We’re Not Too Big to Care!
April 6th – June 15th 2019
Opening weekend celebration
Preview, Friday April 5, 5.30 – 8.30
Open, Saturday April 6, 10.00 – 4.00
Gus Fisher Gallery
From Radio 1YA to the home of the Goodnight Kiwi, the Gus Fisher Gallery is a Grade I listed building in the heart of
Auckland Central. Never been there? Well, it looks a bit like a castle and it is up a steep hill on Shortland Street.
You may have seen our red and white radio mast, it’s just a pinch smaller than the Sky Tower.
With a bubbly and colourfully dressed British Curator at its helm, we’ve given our beautiful building’s Art Deco
interior a facelift (it’s going to be snazzy alright). Our ambition is to become a fun, meaningful and relevant
contemporary art centre for Auckland. And yes, it’s free and has coffee too!
A fan of all things kiwiana, our first exhibition uses a slogan from a 1980s Four Square advert as its title – We’re Not Too Big to Care. A great slogan we think, and one that resonates with our location on Shortland Street; the first commercial street in
Auckland and now home to the city’s central business district.
Expect a pink wall, a gold ladder, an inflatable octopus and the sound of New Order’s Blue Monday as you slurp our
delicious Kōkako coffee from our soft orange chairs. Who said art can’t be fun?
(Time for the serious stuff…) Perhaps a retort to the current climate, a plea to individuals, or a lesson for the
future, We’re Not Too Big to Care marks a standpoint for the gallery and its kaupapa. Touching on subjects of labour, consumerism and technology, the
exhibition features 16 artists from New Zealand, the United States, Canada and China, and uses Cao Fei’s landmark new
film Asia One as a starting point to consider corporate effects on the individual.
Intrepid visitors can see film, painting, and sculpture never seen before in New Zealand like Cao Fei’s mesmerising new
film Asia One, set in the world’s first fully-automated warehouse in China. Futuristic, surreal and increasingly
familiar, Cao Fei’s films speak to our contemporary world like nothing else.
New commissions by New Zealand artists include Auckland-based Hikalu Clarke, whose large-scale entranceway artwork will
be sure to capture people’s attention, along with our new door-mat. New Zealand’s one and only Billy Apple presents our
beloved Four Square logo in a new guise whilst Dunedin-based Aroha Novak takes us on a gold leaf covered journey through
the pitfalls of neo-liberalism.
Socially relevant, engaging and enjoyable, it’s well worth the trek up the hill we think…
We want to make a difference in Auckland and give people something to really love and learn from when it comes to
creativity.
Give us your time and attention, and remember… We’re Not Too Big to Care!
Gus Fisher Gallery Team