Auckland Art Gallery is encouraging visitors to think about art and the planet this World Environment Day on 5 June.
Come to the Auckland Art Gallery during the week of 2 - 8 June, visit the free exhibition Earth Matters and enter the draw to win an environmental package worth more than $250.
All you have to do is answer the question "How does the exhibition Earth Matters make you think about the planet?" on the computer in the Auckland Art Gallery's New Gallery foyer to be in the draw.Earth Matters, now showing until 28 September, explores the environment through the work of 13 artists.
Contemporary curator Natasha Conland says while there is growing awareness of environmental issues, 'the environment' rarely enters art as solely a political issue.
"Today concepts of the environment are inextricably linked to ideas of global exchange, the physical planet and our location on it, as well as traditional genres of landscape and land art," she says.
Earth Matters investigates how we report on the world, and respond to our environment - either as physical matter or image proxy - with available technologies.
"This eclectic array of work reveals how contemporary art typically responds to the world by depicting either sides of immediate locality (its soil and earth), sites of exchange, or a total picture of the globe, often with the comic realisation of the ineptitude of form to reveal the totality of our experience of earth," she says.
The artists, featured in Earth Matters, work in a variety of media from photography and painting to sound installation to create images of our activity on earth whether through the appropriation of news headlines, Google Earth's live imaging, or playing with pop culture depictions of the globe.
The exhibition includes a new project by young Wellington-based artist Amy Howden-Chapman, who has documented a performance work carried out by friends and volunteers, asking them to re-enact the rubbish flow on the Pacific Ocean.
Another highlight of the exhibition, which includes art works from contemporary New Zealand and international artists from the past 30 years, is the display of works by internationally renowned New Zealand artists et al. and Michael Stevenson.
Following their presentation at the Venice Biennale, in the last two years, these artists have both been chosen to exhibit art works in Art Unlimited exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, in association with the most prominent art fair in Europe - Art Basel.
Earth Matters
1 May to 28 September
Auckland Art Gallery, New Gallery
Free admission
Prize includes:
Ecostore Healthy Home Kit - recycled plastic bucket, laundry liquid, dishwashing liquid, spray cleaner, creme cleaner, four 80g boxed soaps (coconut, vanilla, lemongrass, manuka & kelp) worth $40
Huckleberry Farms Hamper - whole food hamper worth $250
Competition runs from 2 to 8 June. Winners will be notified by email on Tuesday 10 June.
30/05/08