"Art from Berlin: Art from the Spielhaus Morrison Galerie"
2004-03-02 until 2004-03-20
Bartley Nees Gallery
Wellington, , NZ New Zealand (Aotearoa)

During March the Bartley Nees Project brings visitors an exhibition of contemporary art from Berlin as part of our gallery exchange with the Spielhaus Morrison Galerie in what they believe is a innovative project for a commercial art gallery in New Zealand. The programme, planned to coincide with the 2004 New Zealand International Arts Festival, will provide a snapshot of contemporary art practice in Berlin with the three featured artists playing with ideas around the construction and deconstruction of images.

Artist Stefan Kübler dissolves and rearranges pictures and their elements utilising hundreds of postcards. Jörg Scheibe works with randomly collected photographic material which is distorted by computer manipulation. The new image is then painted in oil on canvas. The highly acclaimed Norwegian photographer, Mikkel McAlinden, creates composite images from several individual photographs which are "sewn" together on the computer in a meticulous and time-consuming process.

One of the directors of the Spielhaus Morrison Galerie is expatriate New Zealander and well-known tenor Hamish Morrison. Morrison, who has sung with all major New Zealand opera companies, participated in the 2002 Festival opera. Although better known as a singer than a gallerist, Morrison has long had an interest in the visual arts and has been a collector since buying his first art – some Ralph Hotere works on paper – as a school leaver in 1979. Many works in Morrison’s private collection are now on loan to public art galleries. Morrison initiated the gallery exchange as a way of enabling German art to be seen here, and New Zealand art to be seen in Berlin. Next year, we will take art from the Bartley Nees Gallery to Berlin. Hamish Morrison and Stefan Kübler will attend the opening.

IMAGE
Jörg Scheibe
Re-Animator 9 : Master Blaster,
2004
Oil on Canvas
200 x 200 cm

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for New Zealand

Other Important Exhibitions in New Zealand