Foreign affairs

Martin Basher - Something Good Lapping At Yr Private Coves on at Starkwhite. Photo / Dean Purcell

Late last year a New Zealand woman was seen writhing on the floor of an art gallery in Milan, Italy. Upon closer inspection, you could see that the woman — artist Alicia Frankovich — was tangled up in a sculpture made from old bicycle parts.

Strangely, the sculpture was also attached to the gallery's director, who also lay on the floor. As the pair grappled with one another and the kinetic sculpture, the sound and the movement becoming more rhythmic and intense, until the bicycle sculpture began to bend and the two actors threw it to the ground. It sounds weird. It was dramatic. People stared and asked what was going on.

This piece of performance art by Frankovich was called Sempre Meno/Sempre Peggio/Sempre Piu (Less and Less/Worse and Worse/More and More) and was to do with what a lot of this artist's work is about — human-spatial relations, an interest in the physical effect of objects and spaces on the body.

Last year, in keeping with this theme, Frankovich executed what she describes as a "fake bungee jump" on a street in Naples, Italy. She dangled, head first, in front of a gallery. The former gymnast also swung into 30 trestle tables inside a grand theatre in Trento, destroying them all; she spent time in a Milanese studio complex that had people living in crates as well as a Vespa repair workshop and managed to meet designer Giorgio Armani at a fancy party. And then she won the International Prize for Performance in Trento. So far this year, she has made work in Melbourne, Sydney, Zagreb and, yes, Auckland.

What a difference a century makes. A century ago Frankovich's contemporaries would have been boarding a boat, to make the mammoth journey to Europe's artistic Meccas. They would most likely have stayed on one continent, painted a few landscapes and returned to New Zealand, never to leave again, while others never returned at all, making new homes for themselves in Europe or the United States and becoming known as British or American artists. On that latter list you'll find the likes of Frances Hodgkins and, later, Len Lye.

What is happening now, with Frankovich and a new generation of local artists, is just a little bit different. Younger "emerging" artists are engaging with the international art world earlier, more frequently and in a way their predecessors never did. As one observer puts it, they're launching "global practices".

Indeed, for art graduates today, developing a practice at home after a quick trip to Berlin, London or New York, participating in a group show in one of those cities, maybe (if they're lucky) finding a small gallery that wants to represent them, is not some ridiculous dream years in the future.

"One of the real shifts in recent years has been that working both nationally and internationally is no longer just the domain of older, more established artists," says Emma Bugden, the director of Artspace in Auckland. "It is a mode of working that many artists are taking on at a much earlier stage. Many artists — such as David Hatcher, Alicia Frankovich, Simon Denny, Dane Mitchell and others — are working across New Zealand and elsewhere, simultaneously, carving out a place for themselves in multiple arts communities."

"There are more opportunities and perhaps fewer obstacles for New Zealand artists," says Jude Chambers, the senior programme adviser for visual arts at Creative New Zealand. "And there is currently a high level of [New Zealand] activity within the international visual arts community with biennales, art fairs, exhibitions, residencies, post-graduate studies."

Natasha Conland, curator for contemporary art at the Auckland Art Gallery, agrees. Sort of. It's important to appreciate what's happened before, Conland argues, referring to the fact that New Zealand artists have always taken their wares and their ideas abroad and that previously various funding schemes saw the likes of Ralph Hotere, Billy Apple, Ted Bullmore and Bill Culbert all heading overseas when they were younger.

"What's changed is not so much the quantity [of artists travelling] but the way in which people are moving around. Travel has changed — what was once migration, or expatriation, is now professional travel. What's shifting is the whole global culture; everything is a lot more mobile," Conland says.

True, Hotere stayed away for five years, Bullmore for nine and Apple for around a decade; Culbert now lives in Europe. Whereas today's young artists tend to gad about a lot more.

As Robert Leonard, former curator at the Auckland Art Gallery and former director of Artspace with more than 20 years' experience in the local art scene, told the Listener magazine, "In the 1960s and 70s, generally speaking, New Zealand art was made by New Zealand artists in New Zealand. It was shown in New Zealand, collected by New Zealand collectors, and written about in New Zealand magazines. It was influenced by things happening offshore but it was a largely enclosed conversation. And because of that, it was quite intense and intimate. It's different now. Everyone is more outward-looking and so many New Zealand artists are working internationally. Wherever you are in the world." Leonard was interviewed on the eve of his move to become director of the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane in 2005. "If you are serious about art, you need to travel. It won't always come to you," he said.

So what does it mean for New Zealand's visual arts scene — might we soon see a new generation of New Zealand art stars making it big overseas? And, perhaps more pertinently, how and why is this happening?

Why do New Zealand artists still continue to leave? Does the old argument about "fleeing to flourish" still count?

