Wystan Curnow is New
Zealand’s longest-serving and, arguably, most important art critic. This edited
collection brings together a selection of his art writings from 1971 to 2013 to
provide the first comprehensive overview of his practice. Selectively drawing
on his considerable ouput, the publication features Curnow’s long form essays
that investigate the stakes for ‘high culture’ in a ‘small province’ like New
Zealand; major essays on key artists including Len Lye, Colin McCahon, Billy
Apple, Stephen Bambury, Max Gimblett, and Imants Tillers; vivid reports on the
contemporary art scene; catalogue essays and short reviews that offer
insightful readings of art and artists in all their material and conceptual specificity.
Both a map of contemporary theory and practice and a cogent agenda for thinking
through the implications and challenges of making art here, this compilation is
an essential companion for anyone interested in New Zealand art as it has
unfolded since 1970.
Cover: Wystan Curnow with
Robert Morris, Untitled, 1965, in the exhibition Some Recent American Art,
Auckland City Art Gallery, 1975 (photo: Robin Morrison)
About the author
Wystan Curnow was
born in Christchurch in 1939. He studied English literature, completing his MA
at the University of Auckland in 1961 and his PhD from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1970, before taking up a position in the English Department at
University of Auckland in 1970. Since his retirement in 2009 he has been made
an Honorary Research Fellow and now writes from his home in Birkenhead. Curnow
has produced a large body of writing over more than 50 years and has curated
over 30 exhibitions around New Zealand and internationally. Curnow has played
many roles in the art scene, as curator, writer, critic, commissioner, speaker,
editor, and advocate. He was instrumental in establishing Artspace in Auckland
and is a Trustee of the Len Lye Foundation. In 2005 he was made a Companion of
the New Zealand Order of Merit for contributions to art and literature, and in
2009 was Distinguished International Visiting Scholar at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
About the editors
Christina Barton is
currently Director of the Adam Art Gallery at Victoria University of
Wellington. She is an art historian, curator, and editor known for her work on
the history of post-object art in New Zealand.
Robert Leonard is
the new Senior Curator at City Gallery Wellington. He has held senior positions
including Director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and curator at
Wellington’s National Art Gallery, New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery,
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Auckland’s Artspace, and Auckland Art Gallery. He
was J.D. Stout Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington in 2002.
Thomasin Sleigh completed
her master’s degree in Art History in 2010, writing her thesis on Wystan
Curnow’s art criticism and poetry.
Published by the Adam Art
Gallery Te P?taka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Institute of
Modern Art, Brisbane, in association with Victoria University Press.
$80, hardback, available
now.
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