The undisputed Mayor of Hawkes Bay

It doesn't matter what's in the bottle when the case is already reserved.

Pictured: Advintage Wine Shop, Aeon Street, Havelock North.

The Big Easel

Pictured: carpark sculptures at the Keirunga Gardens Arts & Crafts Society, Havelock North.

Holland Electro v Carlo Van de Roer

Carlo Van de Roer recently became the first New Zealand born artist to win the prestigious Jury Distinction Award in the BMW Prize at Paris Photo 2010. His winning work, an aura portrait of Miranda July, was exhibited in Wellington in March 2010. He was represented in Paris by chic M+B gallery from Los Angeles. We succeeded in getting him a small amount of press coverage to acknowledge the award but the moment has largely gone unnoticed on these shores.

No Australasian gallery has ever participated at Paris Photo although a few New Zealand artists have had book signings there, such as Bruce Connew and Harvey Benge. Some work has been done to see New Zealand selected as the spotlight country, however, no success to date. Interestingly Africa is the featured 'country' for Paris Photo 2011.

Pictured: Our new Holland Electro 4500 sensor control vaccum next to Carlo Van de Roer's Blinded by the Light # 1 (Wunderkammer exhibition).

Legends of the VHS

@ 4:59/9.50

“Do you like vegetables? I’ve always been fond of root crops but I only started to grow last summer. I happen to think the cauliflower more beautiful than the rose. … I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium. Uumm. The carrot has mystery. Flowers are essentially tarts, prostitutes for the bees. There is something Je ne sais quoi, oh so very special, about a firm young carrot. Uumm, excuse me. Do help yourselves to another drink.”

INTRODUCING: GOLDEN DAWN

This Friday witnesses a first. A bar is opening in Auckland that I am actually interested in. Named Golden Dawn, it is situated on the corner of Ponsonby and Richmond roads (the old Open Late Cafe premises, and more recently the space of Dan Gosling’s (Stolen Girlfriends Club) store Dead Modern.

Golden Dawn is the brain child of Sam Chapman (of Matterhorn fame) and Stephen Marr (bald celebrity hairdresser).

The opening of a bar in the Ponsonby ‘strip’ in recent times has been left to the utilitarian bland offerings of places like the Longroom, however Sam and Stephen envision a place where accountants and graphic designers can both meet to sup tasty craft beers or even tastier cocktails whilst chatting about the qualities of life and not worrying about checking in on foursquare.

While Stephen Wong (again ex Matterhorn) has put together a wine-list of only organic, biodynamic and 'natural' wines, ex-Vodka Professor Jacob Briars has been handed the reins of responsibility for the cocktails, spirits and coffee. Given his superior knowledge in these liquid matters (a little known fact is the only reason Jacob has not entered New Zealand mastermind is he could not decide between those three topics nor Young Labour 1989 – 1993, the turbulent Palmer / Moore cross over years as his specialist subject), I can ensure you the offerings over the bar will be of a delectably high standard.

The bar is named after the optimum time of the day to be drinking (when the sun is rising), however Jacob admits that drinking there at this hour will not be possible due to the liquor licensing restrictions of Len Brown’s new Super City. With a rye smile that only Jacob could invoke he then adds, and the name does attract to some elements of the Ponsonby set who think it has something to do with showers.

I’ve got the leave pass for tomorrow, so you’ll see me there necking Lageritas.

Golden Dawn.

134 Ponsonby Rd.

Opening Wednesday 8^th December 2010.

Completely lifted from Ben Shipley

Opening night update: due to some serious issues with the fire alarm, Golden Dawn might not get their licence on time, pushing the opening back to Sunday. A Sunday night opening you say? That should sort the true bar connoisseurs from your casual I’m out on the office Christmas party and I somehow ended up on the corner of Ponsonby and Richmond roads looking for Murder Burger punter. Sunday night? I hope someone has told Norrie.

Opening night update update: The opening which is not an opening (apparently openings are too Auckland (sorry Norrie (ha that rhymes))), will now be happening on Wednesday 8th December. Remember it is not an opening, it just happens to be open.

Opening night update update update: The best laid schemes of mice and men, Go often askew. The Golden Dawn will be opening its doors to the public this Friday 10th December. See you there!

INTRODUCTING: SAM HARRISON

Just a couple more weeks too catch relative new comer Sam Harrison’s exhibition NEW SCULPURE at New Markets Jensen Gallery.

Markets of Britain, a short film by Lee Titt

Thanks to Murray Crane not that I've read his blog.

A.S.K.