Well, some of the reasons for these global art practices come down to practicality, and have little to do with how the country treats its artists.

Blame it on overindulgence in the kind of air travel that makes it viable to live in a centre of the art world for six months and then in Matamata for the next six. Or blame it on the internet and a better flow of information that allows younger artists not only to see what's going on — who's installing light boxes and making sculptures out of their own excrement out there in the real world — but also to contact gallerists, curators and other artists directly. It also makes their access to various funding schemes, international residencies and scholarships easier.

And, as Bugden notes, "artists themselves are taking an increasingly independent approach to developing connections and networks, and in shaping their own careers".

"One has the sense that many refuse to wait around hoping to be discovered and are taking matters into their own hands," Nicola Harvey, a local art critic, wrote recently in a state-of-the-Auckland-scene article for major international art magazine, Frieze.

Various local dealer galleries have also been getting in upon this kind of independent act. While some New Zealand gallerists have always had one eye on the international scene — Hamish McKay and Gary Langsford come to mind — there have also been significant changes in the way art changes hands.

"There's been a fundamental shift in the art world in the last 20 years which has really opened it up. It started with biennales, now there are all these art fairs; it's a really international, commercial sphere now," says Martin Basher, a New Zealand artist who has just finished his Masters in Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York and who has lived in the US for the past 10 years. "There's a different perception about points of access. There's a feeling now that you can go overseas and participate in this world at many different levels," says Basher, who still exhibits at Auckland gallery Starkwhite.

That opening up of opportunities within the art market has led a handful of New Zealand gallerists — including Starkwhite and Michael Lett (who has attended the famous Liste Art Fair in Basel several times) — to spend time and money participating in art fairs in order to promote artists they represent.

As Dominic Feuchs of Starkwhite says, "we see the future of New Zealand art as very much part of the globalised, international art market". And, he says, Starkwhite's inclusion in the Basel fair (it's probably the most important art fair in the world with more than 2000 artists and 60,000 visitors — the New York Times describes it as "the Olympics of the art world") was a particular coup.

"It was huge," Feuchs says, "we're the first gallery from Australasia to get into Unlimited [one of the halls at Basel] and we've seen first-hand what this kind of access and presentation means. It gives us a free pass — albeit a rather expensive one — to the international jetset of collectors, curators, artists and dealers."

Creative New Zealand reports it has had an increased number of inquiries from dealer galleries wanting to know what sort of support is available to help them attend various art fairs around the world.

Additionally, not-for-profit institutions also have an increasing amount to do with this kind of international profile-raising. And in Auckland it's generally acknowledged that the last two directors at Artspace — Brian Butler, who left the job late last year to return to a gallery he runs in Los Angeles, and Tobias Berger, a German curator who's now the director of a gallery in South Korea — have both been instrumental in making international introductions in every direction.

"Having international directors like Tobias and Brian working in New Zealand makes the world a smaller, friendlier place," explains New Zealand artist Eve Armstrong, who's just completed a residency at McCahon House in Auckland before moving to Britain. She hopes eventually to be able to divide her time between Auckland and Europe. "[The travel] is happening at both ends. There seem to be more and more things happening in New Zealand, with international curators, gallerists, designers, academics and artists coming to see us."

As Brian Butler is fond of saying, "if you bring one person in, they can take four people out." For example, meeting a visiting German-based curator, the influential Nicolas Schaffhausen, allowed local artist Kate Newby to participate in the recent Brussels Biennale. Another artist, Simon Denny, who also took part in the Brussels event, was encouraged by Schaffhausen to apply to a prestigious Frankfurt art school; Denny studied there earlier this year, the first New Zealander to do so.

"I think there are some really interesting networks being built up," Butler explains. "And that's what is different: I don't think that way of thinking about networks existed so much before. Before, the artist just wanted to get out."

Not that this rationale has gone away completely. New Zealand artists still want to get out, and for much the same reasons they always have. "Artists want to play with people who want to play with them," Butler says.

"It's like being in a band. It's great to play a good gig at the King's Arms with all your friends around. But most bands — and most artists — want more. It's about expanding your audience. And if you study art history, then you know that certain cities are like hallowed ground, just as Eden Park is hallowed ground to people who want to play rugby."

Most of us might also assume that New Zealand artists, like New Zealand musicians, want to go overseas to make it big. Most of us might think that a little bit of art stardom, along the same lines as the multimillion-dollar-earning Young British Artists, or YBAs (the group that includes the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin) would be, oh, you know, quite nice really.

But not so, it seems. It may come across as a little disingenuous at times but almost all of the artists Canvas spoke to prefer not to talk about a career in art. And they definitely don't want to talk about making it big. They define success differently.

