Arts & Minds

The Venice Biennale - the world's most significant contemporary art exhibition - will address the issue of global conflict and the Iraqi war when it opens on June 15.

More than 350 artists from around the world will show work under the umbrella title Dreams and Conflicts, curator Francesco Bonami has told Reuters.

"We don't want people to leave their living rooms where they've been watching CNN and find exactly the same thing at the Biennale, but it's no longer possible to build an isolated aesthetic experience in a bubble."

Bonami - senior curator at Chicago's Museum of Modern Art - has selected some top curators to create their own exhibitions within 10 separate pavilions. There will also be 32 national pavilions, forming the biggest Biennale yet in its 50th anniversary year in the Italian city.

Bonami fought hard to make the Biennale more accessible to the public than in past years, leaning towards smaller-scale shows instead of some of the blockbusters of the past. The Biennale runs until November 2.

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New Zealander Michael Stevenson is representing this country in the Biennale, just the second time we have had a presence at Venice. Stevenson is centring his installation around the Trekka, the only domestically made vehicle during the late 60s, as a comment on the economic and political strictures of the time.

His work, always strange and fascinating, will be hooked up to the Moniac, a water-driven analogue computer designed by New Zealander Bill Phillips in 1949 which still has pride of place at the Institute of Economic Research.

"The Moniac is a visual representation of how an economy works as it uses water to simulate the circular flow of money through the economy," according to a CNZ statement.

- Linda Herrick, arts editor

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Recommended: Kolotomotu'a, by Filipe Tohi, Whitespace Contemporary Art, Morgan St.

Filipe Tohi manages to combine weaving patterns from the Pacific with the formal effects of abstract art mostly in stark black and white.

The work is sometimes just too plain to be really effective but Kauhalaua is a potent exception and Fakalava (The Cross) makes dynamic use of white spaces in the cross shape. Two strong stone sculptures complete this exhibition that combines present achievement and future promise; until April 27.

- T.J. McNamara

East Timor: A photographic exhibition by Gerald Lopez. Striking images taken while Auckland-based Lopez travelled to East Timor last September to visit his father, who works in Dili. The effect is overwhelmingly positive. Northart Community Arts Centre, Norman King Square, Northcote; until May 11.