Opening today in New Zealand's biggest suburb ......

Thorndon (Lack of) Preservation Society

I went to 194A Sydney Street West, Thorndon, Wellington for the first time last week. One of the highlights was seeing the original letterbox painted with "Rita Angus House" by Tony Fomison. He was the first resident of the cottage following its sale by the Rita Angus estate to the Thorndon Trust in 1984. Sadly said letterbox sits decaying in damp and dusty conditions in the shed out the back, along with a rusty sink and other miscellaneous shed stuff. Officially listed as a quote unquote chattel of the property, Rita's letterbox is literally wasting away.

Pictured: Current artist in residence Wayne Youle outside 194A Sydney Street West - 10/11/10.

THE GREEN BOX OF SHATTERED DREAMS

In the space between my bed and my bedroom door sits a green cardboard box about the size of a case of wine. I trip over it every morning getting out of bed and then again at night going back to bed. This box has sat there unmoved, unopened for over three years.

In this box sits a collection of the British popular music magazine New Musical Express (better known as the NME).

There was a time of my life when I went out a lot. And when I say a lot I mean almost every night. And when I say going out, I don’t just mean going down to the pub (although I did do that a lot too), I am referring to the thrill and excitement of seeing a live band play a set of songs you know every word to (or think you know every word to). Yes I am talking about going out to gigs. In this period of my life I used to average seeing well over 100 live bands a year. You don’t have to be the best in your class at math to work out that is over two gigs a week.

I was living in central Amsterdam just a measly seven minute walk (or seven minute cycle (I never have been the fastest biker)) away from their two famous rock concert venues, the Paradiso and the Melkweg. Nestled in between both venues was (which to this day still remains today my favourite watering hole), the unpretentious yet sophisticated Weber.

My regular gig going routine would involve meeting up with friends at Weber for a couple of drinks. Then we would head down to either the Paradiso or Melkweg en masse in plenty of time to secure a good position (front right hand side of the stage, and easy access to the bar). Although the Dutch are a pushy bunch during daylight hours (I looking at you oude vrouw side swiping my entry to the checkout at the Albert Heijn), their night time demeanour was somewhat more mellowed, which always allowed you to get up the front no matter how late you arrived. 

I was privileged enough to see a lot of up & coming bands play in a room not much bigger than your living room who now fill stadiums around the world. Kings of Leon, Bloc Party, Kasabian and the Killers to name a few.

After the gig the venue in house DJ would play songs of a similar genre to whom has just played keeping the punters around for another couple of hours. Then it was back to Weber for post gig drinks and a synopsis of the events that had just taken place.

Life was good.

It was during this time and the fruity words people used to describe the performance they had just witnessed on stage a mere metres away from them, that I thought to myself I should write gig reviews. What a cushy job that would be. You get to go out and see all the bands you want for free and then get paid to put your memories into print.

This was a time when whilst internet blogs did exist, we did not have the time in our day to read them. Unlike now where people are able to spend considerable time during working hours reading blogs as it is “work related”.

The blogs that were out there in regard to the live music scene in Amsterdam (and in English) were very negative. Disgruntled ex-pats who were running away from a mundane life back home taking out their frustrations on the Rakes as their sound guy was inexperienced and subsequently their live version of Strasbourg lacked the intensity and vitality of the bootleg copy of the in-store performance at Rough Trade Covent Garden that they owned.

Perhaps I could write for print I thought to myself. I could see myself being a music journalist, a muso journo as it were. The liquid lunches, then down to the venue to catch the sound check. Then out for a quick bite to eat and in time to catch the support. Hang out with the band afterwards. Wake up somewhere I shouldn’t, no memory about the night before besides a thumping baseline that had played at some stage during the set. Head into the office late next morning, bang out a review for that nights copy and off to that liquid lunch again. Full circle. Full stop.

After five years of residing in the lowlands, it was time to return home. Packing everything into so many cartons they took up more space that I had in my modest (read tiny) apartment, I jumped on the silver bird to my home town of Wellington. Living what my friends call a bohemian lifestyle (I was unemployed), I kidded myself I was a playwright, drank far too many coffees in the many fine cafes Wellington has to offer and wrote a play in which nothing much happened. Needless to say my play never made it to the hallowed boards of Bats theatre.

Finer weather saw me relocate to New Zealand’s sprawling metropolis they call Auckland where I immersed myself in the local music scene.  Often down at the then Schooner Tavern or Kings Arms midweek I was privy to early incarnations of the Tutts and Motocade (yes it was 2006) play to young but enthusiastic crowds. Fervent promoters booked international acts like the Fiery Furnaces and Ratatat who drew the scensters out of their windowless bedsit apartments for the night.  Life was good again. I was soon over the artist angst of my failed forte in the literary world and began again to have thoughts of turning my hand to music journalism.

