Two New Exhibitions at the Physics Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TWO NEW EXHIBITIONS AT THE PHYSICS ROOM

TWONE
Sriwhana Spong & Kate Newby
23 May – 16 June 2007

Opening preview: Tuesday 22 May 2007, 5.30pm

TWONE brings together Auckland artists Sriwhana Spong and Kate Newby in a unique collaborative exhibition in and around The Physics Room gallery space. Two divergent practices meet in the middle as one, stretching and pulling each artist’s work in new directions, and pushing beyond the gallery walls. Gleaned from Finnegan’s Wake, at least from the blur of words as Spong shut the book, the title “highlights the tension between the promise of oneness, and the freedom of the singular” – this became the starting point for the collaboration. Newby’s practice has been described as having a ‘low-rent aesthetic’, with an interest in the relationship between language and site, while Spong’s work has constructed and explored her Balianese heritage, sampling traditional motifs and blending this with pop-culture references.

Sriwhana Spong graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland in 2001. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia and Germany. Recent exhibitions include Turbulence: Auckland Triennale, Artspace, Auckland; Cultural Futures, St. Paul St., Auckland; Playing Favourites, Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington; Break Shift, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth.

Graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts with a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts, Kate Newby has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New Zealand and abroad. Most recently she exhibited a series of site-specific urban projects, Very Interesting, Very International, in public sites in Europe and America; The Silver Clouds, curated by Cuckoo, Melbourne; Don’t Rain on my Parade, Special, Auckland; Remember New Zealand, 26th Sao Paulo Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The Physics Room receives major funding from Creative New Zealand/Toi Aotearoa.

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Scene for New Heritage Trilogy
David Maljkovic
23 May – 16 June 2007

Opening preview: Tuesday 22 May 2007, 5.30pm

Screening for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere, Croatian-artist David Maljkovic’s epic film series Scene for New Heritage Trilogy presents a futuristic world set in the year 2045. Shot over three years spanning 2004 – 2006, the first film focuses on a group of travellers visiting a memorial park, erected in Petrova Gora, Croatia, for victims of the Second World War under the Communist government of Yugoslavia. As they visit the monument, debate is sparked as to its long-forgotten meaning – it means nothing to them, just as their strange dialect is alien to us.

The second film, set 20 years later, features a young boy approaching and looking out from the monument's tower to an empty snow-filled landscape, as if on some spiritual pilgrimage. The third and final film depicts young teenagers milling aimlessly around the central tower; talking, playing and walking around the derelict monument.

Amid the desolate landscape, this bastion to 20th Century history has become a folk tale for the visitors, its raw concrete structure an empty shell offering no indication of the brutality it represents. The film invites viewers to travel through time to discover the artist's vision of the future and look at how the meaning of history and monuments changes from one era to the next.

The film’s powerful subject matter, coupled with the artist's own memories of obligatory visits under the Communist regime, holds a bleak fascination for the viewer.

David Maljkovic will exhibit in the Croatian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice in 2007. Graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, in 2000, Maljkovic now lives and works in Zagreb and Berlin. He has recently shown at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Scene for New Heritage Trilogy first screened at the Centre de Creation Contemporaine, Tours, in 2006.

The Physics Room receives major funding from Creative New Zealand/Toi Aotearoa.

ENDS

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