Artspace

THE BILL with Fiona Clark

For Fantastic Carmen
February 20 - March 12, 2016

Fiona Clark, For Fantastic Carmen
Fiona Clark, For Fantastic Carmen, Artspace 2016. Photograph by Sam Hartnett.
 
Fiona Clark's solo exhibition For Fantastic Carmen focuses on her long-term investigation into the politics of gender and body image with relation to a shifting understanding of both individual and communal identity. 
 
The exhibition has been formed around the 1974 Dance Party series, which was censored forty years ago when it was exhibited at the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1976, and have never shown as a complete set in Auckland since. 
 
Returning these works to the site where they were taken, Karangahape and surrounding streets, “For Fantastic Carmen” also includes iconic works (in collections at the Govett Brewster and Te Papa), which have had a clear impact on New Zealand’s photographic histories. 
 
Like the hand written inscriptions by Tracy Karl on the Dance Party series the video programme of interviews with Clark and members of her community directly bring up oral and written accounts and the language that formed within diverse phases of the construction of LGBTQIA communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. 
 
As the first project to launch after the recent architectural renovations to Artspace, the exhibition includes Clark’s legendary albums “Living with Aids” shown in the new research area Learning, Unlearning, Relearning. With a new project proposing a critical reading of Amy Maud Bock’s biography, Clark visits the landscapes, relatives and old photos of the first crossed dressed woman, or the first trans man recorded in the country.  
 
A portrait of ‘Maureen’, an alternate persona of Clark’s; beautiful pictures of Club 47, New Plymouth’s lesbian cafe and bar from the late ‘90’s; two prints of Arnold Schwarzenegger photographed by Clark in Sydney in the ‘80’s; moreover her friends, kawakawa leaves and the artist’s books bring not only an understanding of her life but also a clear positioning of her long term practice, first as an instant relationship between a dedicated documenter of her queer friends, feminist comrades and lesbian love. 
 
THE BILL's research-based exhibitions and events mark the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Homosexual Law Reform Act in Aotearoa New Zealand. Evolving from a solo presentation of work by senior New Zealand artist Fiona Clark, THE BILL will include eclectic forms of historical reconstruction, social gathering, and communal solidarity into its exhibition structure, as both a call and a group show.
 
 

Fiona ClarkFiona Clark, 'Dianna and Peri at Miss NZ Drag Queen Ball, Auckland' 1975.

 

THE BILL PROGRAMME 

The exhibition layout and design within THE BILL evolves from a solo presentation to a group show through a schedule of events, discussions and performances. Instead of an opening night, THE BILL will accumulate conversations at moments of change and decision making.

PARALLEL DISCUSSION

February 8, 6pm

In conversation with Alicia Frankovich 


Artspace director Misal Adnan Yıldız will be in conversation with Alicia Frankovich in the occasion of her solo exhibition at Starkwhite The Female has Undergone Several Manifestations.  

THE BILL IS OUT! 

Programme Launch, Discussion and Screening
February 9, 6PM
Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium

Misal Adnan Yıldız will launch the curatorial project, THE BILL and invite Paula Booker from Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision to talk about their special screening programme.

Fiona Clark "For Fantastic Carmen" 
February 20 - March 12
Exhibition launch and Fiona Clark artist talk 
Saturday February 20
LISTEN TO AN AUDIO RECORDING OF THE TALK

PARALLEL EXHIBITION
For Pink Pussycat Club
February 20 – April 22


In a parallel exhibition within THE BILL, running February 20 - April 22, Artspace will collaborate with Starkwhite gallery, where Fiona Clark performed when she was an art student, when it was the famous adult entertainment venue, “The Pink Pussycat Club”.  www.starkwhite.co.nz 
 

QUEERING CONVERSATIONS
March 5 - April 22
Research and installation by Jaimee Stockman-Young for the Artspace Conversations room.
LISTEN TO AN AUDIO RECORDING OF THE TALK

Black Cracker at Neck of the Woods
March 9

Black Cracker for White Night 
March 12, 6pm - midnight

Berlin based, American artist and musician Black Cracker, in collaboration with Berlin based art director/designer Gerald Friedrich Spelsberg (GFS). 

"For Collective Unconscious
"
March 12 – April 22

Billy Apple®, Amy Blinkhorne, Teghan Burt and George Rump, Fiona Clark, Black Cracker and GFS, Léuli Eshraghi, Alicia Frankovich, Nan Goldin, Félix González-Torres, Nilbar Güreş, Dale Harding, Samuel Hodge, Lonnie Hutchinson, Paul Johns, William E. Jones, Yuki Kihara, Grant Lingard, Alex Monteith, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Catherine Opie, Emily Roysdon, Aykan Safoğlu, Ava Seymour, Jennifer Katherine Shields, Zackary Steiner-Fox, Jaimee Stockman-Young, Brian Tennessee Claflin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tom of Finland®.

Artist Talk with Léuli Eshraghi and Lonnie Hutchinson
March 16
LISTEN TO AN AUDIO RECORDING OF THE TALK
 

Finissage Alex Monteith in conversation with Misal Adnan Yildiz
April 22 
LISTEN TO AN AUDIO RECORDING OF THE TALK
 

 

THE BILL has been possible, real and beautiful, and realised without any limits to our imagination through the encouragement, inspiration, involvement, lending, production, support and feedback of our key collaborators, discussion partners and friends: 

Fiona Clark, Paul Johns, Peter Robinson, Marry Morrison, Michael Lett and Samuel Holloway, Michael Lett Gallery, John McCormack and Starkwhite Gallery, Alex Monteith and Sarah Munro, Fiona Moorhead and Auckland Art Gallery, Michael Rade and SomoS, Milani Gallery, Wolfgang Tillmans Studio, Linda Tyler and University of Auckland, Karen Black, Hamish Sawyer, Sebastian Goldspink and Alaska Projects of Sydney, VAR Programme, Christchurch Art Gallery, Sharon Stanton, Matthew Marks Gallery,  Galerie Martin Janda, Hazel and Tony Petrie, The Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand (LAGANZ), Paula Booker, Gareth Watkins and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Tom of Finland Foundation, Reuben Paterson, Art Gallery of New South Wales.     

© 2007-2018 ARTSPACE NZ
Sitemap Site: McGovern