Reality has a funny sense of turning around and biting you in the bum, and I woke up one day with a serious nine to five job, married, 2 kids and a hefty mortgage.  I couldn’t even remember the last gig I went to, and not because the memory was erased from some alcohol fuelled binge drinking marathon afterwards, but because it had been that long ago. (It was the Powerstation / Vector double header of the Pixies, but that just took 20 minutes to work out).

In an effort to face my new reality and to stop tripping over the box each time I get up in the morning I am now selling this box of hopes and aspirations.


http://www.trademe.co.nz/Books/Magazines/Music/auction-330920201.htm 

Interpol - Barricade

This is a great new song and video by an excellent band.

Coming soon...

I see from the spate of stencil tagging on the streets of Auckland the Banksy film recently screened at the NZ International Film Festival and blogged about here is out soon to general release


09/09/10 I am led to believe


P_Lab says if you missed this at the festival, go see it when it comes out

http://www.flicks.co.nz/movie/exit-through-the-gift-shop/

Il Barroco Loco

Opening tomorrow night at the Engine Room in Mt Cook is Il Barroco Loco / the Local Baroque. Curated by Richard Reddaway the show explores the idea that there is contemporary baroque art being made here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is, I suspect, a slightly contentious claim as we have no history of the baroque. Richard is, however, very interested in getting your feedback on the matter.

Micro Sites

Micro Sites is a public art trail comprising of a series of 12 subtle projects by 13 artists that are a meant as an unexpected unearthing for people who inhabit Auckland’s Learning Quarter.

The Learning Quarter includes the area from Albert Park to both The University of Auckland and AUT University campuses.

The Micro Sites project was envisaged as an opportunity for artists to create small-scale interventions that interfere with common perceptions of a neighbourhood.

Micro Sites is a public art initiative of Auckland City Council developed in conjunction with The University of Auckland and AUT University.

More details can be found here.

INTRODUCING: TOBY MORRIS

I recently came across a blog by a kiwi illustrator residing in Amsterdam, Toby Morris. You might recognise his work from various gig posters you may or may have not seen around Wellington.

Myself and another contributor to this blog used to also reside in Amsterdam. The other contributor used to say leave no turn unstoned. He said that a lot.

In 2009 Toby attempted to draw an illustration a day about life in Amsterdam. His 2009 archive of the blog reflect this. Quite a humours account, by all accounts.

http://xtotl.blogspot.com/2009/01/diary-blog.html

Do you mind?

‘Do you mind?’ is an exhibition and publication of new artworks based on research projects at the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) at the University of Auckland. Original artworks have been created through the partnership of newly established artists with emerging brain researchers from the CBR.

The ‘Do you mind?’ exhibition will be open from 29th July – 7th August, Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 4pm, and is held in a pop-up style gallery: Suite 106, at the award winning Ironbank complex on Auckland’s K Road.

On Saturday 31st July there will be free coffee from 11am – 3pm courtesy of Supreme Coffee.

For more information see http://doyoumind.tumblr.com/

THE GREY MAN

Over six years ago a person said a newspaper had described a certain Valentines Day 6 Nations Rugby test between Ireland and France as a grey game, played on a grey day at a grey stadium in a grey part of Paris. That is a lot of the use of the word grey in the same sentence.

I just had a damn good rummage around the internet to look for this article as and the only reference to the word grey and this 14^th February 2004 game was the following:

“Before a crowd of almost 80,000 packed into the Stade De France on a cold grey afternoon…”, from the Irish Independent.

Did this sentence with the word grey repeated four times never actually exist? Why is this bothering me so much, well over six years later?

I am perplexed.

It is a grey day here today

The article I refer to above does make a humorous pun with impotency and Valentines Day however. 

Irish Independent article

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Looking for somewhere for a decent coffee the next time you are in Auckland? Possibly a bite to eat? Look no further than The Food Room in Ponsonby, The Chiller in Parnell or The Fridge in Kingsland.

All three offer excellent coffee, excellent food, and something somewhat missing in Auckland, excellent service.

I might have had the best pie ever from one of these places. I have had a lot of pies in my time.

All three places are actually the same place, just with different names and in different location. Clever eh.

The Food Room

The Chiller

Not my cup of tea.

