After making the half hour treck over to Newmarket, Judit and Ryan go in search of what may tap into a long lost part of childhood, complete with some random encounters along the way.
An antidote to an art world that has long taken itself too seriously...
As part of the Auckland Festival, The Seed Gallery exhibited the works of John Cake and Darren Neave, or The Little Artists. It was a nice parallel to our first studio project where we had been introduced to the concepts of programming through the Lego Mindstorm kits. In a simliar sort of approach, this exhibition used "un-manipulated Lego to immortalise modern art masterpieces and personalities in miniature," taking the Lego as an element a lot of people are familiar with from childhood and drawing on this playful and positive familiarity to help create meaning in the works.
One such idea is that of authenticity and reproduction. By representing other artists' artworks in Lego, they have appropriated that work and made it their own as many artists have done in the past. Especially well known for this was the pop artists who took imagery from the everday and the mundane, from the society around them and one such iconic artist was Andy Warhol. In fact, Warhol himself was not spared with a piece representing him and his work Front and Back Dollar Bills. The idea is further enforced in their use of Lego as a medium as 
the pieces are prefabricated and replaceable, taken straight from existing lego kits and unaltered to fit the purpose. In a strange sort of parallel also to abstract art, some might approach it with the 'I could've done that' sort of attitude.
However, I liked this particular approach to representation as it extends works which are originally 2D, into a 3D sculpture which you can approach and observe from different angles to see it in different ways. They also mange to create a strange sort of juxtaposition in the combination of the small lego sculptures and the large scale photographic prints where the lego pieces have been photographed and blown up to such a scale which you would never encounter the humble pieces. On one hand, you feel like an almighty creator, while on the other hand you see the pieces in such striking detail, the sheen and texture of the lego, that by forcing you to encounter it in such as way, it is almost like once again you are a child when the toys seemed some how bigger. It reminded me of a New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai who takes chilhood toys such as Pick-Up-Sticks in his work They Comfort Me and creates large scale sculptures so the audience can reengage with that childhood nostalgia of fun and play by engaging with the piece.
One such photographic print, Art Crazier Nation, was a cleverly composed piece combining many of the artists and art works they refence in their sculptures to "comment on the art world in its entirety, including gallerists and curators, as much as they do the artists and artworks themselves." I loved how they manage to bring out a curious sense of personality in the inanimate lego piece, in their facial expressions and poses which made you wonder who was observing who. It was almost uncanny in the nature of the sculpure that the pictures of the pieces in the catalogue weren't exactly positioned like those before you which for me was reminiscent of the childish daydream that your toys came to life when you left the room or you weren't looking and you always felt they were up to something.
I do however feel that the shift in medium wasn't the most successful for some of the works chosen to represent. Hirst's Shark Tank (Renovated) is based on Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Hirst's works are often highly controversial for his choice of materials, as with this work where he placed a shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde 
to represent the idea of death immortalised. I believe much of this impact is lost in the transfer over to lego as one not familiar with the work would not understand the significance of it, assuming it was only a shark in a tank. Though on the flipside, one familiar with the original work would find it perhaps a very sinister juxtaposition represented insteasd in what is more often a child's plaything.
Essentially, back in terms of 'the creator', I believe it is that notion that given the same pieces, we can all create so many different things. Like with the NXT robots, we all had the same kits and software and limited only by our creativity and grasp of the pieces. It was evident that this exhibition had a strong tug on the childhood nostalgia for toys and play on both the young and young at heart and we encountered several others from the BCT. Like many artists and art morevements, this exhibition was fun and playful on the surface but with deeper meaning below.
Epilogue: The afternoon was concluded with some more walking, eventually winding up back in the city with a few stops along the way at the domain, the Winter Gardens and a duck pond. The day can be summed up in terms of much artistic enlightenment and a few blisters.
An antidote to an art world that has long taken itself too seriously...
As part of the Auckland Festival, The Seed Gallery exhibited the works of John Cake and Darren Neave, or The Little Artists. It was a nice parallel to our first studio project where we had been introduced to the concepts of programming through the Lego Mindstorm kits. In a simliar sort of approach, this exhibition used "un-manipulated Lego to immortalise modern art masterpieces and personalities in miniature," taking the Lego as an element a lot of people are familiar with from childhood and drawing on this playful and positive familiarity to help create meaning in the works.
One such idea is that of authenticity and reproduction. By representing other artists' artworks in Lego, they have appropriated that work and made it their own as many artists have done in the past. Especially well known for this was the pop artists who took imagery from the everday and the mundane, from the society around them and one such iconic artist was Andy Warhol. In fact, Warhol himself was not spared with a piece representing him and his work Front and Back Dollar Bills. The idea is further enforced in their use of Lego as a medium as 
the pieces are prefabricated and replaceable, taken straight from existing lego kits and unaltered to fit the purpose. In a strange sort of parallel also to abstract art, some might approach it with the 'I could've done that' sort of attitude.However, I liked this particular approach to representation as it extends works which are originally 2D, into a 3D sculpture which you can approach and observe from different angles to see it in different ways. They also mange to create a strange sort of juxtaposition in the combination of the small lego sculptures and the large scale photographic prints where the lego pieces have been photographed and blown up to such a scale which you would never encounter the humble pieces. On one hand, you feel like an almighty creator, while on the other hand you see the pieces in such striking detail, the sheen and texture of the lego, that by forcing you to encounter it in such as way, it is almost like once again you are a child when the toys seemed some how bigger. It reminded me of a New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai who takes chilhood toys such as Pick-Up-Sticks in his work They Comfort Me and creates large scale sculptures so the audience can reengage with that childhood nostalgia of fun and play by engaging with the piece.
One such photographic print, Art Crazier Nation, was a cleverly composed piece combining many of the artists and art works they refence in their sculptures to "comment on the art world in its entirety, including gallerists and curators, as much as they do the artists and artworks themselves." I loved how they manage to bring out a curious sense of personality in the inanimate lego piece, in their facial expressions and poses which made you wonder who was observing who. It was almost uncanny in the nature of the sculpure that the pictures of the pieces in the catalogue weren't exactly positioned like those before you which for me was reminiscent of the childish daydream that your toys came to life when you left the room or you weren't looking and you always felt they were up to something.
I do however feel that the shift in medium wasn't the most successful for some of the works chosen to represent. Hirst's Shark Tank (Renovated) is based on Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Hirst's works are often highly controversial for his choice of materials, as with this work where he placed a shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde 
to represent the idea of death immortalised. I believe much of this impact is lost in the transfer over to lego as one not familiar with the work would not understand the significance of it, assuming it was only a shark in a tank. Though on the flipside, one familiar with the original work would find it perhaps a very sinister juxtaposition represented insteasd in what is more often a child's plaything.Essentially, back in terms of 'the creator', I believe it is that notion that given the same pieces, we can all create so many different things. Like with the NXT robots, we all had the same kits and software and limited only by our creativity and grasp of the pieces. It was evident that this exhibition had a strong tug on the childhood nostalgia for toys and play on both the young and young at heart and we encountered several others from the BCT. Like many artists and art morevements, this exhibition was fun and playful on the surface but with deeper meaning below.
Epilogue: The afternoon was concluded with some more walking, eventually winding up back in the city with a few stops along the way at the domain, the Winter Gardens and a duck pond. The day can be summed up in terms of much artistic enlightenment and a few blisters.
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