Working in a range of media Wayne Youle (Ngäti Whakaeke, Ngä Puhi) tends to explore racial issues, particularly identity
issues facing Mäori and bicultural New Zealand. A defiant stance threads through much of his work: he has defaced
perfectly rendered road-signs, such as the bright orange 'Men at Work', with facial moko to jolt stereotypical
assumptions; and he has constructed pointed white KKK hats out of old Bank of New Zealand money bags to comment
stridently on the effect of colonial land grabs on Mäori. Rated also holds up a challenge, requiring viewers to see for
themselves what they find offensive or morally problematic.
Youle has scoured books, magazines, CD covers and websites to photograph the 201 images in Rated, and his selection and
arrangement of photographs is intended to test the limits of acceptable visual culture. There are graphic images of
acknowledged atrocities and of those still swept beneath the carpet, such as modern-day sweatshops and the imprisonment
and maltreatment of late nineteenth century Mäori. There are the sexually explicit images which have given the
exhibition its R.18 rating-some from magazines and others from reproductions of the explicitly erotic work of American
artist Jeff Koons, but all publicly accessible from bookshop or library shelves. There are photographs of artwork
picturing Mäori people and motifs by historical and contemporary artists-images which Youle finds personally offensive.
These softly toned black and white images printed on old photographic paper half-peeling off the wall evoke the
atmosphere and aesthetic of an archive in miniature. A record of our visual culture unfolds around the gallery; a record
of the ethics of image-making and the subjectivity of interpretation. The feat of filling the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery
with 201 photographs seems suggestive of the image-laden nature of contemporary culture, but the small-scale of each
individual photograph requires the viewer to peep into, to get perhaps uncomfortably close to the ethical implications
of each image.
The artist thanks the City Gallery staff, his family and friends and, most of all, his best friend Cush for all their
continual support. Arohatinonui, Wayne
Rated, 2001, 201 black and white photographs, courtesy of the artist