The Shadow of the Dome of Pleasure at Artspace takes its title from Samuel Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan, which describes a pleasure dome with fountains and caves. The caves predominate in this show and are filled with existential anguish rather than pleasure.
The latest director of the public gallery, the energetic Misal Adnan Yildiz, has been intent on changing the nature of the space. The curator of the exhibition, Henry Davidson, has converted the entire gallery into a pitch-dark maze designed by Alexander Laurie and Biljana Popovic. Staging this show of art films and videos has involved 10 donors and institutions beginning with the Auckland Council and lists over 50 helpers drawn mostly from university art schools.
The emphasis is on the bizarre and sexuality.
The tone is set by a notorious film made in 1964 by the celebrated Andy Warhol. It is one of a series of his black and white non-narrative films that linger for a long time on a single subject.
A whole book has been written about this particular film. It concentrates on the face of a handsome actor leaning against a brick wall. The face repetitively expresses moods of pleasure. The piece is called Blow Job but the subject is never explicit.
When you grope your way into the next room you are faced with a technically accomplished video, Item Falls, by Ryan Trecartin from Los Angeles. Actors, of indeterminate sex, scramble in a party also attended by live roosters and chickens. Some of the participants come forward and assert themselves in technicolour make-up. Others jump from a ladder on to a bed. All are "auditioning for presence", says the printed commentary. It is a wild party, with objects, concrete blocks, frisbees and more raining down through the picture.
Around the corner Juliet Carpenter features a young actress who speaks of her unfulfilled capacity for pleasure intercut with scenes of rain in the city and a sword swallower, all against a soundtrack of Puccini's Tosca.
A lurid red light indicates the way along a corridor that leads to a spartan acting out of desire between three young men working in pairs against a pure white background. There is no climax but the tensions between the men as they manoeuvrer for place as actor and acted upon are palpable. The work is choreographed by Akram Zaatari in London.
The most enigmatic and the most accomplished of the works is from Berlin. Future Days by Agniezka Polska has masked actors taking the parts of deceased artists as they wander on a grim seashore or play cards. The actors have expressionless masks of decay and debate their past and inability to communicate. Are they in heaven or hell? The scenario ends with an eclipse.
The video art ends with I jus wanna look good naked. The title seems irrelevant. A female figure speaks a dire monologue about the end of the world. Her situation ends with a burst of colour. It is described as "The collapsed present" but does not carry this weight of meaning.
The labyrinth ends in a fashionable white cube as a version of what a modern art space often is. The whole show fulfils the avowed purpose of Artspace to present material that that the commercial galleries have neither the facilities nor, perhaps, the desire, to show. It is designed to provoke discussion and debate.
A few steps away at Michael Lett is a reminder that oddity in contemporary art is not confined to the sponsored public galleries.
Works by Campbell Patterson at Michael Lett Gallery.
The work of Campbell Patterson is titled Now normal music. Contradictions prevail here. The bizarre is contained in a number of videos that show the artist tearing strips off himself. He is taking the hair off his legs and elsewhere with sticky strips worked by pieces of string to heighten the ceremony and the symbolism.
In a totally different manner, Patterson is also showing some attractive paintings with a thickly painted background with lines embedded in its layers. They look like strings, and offer a complex but lively journey for the eyes if one follows the lines in their erratic dance. They are all titled Last Painting and may mark the end of this genre for the artist.
An installation by Dane Mitchell at Hopkinson Mossman Gallery.
Another extreme is the work of Dane Mitchell at Hopkinson Mossman. He is fascinated by scent and the exhibition is called Let Us Take the Air. One room is empty except for a well-made wooden ladder stretching to an opening into the ceiling.
If you care to climb the ladder you may catch the scent of violets. The artist has chosen this perfume because of its special molecular properties which means sometimes you can smell it, sometimes not.
The scent is generated in another room with two steel cubes whose small chimneys constantly pour forth vapour, making the scent visible. Through the wall are big drums and pumps that supply the essence. The whole set-up is a metaphor for changing form and perception. The apparatus is impressive but the effect transitory.
At the galleries
What:The Shadow of the Dome of Pleasure by various artists Where and when: Artspace, 454 Karangahape Rd, to October 10 TJ says: Extraordinary conversion of the gallery into a dark labyrinth to contain seven videos and films ranging from Andy Warhol to the bizarre present.
What: New normal music by Campbell Patterson Where and when: Michael Lett Gallery, 312 Karangahape Rd, to September 26 TJ says: A strange mixture of weird videos and delicate, moody abstract painting.
What:Let Us Take the Air by Dane Mitchell Where and when: Hopkinson Mossman Gallery, 19 Putiki St, Arch Hill, to October 3 TJ says: In two bare galleries and an office the artist sets up an installation featuring the presence or absence of a scent. It may, perhaps, be at the top of a ladder but is best represented by a brass model of a vital molecule.
