Main Gallery
Installation view
Cake 2010
Maker: Tanya Wilkinson
Materials: glazed ceramic
Courtesy Private Collection, Hamilton
Installation image
Olympia 2008
Maker: Shelley Norton
Materials: plastic bags
Courtesy of the artist
New skin thickens on my skull 2011
Maker: Katharina Jaeger
Materials: textiles, metal, thread
Courtesy of the artist
Installation view
Installation view
Screech (detail) 2011
Maker: Bronwynne Cornish
Materials: ceramic earthenware
Courtesy of the artist
Ursus Arctos 2011
Maker: Jane Dodd
Materials: Lignum Vitae, 18ct gold, sterling silver, stainless steel
Courtesy of the artist. Photograph: Studio La Gonda
Morning Glory: there are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all 2011
Maker: Tim Main
Materials: wood, ceramic, gesso, oils
Courtesy of the artist
The Green Fairy 2011
Maker: Steph Lusted
Materials: silver, glass; display case: oak, glass, cab
Courtesy of the artist
Aunt II 2011
Maker: Rosemary McLeod
Materials: blanket and vintage textiles, aunt
Courtesy of the artist and Bowen Galleries, Wellington
Loss Study 2 2011
Maker: Ben Pearce
Materials: vinyl, dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Golden Gosling (detail) 2010
Maker: Julia deVille
Materials: gosling, 19ct diamond beads approx, 0.70ct antique rose cut diamond, 18ct white gold, 2.4ct white sapphires, black diamonds, sterling silver, black keshi pearl
Courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Grayson Perry Spirit Bottle (detail) 2010
Maker: Paul Rayner
Materials: glazed earthenware
Courtesy Rayner Brothers Gallery, Whanganui
Lugosi's Children
27 August 2011 - 01 October 2011
Makers:
Bronwynne Cornish, Jane Dodd, Katharina Jaeger, Steph Lusted, Tim Main, Rosemary McLeod, Shelley Norton, Ben Pearce, Paul Rayner, Tanya Wilkinson , Julia deVille
Curator:
Bronwyn Lloyd
"Listen to them. Children of the night! What music they make!"
Few can forget Bela Lugosi in his famous role as the blood-sucking Count in Tod Browning's 1931 cult classic Dracula, delivering these immortal lines of dialogue in his sonorous Hungarian accent as a pack of wolves howls outside in the darkness.
The idea of Lugosi's offspring, his children of the night, and the music that they might make, is the concept that underpins the thematic group exhibition Lugosi's Children at Objectspace, but the works of the eleven exhibitors are not simply an evocation of the darkness that is an ever-present part of our lives. On the contrary, each of the works deals, in some sense, with the ways in which we cope with, understand, and confront the darkness through humour and parody; through observations of the beauty and symmetry of the natural world; through rites, superstitions and spiritual beliefs; through myth and story; and through history and memory.
Lugosi's Children, then, are the antithesis of escapists. They examine their own inner space for clues to the true nature of our experience of the world - in all its majesty and horror. A trio of oracles, a ceramic cross-dresser, a set of sutured goblets, a stuffed aunty, a vinyl curse, a plastic bag Olympia, a Freudian thought forest, a bejewelled gosling, a trio of predator/prey brooches, boxed addictions and charms, a floral memento mori, and three inedible cakes are all clues, potential maps of this numinous area where we confront our deepest hopes, memories, desires and fears.
When you examine these strange, dreamlike works of Lugosi's Children you will see that their wisdom may be intuitive; their 'music' a response to the logic of darkness rather than that of the daylight world, but sometimes those can be the only answers one can bear to listen to.
'Listen to them. Children of the night! What music they make!'
Lugosi's Children features works by Bronwynne Cornish, Julia deVille, Jane Dodd, Katharina Jaeger, Steph Lusted, Rosemary McLeod, Tim Main, Shelley Norton, Ben Pearce, Paul Rayner and Tanya Wilkinson.
Exhibition curated by Bronwyn Lloyd, and designed by Karl Chitham.
Publication: Lugosi's Children. The Exhibition catalogue essay is written by Auckland writer and exhibition curator Bronwyn Lloyd, with an introduction by Jack Ross.
Objectspace Public Programme:
• Curator Bronwyn Lloyd in conversation with artists Bronwynne Cornish, Katharina Jaeger and Shelley Norton, Saturday 27 August, 11am.
• Dr Jenny Lawn (Massey University) and Dr Jack Ross - a discussion of the gothic as a recurring theme in contemporary New Zealand film, literature and art, Saturday 24 September, 11am.
This exhibition is part of the REAL NZ Festival.