High Chair: New Zealand Artists on Childhood
Laurence Aberhart, Rita Angus, Chris Ashforth, Gary Blackman, Glenn Busch, Kirsty Cameron & Lovely Midget, Steve Carr, Derrick Cherrie, City Group, Judy Darragh, Don Driver, et al., Jacqueline Fahey, Bruce Foster, Bryce Galloway, Jeffrey Harris, Gavin Hipkins, Roger Mortimer, Anne Noble, Max Oettli, Michael Parekōwhai, Peter Peryer, Popular Productions, Ian Scott, Ava Seymour, Stuart Shepherd, Michael Smither, Yvonne Todd, Taika Waititi, Peter Wells, Ans Westra, Brendon Wilkinson and Tony Williams.
Curated by Janita Craw and Robert Leonard
23 February 2005 - 2 April 2005
High Chair: New Zealand Artists on Childhood (installation view), 2005.
In February 2005 ST PAUL St, the new suite of art and design galleries at AUT, presents High Chair: New Zealand Artists on Childhood. This ambitious exhibition maps post-war New Zealand artists' engagement with childhood. It explores the relationship between nature and nurture, freedom and repression, care and control.
High Chair features painters, sculptors, photographers and filmmakers, among them Laurence Aberhart, Rita Angus, Chris Ashforth, Gary Blackman, Glenn Busch, Kirsty Cameron & Lovely Midget, Steve Carr, Derrick Cherrie, City Group, Judy Darragh, Don Driver, et al., Jacqueline Fahey, Bruce Foster, Bryce Galloway, Jeffrey Harris, Gavin Hipkins, Roger Mortimer, Anne Noble, Max Oettli, Michael Parekōwhai, Peter Peryer, Popular Productions, Ian Scott, Ava Seymour, Stuart Shepherd, Michael Smither, Yvonne Todd, Taika Waititi, Peter Wells, Ans Westra, Brendon Wilkinson and Tony Williams.
It is being curated by Janita Craw, an expert in early childhood working in education, and Robert Leonard, Contemporary Art Curator at Auckland Art Gallery. The exhibition runs from 23 February – 2 April 2004 and supplements Mixed-Up Childhood, an international exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery New Gallery. Both shows run concurrently as part of AKO5 (Auckland Festival).
High Chair is a large group show embracing a diversity of material with New Zealand artists from a range of generations investigating childhood. It includes both general and specific engagements with the experience and understanding of childhood. It is an exploratory and speculative exhibition, about something everyone has strong opinions about. New Zealand is commonly believed to be a great place to bring up kids - yet the media is full of accounts of trauma, abuse, bad parenting and tales of lost innocence. The show situates itself in the heart of this complex.
High Chair will be complemented by a substantial public programme including a interdisciplinary symposium Reproducing Children in art, film, media and literature on 19 March 2005, artist’s talks, and ‘After School’ DJ sessions mixing childhood tunes and soundtracks. High Chair is supported by Creative New Zealand and Hasler NZ Ltd.