GAVIN HIPKINS: SECOND EMPIRE (THE PASSAGE), 2008
October 6 - November 1 2008
Starkwhite is pleased to present Second Empire (The
Passage), 2008 by Gavin Hipkins from 6 October to I November
2008.
Second Empire, along with his recent Empire
works, marks a shift from Hipkins' earlier photographic series to
appropriation-based, camera-less image capture technologies and
methodologies. He says: "With a certain medium ambiguity these new
works simply constitute 'pictures'. I like to think of these recent
works as 'memories of photographs', alluding to the ubiquity of the
landscape photograph and its exhaustion as mnemonic function as
well as my own experiential and media-filtered travel experiences
and dreamed memories."
Second Empire takes its initial backdrops from a series
of popular travel books, published in the late nineteenth century
by the Religious Tract Society, charting architectural features and
landscape wonders from European countries and the Mediterranean,
along with pictorial surveys of the new world including 'American
Pictures', 'Canadian Pictures', and closer to home, 'Australian
Pictures'. The artist digitally combines these images with scanned
patches that he has custom ordered.
With rare exception, the landscape backdrops in Second
Empire are not only digitally inverted to become negative
images, but also rotated such that the landscapes appear upside
down. Hipkins says: "With this device, I am interested in the
imagining of landscapes literally 'from the other side of the
world'. Common to this series, as with its precedent Empire (2007),
is the disruption of pictorial space with a centrally positioned
and digitally scanned embroidered patch. With these elements, I am
particularly compelled by the formation of a hybridity and the
tension between the patches and backdrops in the building of
narrative."
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
and art fairs. They include: ShContemporary08, Shanghai,
2008 (Hipkins featured in a Starkwhite group exhibition); 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 was the artist in residence at The
McCahon House in Auckland in 2007/08 where he developed the Second
Empire series.
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
PO Box 90897 AMC
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
