PRISMISM
Emil McAvoy
July 11 – August 2, 2014
Opening : Friday, July 11, 6:00pm
Opening & catalogue publication launch: Friday, July 11, 6:00pm
Artist's talk: Saturday, July 12, 1:00pm
Throughout its history abstract painting has been deployed in the service of diverse agendas across the political
spectrum. More recent revelations of the CIA's covert promotion of Abstract Expressionism - in order to bolster the
ideology of western capitalism during the Cold War - have prompted a further reframing of abstract painting, its
language and potential meanings.
PRISMISM is the first exhibition of Emil McAvoy's paintings, alongside other works, which confront the loaded issue of
government communications surveillance. Recent disclosures of widespread illegal surveillance by the NSA's PRISM
programme, and its connections with the activities of the New Zealand Government's Communications Security Bureau
(GCSB), have galvanised public debate.
Returning to his engagement with the visual culture of policing, McAvoy appropriates the livery of New Zealand Police
patrol cars, with reference to Futurism's chequered history: their iconic depictions of the automobile, their
glorification of speed and power, and their support of Italian fascism.
McAvoy recasts this livery in modular paintings imagined to infiltrate a selection of unseen rooms of power allegedly
driving the advancement of a police state. PRISMISM further imagines Enjoy Gallery as a kind of pseudo-governmental
'think tank', where visitors may sit and discuss the complex geopolitical issues at stake.
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Emil McAvoy is an artist and writer based in Auckland. He holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Auckland University
of Technology, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland. He creates work which tests art's capacity to
engage contemporary cultural and political issues, often excavating moments in our recent past. He works across a range
of media including photography, video, sculpture, painting, text and live video performance. Recent projects include Reflections on Lily Pond, Projectspace, Elam School of Fine Arts (2014); an open studio and residency at Development AIR, Auckland (2013); and Occultivation, Snake Pit, Auckland (2012). He was the recipient of the Archives New Zealand 50th Anniversary Scholarship (2009), a
Wallace Art Award (2011), an Auckland University Summer Research Scholarship (2011), and a placement in the current
Artists Alliance Mentoring Programme for recent graduates.
Enjoy Public Art Gallery
Level 1 / 147 Cuba Street
Wellington 6011
New Zealand
Gallery opening hours
Wednesday to Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 4pm