Less Is Moore

Less Is Moore

For just 24 hours leading New Zealand artist Billy Apple will present a work in Wellington’s Botanic Gardens.

This may seem an unlikely venue for an artist better known for his gallery-based conceptual text-works, objects and installations, but Apple is seeking to draw attention to Henry Moore’s iconic sculpture, Bronze Form, a landmark well-known to Wellingtonians.

He has decided to undertake this in response to an invitation from the Adam Art Gallery to present a project as part of One Day Sculpture, a New Zealand-wide series of temporary public art works initiated by the Litmus Research Initiative at Massey University working with British-based curator, Claire Doherty.

Apple’s project is doubly intriguing because it also coincides with Billy Apple New York 1969-1973, an exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery that documents the work he executed in the small not-for-profit gallery he ran at 161 West 23rd Street in New York in these years, which radically challenged conventional notions of sculptural practice. Here, instead of presenting carefully crafted objects (in the tradition of Henry Moore), Apple engaged in a variety of activities that saw him gathering, arranging and dispersing materials, undertaking mundane everyday tasks like cleaning or sweeping, even monitoring his bodily functions; all of which were designed to expand the definition of what art making could be.

The exhibition will present photographs, slides, video, film, artefacts and ephemera – all that remains of Apple’s work of the period – proving the decisive blow such practices struck at the physical status of sculpture.

According to curator of the exhibition and Director of the Adam Art Gallery, Christina Barton, Apple’s One Day Sculpture, which he has titled Less is Moore, will “re-direct the logic of his 1970s’ work to a new time and place, to canvass a history of sculpture since the 1970s by bringing together two divergent positions in the trajectory of this medium”.

Apple’s Less is Moore however, is not designed as a confrontation between two very different artists, but rather as an opportunity to reconsider the fate of sculpture in public space and to turn attention to the context where it is located.

The Adam Art Gallery will be following up Apple’s project with a public forum on 23 April at the Museum of Wellington. This will enable the public to find out more about Henry Moore’s work: how it came to be in Wellington and its history since it has been here, and have their say about Apple’s gesture. This will be a fascinating opportunity to reconsider Moore’s sculpture, in a venue especially selected to highlight its civic function.

Christina Barton will also be talking about Apple’s project as part of the One Day Sculpture Symposium that is being held at Te Papa later this week (27-28 March). On Saturday 28 March she will be in conversation with Claire Doherty and together they will be discussing two projects that are part of the series.For more information check: www.onedaysculpture.org.nz

ONE DAY SCULPTURE
Billy Apple®
LESS IS MOORE
Saturday 28 March 2009
Salamanca Lawn, Botanic Gardens, Wellington
12am-12am

DISCUSSION
Is less more? Debating Apple on Moore
One Day Sculpture discussion
von Kohorn Room, Museum of Wellington
Thursday 23 April 2009
5.30-7pm
Free entry, all welcome

Panel speakers include: Christina Barton (Director of the Adam Art Gallery and curator of the exhibition Billy Apple New York 1969-1973), Vikki Muxlow (Parks and Gardens, WCC); Jack Fry (Freelance conservator); Neil Plimmer (Wellington Sculpture Trust); Jeanne Macaskill (artist), Carolina Izzo (art conservator) chaired by David Cross (Litmus Research Initiative Director, Massey University).

EXHIBITION
Billy Apple
New York
1969-1973
Adam Art Gallery
28 March – 17 May 2009

ends

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