Wendelien Bakker Catching a Grid of Rain 2023. Steel. Courtesy of the artist
Wendelien Bakker Catching a Grid of Rain 2023. Steel. Courtesy of the artist
Ongoing
Wendelien Bakker has transformmed the Gallery’s bunker into a sculptural surface that considers the practical and poetic aspects of catching rain, channelling the water through a grid of guttering and down into the earth.
Wendelien works in a site-specific way, responding to the environment and structures around her. Here she allows us to see the steel and concrete, revealing building systems and infrastructures that are often hidden in plain sight. Visually, it recalls the neo-brutalist architectural style that Christchurch is known for. In wet weather, this grid of steel guttering will collect rainfall and channel it towards the ground where it can drain away.
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Curator:
Melanie Oliver -
Exhibition number:
1170
Related
Exhibition
Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa
19 May 2024
A major exhibition featuring works that tell stories about personal and collective histories, communication, distance and relationships to our environment.
Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword
It feels a bit strange to be writing the foreword for the autumn edition of Bulletin on one of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s hottest days. However, here I am, welcoming in a new year and enjoying an amazing summer, while signalling a change in seasons and a range of new exhibitions and programmes here at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. It has been a fantastic, bustling summer for the Gallery so far, and we have welcomed over 60,000 visitors between 1 December 2023 and 31 January 2024.
Commentary
Channelling
In this issue of Bulletin we invited writer and curator Simon Gennard to respond to the exhibition Spring Time is Heart-break. Simon delves into works by artists Wendelien Bakker, Madison Kelly (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Pākehā) and Lucy Meyle, which each examine complex entanglements across species and human/non-human relationships. Looking to the dynamic thinking of writer Ursula Le Guin, Simon offers another way of looking at these artistic practices, as a process of making kin within our contemporary world.