I see Mark Leonard Watts latest offering at the High Tide Gallery in Auckland’s High Street has crossed the not so fuzzy boundaries of hobby and art. Turning it up (or is that down) a notch from his previous foray of self portrait photographs of himself in different Asian (mainly female) clothing, he has now taken to superimposing his face over the top of (again) female Asian plastic figurines.

Not my cup of tea.

High Tide Gallery

AGAIN WORDS CAN NOT DESCRIBE HOW EXCITED I AM....

....On learning that the Veils are in the studio recording a new album

Read all about it on fellow blog spot blog spot

http://veilsep.blogspot.com/

WORDS CAN NOT DESCRIBE HOW EXCITED I AM...

...on learning that Karl Urban may be playing Judge Dredd in the forthcoming motion picture.

How cool would it be to say I went to school with Judge Dredd?

30 MONTH PERSPECTIVE

The above image is a collection of the things my two and a half year old daughter is currently into at the moment. Quite colourful, I am sure you would agree.

What would a montage of a dozen or so images of the things you are currently into look like? Not as colourful I would imagine. Does life get less colourful as we get older?

Art-hoax

So who out there has seen Exit through the Gift Shop? Currently screening nationwide as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival.

There is a lot of debate on the blogosphere on either this film is a hoax or not, i.e. if the film just an elaborate manoeuvre on Banksy's part, or did Guetta (the documentary maker turned subject of the movie) really evolve into Mr. Brainwash overnight?

I think the analysis into this is almost irrelevant; one should concentrate more on if the hoax is on the film going public or the art going public or both?

Did Mr Brainwashes inaugural exhibition really sell out it’s factory produced prints for millions of dollars (total sales / not individual)? Who brought these items? What were they thinking, that they were getting the next Banksy? Or that they were in fact getting the actual Banksy?

I found the film highly entertaining, I am purposely not mentioning anymore of the details behind it in this blog, as I think it would detract from your viewing pleasure.

P_Lab says go see the movie. Laugh out loud (when did you last do that) and then google MBW and make your own assumptions. I’ve made mine.

http://www.banksyfilm.com/

http://www.nzff.co.nz/

http://www.mrbrainwash.com/

Grey Day

It’s a bit overcast in Auckland today. How is it in your neck of the woods?

The Poorer Cousin

On 18 May the sale of two of Fiona Pardington's works at Art + Object in Auckland attracted the highest price paid at auction for a photograph in New Zealand. The previous record of $30,000 was shattered when Fiona's Quai Branly suite of nine Heitiki realised $64,275, and her single image Ake Ake Huia sold for $30,385.

Photography has shed its reputation in New Zealand as the poorer cousin of painting and sculpture.

New Lid

And I thought the art of service was lost in Auckland. Well you have your Crane Brothers, but I have never had a particularly good time there. Treat me like I look, poor. Does anyone still read Murray’s blog any more? I thought not.

No I thought the art of service was lost in Auckland. Until recently that is when I decided it was time for a new lid.

I was not returning to Leo O’Malley’s on the Karangahape ridge. For the last lid purchase I basically had to order the lid from Hills, get them to deliver to Leo’s, call to check it had arrived, go and collect it. Sorry besides your margin what was your part in the transaction again Leo? Smith & Caughey and the word service used in the same sentence, not in my tenure in Auckland.

Seems I had ticked off all the old school stores or stores with old school beliefs.

Until a walk down the high street had me stumble across RJB Design. An unassuming store, I entered assuming nothing. I was met by a portly gentleman who greeted me with sincerity and informed me that he would be right with me as soon as he was finished with the other lone customer in the store. This other lone customer (also of portly stature and not so lone as he was with his wife (well I assumed it was his wife (she seemed to know rather intimate details of his measurements))) was after the Richie Benaud look. I think that statement there sets the scene of the type of store I had found myself in. This man with the Benaud yearning and his suspected wife looked like they had just walked off the cruise liner that was currently docked at the Auckland foreshore. Further eavesdropping into their conversation in formed me it was at the case. The dribble that was coming out of this mans mouth was enough to stain an expensive looking beige suit. But the store clerk showed the utmost patience and continued to provide this man with a level of service I thought was restricted to south of the Bombay’s.

As Benaud took to the dressing cubical it was my turn to experience this first class service first hand. I was given full range of the available lids, offered advice to where on my head the lid should actually sit, complemented and finally given a nice friendly pat on the tush. He didn’t really I was just checking that you were still reading my blog.

End result was I left the shop happy and with a new lid.

So the art of service was alive and thriving in A Town. Well that was what I thought. Until I decided I needed a box to keep my lid in….