Gavin Hipkins: Natural History
1 February - 1 March 2008

Starkwhite is pleased to present Natural History, a new photographic installation by Gavin Hipkins, from 1 February to 1 March 2008.

Hipkins employs a diverse range of photographic styles in his practice ranging from pictorialism and romantic landscape representation, through a high-end advertising aesthetic, to the experimental approaches of the 1920s avant-garde, along with some of his own innovations, such as strips of uncut prints pinned to walls in rows.

During his International Studio and Curatorial Programme (ISCP) residency in New York in 2006 Hipkins introduced digital montaging into his practice. He combined images assembled from his museum forays with buttons scanned and 'fastened' onto them, creating works that play with the history of modernism. He carried this stylistic development into his later Empire series, overlaying images from children's Empire and Commonwealth annuals illustrating stories of adventure and historical drama with scanned patches purchased in music stores and markets, creating photographs that sit somewhere between history paintings and t-shirt art.

With his latest series, Natural History, Hipkins has called on corporate slogans and inverted their message (eg 'Slightly Superior' becomes 'Slightly Inferior') making them into custom patches ('Bogan Slogans' as he calls them). The slogans are superimposed on backdrops taken from Harmsworth Natural History, published at the turn of the century in 3 volumes, which offers a complete survey of the Animal Kingdom. He says: "A lesson from Robert Smithson is simple: inversion. For this suite of nine works, I have inverted both the borrowed backdrops of line drawings and corporate slogans. While Natural History revisits strategies from postmodern photography it also calls on my own adolescent experiences of boy cubs and scouts with the patches harking back to those rewards of striving for excellence sewn onto shirts as badges."

Over the last decade Hipkins has established an impressive exhibition and publication record in New Zealand. He has also developed an international profile, largely through his inclusion in major offshore shows and representation in international events. They include: Tell Me A Story: Narrative Photography Now, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts (2007); Picturing Eden, International Museum of Photography and Film, George Eastman House, Rochester (2006); The Village, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2006); A Molecular History of Everything, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2004); How Extraordinary That the World Exists, California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland (2002); the 25th Sao Paulo Bienal (2002); Flight Patterns, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2000); and the 11th Biennale of Sydney (1988). Hipkins had a residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Programme (ISCP), New York in 2006 and he is currently artist in residence at The McCahon House in Auckland.

Located in New Zealand on Auckland's Karangahape Road, Starkwhite presents a programme of artists' projects, solo shows, independently curated exhibitions and occasional forays into new music and other interdisciplinary practices. Starkwhite also represents artists from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific rim.

For further information on the exhibition, or images, please contact the gallery.

Starkwhite
510 Karangahape Road, Auckland, New Zealand
Tel. 64 9 3070703
Monday to Friday: 11.00am to 6.00pm
Saturday: 11.00am to 5.00pm
starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz
www.starkwhite.co.nz