Media release 12 June 2014
Auckland set to shine for spectacular Light Show
Opening Saturday 11 October, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki presents the popular international exhibition, Light Show. Continuing from its sell-out season at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2013, the exhibition is the first presentation
of international light-based art to be seen in New Zealand.
Light Show brings together some of the most visually stimulating artworks created using different forms of light in recent years,
with rare works not seen for decades and some re-created specially for the exhibition.
‘Light Show is an immersive multi-sensory experience that celebrates and plays with perception, we are delighted to be the first to
present this major exhibition to New Zealand audiences on its global tour,’ says Auckland Art Gallery Director Rhana
Devenport. ‘Light Show offers New Zealanders the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful selection of extraordinary international art works that
together offer rare and unforgettable experiences.’
The medium of light is explored by major international artists in illuminated installations and sculptures from the
1960s to the present. Due to the number of large-scale works, Light Show will be the first exhibition to fill two floors of the award-winning Gallery since its 2011 expansion and restoration.
‘A visual and bodily experience, visitors to Light Show will journey through five decades of art that explore light as a sculptural medium and that, ultimately, transforms how
we see the world around us,’ says Hayward Gallery’s curator, Dr Cliff Lauson. ‘From atmospheric installations to
intangible sculptures that you can move around and even through, visitors will experience light in all of its spatial
and sensory forms.’
Light Show presents cutting-edge lighting technologies, such as custom made, computer-controlled LED lighting, as well as ‘found’
illuminated advertising lightboxes that consider the role of light in everyday life. Individual artworks explore colour,
duration, intensity and projection of light, as well as perceptual phenomena.
The New Zealand presentation of Light Show will mark the first time the exhibition has travelled outside the United Kingdom, making Auckland the first leg of a
tour that continues to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney, Sharjah Art Foundation New Art Spaces, UAE,
and NEON Organisation at the the Benaki Museum in Greece.
Light Show artists include David Batchelor, Jim Campell, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, Jenny Holzer,
Ann Veronica Janssens, Brigitte Kowanz, Anthony McCall, François Morellet, Iván Navarro, Katie Paterson, Conrad
Shawcross, James Turrell, Cerith Wyn Evans, Leo Villareal and New Zealand’s Bill Culbert.
Light Show is sponsored by Principal Partner, EY.
Tickets to Light Show will be on sale in early September and demand is
expected to be high.
The Light Show opening weekend coincides with Auckland’s Diwali festival and is a month out from Auckland’s Art in the Dark, bringing
the city to light this spring in a way it never has before.
ENDS
ABOUT HAYWARD GALLERY:
Hayward Gallery has a long history of presenting work by the world's most adventurous and innovative artists. Opened by
Her Majesty, The Queen in 1968, the gallery is one of the few remaining buildings of its style. It was designed by a
group of young architects, including Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron. Hayward Gallery is named after the
late Sir Isaac Hayward, the former leader of the London County Council.
Hayward Gallery has gained a reputation for staging major solo shows by both emerging and established artists and
dynamic group exhibitions in its 45 year history. The current Hayward Gallery exhibition is Human Factor: the figure in contemporary sculpture. Key exhibitions throughout Hayward
Gallery’s history have included most recently the first major survey of Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed’s
playful, thought-provoking art as well as those by Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller,
Anish Kapoor, Rene Magritte, Frances Bacon and David Shrigley, as well as influential group exhibitions such as Africa
Remix and Psycho Buildings.
Hayward Gallery is part of Southbank Centre. Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site
that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. For further
information please visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk .