At the Fair Category: Artist Talks

Friday 19 April, 11:30am
Aotearoa Art Fair, Föenander Galleries

Visit the Föenander Galleries booth for an interactive performance by 박성환 Sung Hwan Bobby Park. Here you will be able to experience wearing the ceramic bullet proof helmets (BTM bang tan mo) personally fitted by the artist.

“As a queer person going through this mandatory conscription in Korea, I experienced first hand how fragile my existence was under the Korean military law 92-6 which criminalized homosexuality. Even though I was wearing this supposedly indestructible protective gear, the threat of violence came within the organization I had to be a part of in order to keep my citizenship which is significant for my identity. I made B.T.M with clay to reflect the vulnerability of the individual’s body and question what we are protecting ourselves from and where the threat comes from.I never spoke about my homosexuality with anybody; I had to lie about it because I didn’t want to go to jail … If I told anyone about this aspect of myself, that sense of protection and identity would shatter. My bulletproof helmet was essentially as fragile as these ceramic ones

Each ceramic helmet features an insignia of the three letters in the series title. It alludes to the iconic South Korean K-pop band BTS (which Park adores) and the abbreviation of “bottom” often used in queer culture. The helmet motif unifies his practice, linking the utilitarian shapes of earlier helmets he created with the flamboyance of more recent additions, which are covered in colourful patterns, artificial hair, protruding eyes and almost cartoonish paintings of faces.

Also, the B.T.M is a representation of the institution and its policies. Establishments and their rules are often regarded as sacred. But if they discriminate toward the very people that serve them, those rules and attitudes must be evaluated and reconstituted. So I invite the idea; those seemingly indestructible and sacred organizations and policies should be broken so that we can build a better one which eliminates discrimination for all people. B.T.M is a helmet for everybody. Celebrate our fragile bodies and our identities, whoever we may be.” – 박성환 Sung Hwan Bobby Park

Sunday 21 April, 12:30pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, APS Editions

APS Editions Director and printmaker, John Pusateri, will explain the optics of structural colour and the mixture of different printmaking methods used to create the displayed work by Andrew Beck, as well as the process of collaborating with artists on printmaking projects more generally.

Sunday 21 April, 1:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, Bergman Gallery

Her art practise, her journey, her inspirations.

Sunday 21 April, 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, OREXART

Johnny will talk about the stones he uses, the complexities of working in granite and marble and other stones. The inspiration behind each piece he is presenting at the fair (3). His travels in Italy, sourcing Carrara marble, and using NZ marble (Kaiuru marble) and working with his clients to complete installation of their works.

Saturday 20 April, 1:30pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, Bergman Gallery

His art practise, his McCahon House residency this year and his new works for the art fair.

Saturday 20 April, 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, Season

Hamish Coleman paintings evoke the complexities of memory and the panoply of emotions that flow from reflections on past experiences of beings, objects, and places. In this talk, he will speak about the subjects he is drawn to, and discuss his making processes—particularly his use of interference pigments, which yield images that change depending on the angle at which they are viewed.

Friday 19 April, 4:30pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, Envy

Envy, Wellington, in collaboration with Mokopōpaki, Auckland, warmly invite you to Afternoon Tea With Dr P for an in-person presentation of the artist’s reflective but optimistic and good natured, sea-bird centred environmental work, Breakfast With Broodthaers. Tea, Deconstructed Mussel Fritters and Dr P’s signature Colonial Road Dried Fruit Loaf will be served.

Attracted by the unexpected but amusing tensions inherent in consistently inconsistent understandings of unassuming ideas, Dr P cannot resist making reference to the work of Belgian conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924—1976). Here, she reinvents his world-famous-in-the world assemblage Moules sauce blanche (Mussels White Sauce) (1967) and serves up her own indigenous flavoured critique of contemporary New Zealand culture. In an aluminium billy, purloined from an unattended cooking fire down at the local camp ground, gender-fluid, native, green lipped mussels nonchalantly escape the Eurocentric fine art ‘mould’ where, accompanied by an ironic bottle of imported British Brown Sauce, they become one of the many menu items already available on the sideboard or bird feeding table in the Breakfast Room of the shag colony.

Artwork Credit: Dr P, Breakfast With Broodthaers, 2023. Mixed media installation. Courtesy the artist, Envy and Mokopōpaki. Photo: Arekahānara

Friday 18-21 April
Aotearoa Art Fair, Jonathan Smart / Emily Gardener Projects

We warmly invite you to participate in Four Worlds Tarot, an immersive installation led by the Four Worlds Tarot Curatoriam; artist Julia Morison, Dr Anna Smith, Harriette Herlund and Alice Bonifant.

Morison has created her own limited edition tarot set, as part of her ongoing interest in narratives created through layering of symbolic imagery. Complimentary tarot readings will be offered within Jonathan Smart / Emily Gardener Projects booth designed in collaboration with Knight Associates.

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