The et al. collective has been selected to create New Zealand's exhibition at next year's Venice Biennale, one of the most significant visual arts events on the international calendar.

The Venice Biennale attracts tens of thousands of the most influential international artists, curators, gallery directors, critics and collectors. This is the third time that New Zealand artists have presented work at this prestigious event with the support of Creative New Zealand.

Image: p.mule (dr) original research output: portaloo [category J], (for et al), 2004

MPs: Nice (art) work if you can get itThe et al. collective has been selected to create New Zealand's exhibition at next year's Venice Biennale, one of the most significant visual arts events on the international calendar.

The Venice Biennale attracts tens of thousands of the most influential international artists, curators, gallery directors, critics and collectors. This is the third time that New Zealand artists have presented work at this prestigious event with the support of Creative New Zealand.

Image: p.mule (dr) original research output: portaloo [category J], (for et al), 2004

MPs: Nice (art) work if you can get it
The Venice Biennale 2005 selection panel describe the work of et al. as "extraordinary and stimulating".

"et al. has challenged and engaged the art world for over twenty years, producing work that has consistently positioned its members at the leading edge of contemporary New Zealand art. In recent years its members have produced rich and poetic installations that combine sound, moving image, text and found objects. The results are profound and disturbing," the panel says.

"et al.'s work will have significant impact and fits well within the Venice Biennale environment. It will demonstrate that New Zealand artists are producing outstanding work that is timely and important.

"This is also the right time to present et al.'s work in the important international context of the Venice Biennale."

The work of et al. is represented in all major public collections in New Zealand and et al. has amassed one of the most substantial exhibition records in New Zealand art of the past twenty years. et al. has also been shortlisted for the 2004 Walters Prize.

The New Zealand Commissioner for 2005 is Greg Burke. Burke is responsible for project development and will bring a wealth of knowledge and international visual art networks to this important ambassadorial role. Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT), Burke has many years' experience as an artist, curator, arts manager and fundraiser. Burke has a reputation for producing exceptional contemporary art exhibitions such as Mediarena: contemporary art from Japan, Bloom: mutation, toxicity and the sublime and the major survey project by et al. abnormal mass delusions? at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. He also curated the inaugural New Zealand exhibition for the Venice Biennale in 2001.

"I am honoured to be the Commissioner for the Venice Biennale 2005 and to be working with et al., Natasha Conland and Creative New Zealand," Greg Burke says. "et al. has been running red hot recently and attracting unprecedented international attention, making them an ideal choice for Venice. Their production of layered and immersive installations that explore the link between science, technology and areas of behaviour reformation involving political ideologies and fringe religious practices is particularly pertinent at this time.

"The task before us is to build on the experience and successes of the last two presentations of New Zealand artists in Venice to ensure et al.'s project attracts optimum attention for New Zealand contemporary art in 2005."

The curator of the exhibition is Natasha Conland, Curator Contemporary Art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, who was responsible for the recent major project on New Zealand artist Judy Darragh and has followed the work of et al. for some time.

"There is a powerful mystery to et al.'s work, something akin to being in the presence of an unknown poetic force," Conland says.

Central to et al.'s practice is the evasion of a singular identity in order to avoid the dominance that an artist's own presence has over the work. et al. frequently collaborates with others, including musicians and writers, and the name et al. consciously acknowledges the voices of others in the collective's work, including artists and philosophers both living and dead. A shifting group of artistic entities that have been exhibiting in New Zealand and internationally since 1975*, they have been known collectively as et al. since 2001.

Over the past two years, et al.'s multi-media installations have struck audiences with their subtle exploration of the human condition. These include: abnormal mass delusions?, a major retrospective of et al's work at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery; Public/Private: The 2nd Auckland Triennial at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki; and Telecom Prospect 2004, City Gallery Wellington.

The concept

et al.'s project for the Venice Biennale 2005, provisionally called The Fundamental Practice, builds on the success of recent projects. et al.'s sculptural installations create highly charged environments packed with outdated and junked computer hardware and scrawled messages on instruction cards and wall charts. Rows of chairs, examination tables, computer stations and flickering screens in grey rooms activated with electronic noise suggest a kind of pseudo science as well as a disturbing view of religious fanaticism.

The Fundamental Practice will be a site-specific installation that further explores the cult and culture of identity in art, religion and science. As part of the project, et al. will exploit an alluring quality in the collective's own work - the absence of "the artist".

Building towards the launch of The Fundamental Practice in Venice next June, et al. will be engaged in a variety of events in New Zealand and internationally where key aspects of the project will be explored.

The process

Creative New Zealand made an open call to the New Zealand visual arts community for applications to present work at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Proposals were welcomed from artists with significant exhibition experience in New Zealand and/or internationally, curators and artist/curator teams. Creative New Zealand received 25 proposals and et al. was chosen from a shortlist of four.

Selection of the artist was made in two stages. The first stage to draw up the shortlist involved Creative New Zealand and two visual art specialists, visual artist Peter Robinson and the Director of Starkwhite John McCormack.

The final selection was made by a panel of seven visual art specialists: Tina Barton, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Victoria University Wellington; Tobias Berger, Director of Artspace; Jenny Gibbs, art collector and patron; William McAloon, freelance curator and visual arts writer; Felicity Milburn, Curator of Contemporary Art from Christchurch Art Gallery; Paula Savage, Director of City Gallery Wellington and Allan Smith, Senior Lecturer in painting at the department of Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University.

Chair of Creative New Zealand Peter Biggs says the presence of New Zealand artists at the 2001 and 2003 Venice Biennale's has helped heighten international awareness of New Zealand artists.

"New Zealand's participation at this esteemed event is an important part of Creative New Zealand's international strategy to profile New Zealand's outstanding artistic talent overseas," he says. "The Venice Biennale is one of the most strategic ways to promote New Zealand artists internationally and an opportunity to broaden international perceptions of New Zealand and its artists.

"New Zealand artists Jacqueline Fraser and Peter Robinson made a significant impression with their inaugural presence at the Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2003, Michael Stevenson's work, This is the Trekka, was seen by more than 58,000 people, many leading figures from the international art world. We look forward to the impact we believe et al.'s work will make in 2005."

Footnote: *p.mule, blanche ready-made trust, bud shoop, cj (Arthur) craig and sons, constance strange, L budd, Lillian budd, lionel b, marlene cubewell, minerva betts, merit groting, mythic investments (nz) ltd, popular productions

All presently residing and working in Auckland, New Zealand.

www.nzatvenice.com