fickle billionaires for financial security. It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but it reminded me of the gratitude I feel for working in an art world that remains largely publicly funded, and where situations such as those Molesworth faced at MOCA are relatively rare. At the same time, this year the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has about 50 appointments to make to the boards of organisations it oversees. In a period of rapid social change, the need for board members to be self-aware and socially informed - one might even say "woke" - has never been stronger; for the good of our organisations, and for boards' own self-respect.

Reading list, 7 April 2018

In light of Helen Molesworth's abrupt departure from LA MOCA, apparently because of tension between her programming priorities and those of the museum, her article Art Is Medicine on Simone Leigh's work for the February issue of ArtForum makes interesting reading:

To be situated outside of the main event, to be refused entry, to be placed in a position of radical unknowing—these are deeply interesting aspects of Leigh’s work for me as a white woman. And perhaps more to the point, this is the position from which I must engage with the work, and it is demonstrably different from the place I typically occupy, marked as it is by my status as insider, learned, knowledgeable, comfortable. For centuries, all of culture’s agents—its makers, benefactors, and audiences—have been presumed to be white men, and for centuries, Leigh’s primary audience, black women, were denied a place in this hegemonic structure. This was not a victimless crime. There are ramifications. And one of them, Leigh suggests, is a profound need for intimacy and privacy, for secrecy, for going underground.

Grim: Inquiry launched into Canberra's museums, galleries after funding, staff cuts

Grimmer: V&A opens dialogue on looted Ethiopian treasures. For god's sake, just send them home.

Sure, why not: Picture Yourself at the Museum of Selfies

The writer's method: Anne Helen Petersen's How I wrote about the Nashville Bachelorettes (she is so worth following on Tiny Letter)

My first time - on Steve Carr's "Screenshots"

Seeing Steve Carr's 9-screen video work Screenshots last weekend, on loan from the Chartwell Collection for Te Papa's new colour-themed exhibition, reminded me that I have an unpublished essay in my archive about this piece that I really enjoyed writing. It's based on seeing the work for the first time five years ago, in Michael Lett's previous gallery space.

MY FIRST TIME

It’s a simple set-up. A three-by-three grid of video screens hung on the end wall of a darkened gallery. On each screen, a pair of man’s arms in crisp white shirtsleeves are limned against a solid coloured background. The left hand grasps a pendulous balloon by the throat; the right hand is poised at a small distance, away and below, lightly balancing a long pin. Nine glowing rectangles of saturated colour, each pairing slightly off: brown balloon against lilac background, orange on peach, teal on terracotta. Framed by white cloth and tanned skin, the balloons fill the centre of the screen, tongues of light licking their heavy curves.

For a moment, everything is immaculate: the flat colours, the clean cloth, the heavy-bottomed balloons with their still-life lighting, the glancing shine of the slender pin. For a moment, all I see is colour and shape and light.

Then the movement begins.

On screen after screen, the pin is slowly pressed into the fullest part of the balloon’s curve. The initial small depression grows slowly into a navel-like indentation until - after a long breath - there is the delayed yet inevitable puncture. A thread of paint spurts forth before the skin of the balloon peels backwards, momentarily exposing a perfect globe of paint, which then descends in thick creamy swathes or flings itself away in shiny ribbons, falling from sight until all that is left are the tender, limp remnants of the balloon, a chicken’s neck of rubber clutched in the man’s hand, slowly dripping to the video’s conclusion.

Over the work’s 22-minute duration, this cycle of tension, anticipation and release plays out over and over again, each individual loop moving independently to its eight brethren. My eyes flicker and linger over the nine views. I want to catch every moment: the serene opening view, the pin’s slow advance, the rubber skin’s initial resistance, the startle of the first breaching, the silent swoosh as the paint shucks off its casing, the dribbling deliquescence with which each vignette concludes.

Then comes the point where watching, transfixed, I shake off the trance and laugh out loud. I am ... happy. Charmed. And seduced. With its ultra-slow tempo and doubled physicality – the balloon and pin that you see, the body that is hinted at – Screenshots is unabashedly, gleefully sensual. 

Here, more than any other piece by Carr I know, the viewer can share in the physicality of the work. We dandle the balloon in our own hand, relive the kindergarten delight in heavy, wobbly forms, feel the electric shock as the pin breaks the surface, experience the sudden release of weight that throws our hands apart. 

I also find a sensuality in the simplicity and completeness of the work. There is a corporeal pleasure in an idea so deftly delivered into the world. The analogy that springs to mind is a sporting one – the physical sense of satisfaction derived from an expertly executed movement. The flawless golf swing, the instinctive catch in the slips, the explosive energy of a perfectly balanced body bursting from the blocks, the triumphant slapping down of feet in a rock-steady dismount. In the same way that all these actions involve a practised economy of effort, Screenshots seduces because it brings off a simple idea in such a way that the effort behind the act is made invisible.  

Screenshots epitomises what I admire about Carr’s video work. There is the element of childish or childlike delight; the delicious heft of a water bomb cradled in your palm, the illicit bang! of a popped balloon, the messy pleasure of paint. And then there is the counterpoint of these innocent physical pleasures: the whisper, or explicit presence, of sexual tension; the undeniable fact that here you are at first the unwitting and then the complicit witness, over and over again, to Carr’s moneyshot.

That ‘over and over again’ is important. Watched for long enough, Screenshots become an experiment, many instances with small variations, each captured by the camera’s objective eye. But what hypothesis is Carr testing? If it is not the obvious answer (a balloon, when pricked, will always burst) then what is it? If the balloon stands in for the body, whose body is it? Who is taking or creating pleasure here? Is it pleasure, or is it control? Is this about learning through test and trial, or exercising power through the same methods? Scientific interest tilts towards prurience - If I press here, what happens? And here? And here? Yes, interesting. And ... here? Indeed. Indeed. Am I watching a meditation on the place of painting in the moving image world or a sex scene – or both? 

Afterwards, I ask Carr some questions. Are those his hands? (Yes, they are. It was important he play some part in the work. Since art school, Carr has outsourced the making of his works to experts. Having his hands in the video puts the artist back in the picture.) What about the camera? (It’s the Phantom XD, shot at 1500 frames per second. Carr’s interest in using this specific camera springs from the seductive quality shooting in extreme slow motion offers. Everything shot in super slow motion looks terrific. This built-in awesomeness becomes a problem to solve. So - what to shoot? Some research reveals that the first use of this camera for scientific purposes was filming a balloon filled with water. Perfect. The decision is removed. Swap paint for water, and there’s your art gesture.) And the names of the individual screens - Bumblebee, Airlock, Gyrate, Seldom? (This one is simple. Each work is given the brand name of the shade of paint held within the balloon.) 

And yet my experience of the work remains visual and visceral. It’s bright colours calling me into a darkened room. It’s two moments of pleasure that can’t coexist: the quiescent, light-licked balloon and the flowering of the liberated paint. It’s the separation of these two moments by a held breath of delicious tension. It’s the tremble on the edge ... and the final coming undone.