Apparently, it's all about "the conversation". Going overseas is part of getting involved "in a bigger conversation", they all say. Translation: going overseas is more about meaningful cultural and creative exploration than anything else, it's about creating a dialogue or discussion, the opportunity to exchange ideas, with a larger, appreciative audience — whether that be collectors, curators, other artists or the general art-loving public.

And then of course another, pertinent question about the New Zealand artist overseas arises. Does an emerging artist need to have done something fancy outside of New Zealand before the rest of us pay them any attention — and therefore, before funding bodies, collectors and public gallery curators take a good, long look at them?

"It is strange," says Frankovich, laughing, "when you start getting phone calls the minute you've left the country. You wonder 'what's changed — my work has been validated by some strangers in Europe?' It's a weird concept."

But perhaps an understandable one. "I think it's natural for New Zealanders to get excited whenever someone makes it big overseas," says Armstrong. "But maybe in the future it will become something we don't place so much emphasis on."

"People may put a value judgment on it that implies one way is less successful than the other," Butler says. "But then, look at someone like Shane Cotton. He has a vibrant practice in New Zealand but not outside of New Zealand: does that mean he is less of a success?"

"New Zealand arts institutions are [already] having to come to terms with a generation of artists who are either originally from elsewhere, but now based here, or from here but now based elsewhere," says Bugden. "It keeps us thinking fluidly about ideas of nationhood, and refuses to allow us to pigeonhole artists or take any position for granted."

This sentiment is perhaps best summed up by New York curator, Laura Hoptman, talking about the way the current recession might affect the art world: "art will flower and triumph not as a hobby, an investment, or a career, but as what it is, and was — a life."

The good news for art-loving optimists here is that, this century, it feels like New Zealand artists won't have to leave home forever to get one.

NEW ZEALAND ARTISTS OVERSEAS

MARTIN BASHER "I think most people are just trying to find a way to do the thing they love and make it viable, which means juggling your [art] work and making a living and making it all mesh in a satisfying way," says Basher, a former Wellingtonian who has spent most of the past 10 years living in New York.

After finishing his Masters in Fine Arts at Columbia University where he was taught by the likes of Kara Walker, an artist Time magazine called one of the world's 100 Most Influential People in 2007, Basher became the inaugural recipient of a Berlin residency established by New York collector Susan D. Goodman.

A lot of his practice, he says, is informed by his experiences as an ex-pat in America; his work focuses on "a longing for the sublime in American culture, whether that's about self-help, lottery tickets, faux diamonds or indigestion medicine. It's about finding the sublime in a Wal-Mart wasteland," explains Basher.

"Because I always felt like an outsider looking in, even after 10 years. I still feel like first and foremost I'm a New Zealander — and I feel like I've slowly been working my way back here," says the artist, who hopes to be able to continue to split his time between New Zealand and America.

"New Zealand's a pretty nice place and I think you'll see that [desire to live and work in two places] a lot more in the new generation of artists."

Basher says being a New Zealander on the international art scene is by no means an impediment and in fact could be an advantage. "In terms of the world's contemporary art hubs, there's no real difference between a New Zealander and someone coming from Michigan or North Wales. And there's a lot of interesting art that comes from being a stranger in a strange land."

DANE MITCHELL If someone was giving out prizes for the artist with the best residencies, Dane Mitchell would probably win. He spent two months this year in London at the Gasworks on a Creative New Zealand-funded residency before heading to Berlin to start a year on the Berliner Kunstlerprogramm DAAD residency — the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service). You cannot apply for the latter — you must be nominated by an international curator, then vetted by a panel. The resulting residency is considered one of the most prestigious in the art world. Former recipients include the likes of art mega-star Damien Hirst as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides and influential Russian artist Ilya Kabakov.

The DAAD residency was "an incredible opportunity that I'm still pinching myself about," he says.

He isn't sure if going away to work is completely necessary for New Zealand artists. "In one sense it's important to look outside of the local. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can also stay at home and make interesting and engaging work. For me, it's all about the work. There's some great support within the [New Zealand arts] community and it's an interesting and vibrant place but it's about wanting to reach beyond the local, to get a wider response to the work."

EVE ARMSTRONG "I guess for me it's been more about wanting fresh challenges as well as new experiences. I came over [to Europe] needing a shake-up, needing something else to look at."

Armstrong is in Britain following a three-month residency at McCahon House in Titirangi. Not affiliated with an institution, she has spent a lot of time travelling, looking at shows and making her own work. Before that she was in Hong Kong for six weeks on another residency and also has a show coming up in the Netherlands.

And besides gaining a fresh perspective on the subjects she's interested in — urbanisation, systems of exchange, waste and recycling — Armstrong has also enjoyed the challenge of working elsewhere. "You don't have the same resources and physically you can't work the same way," she says, referring to space where she would usually make art. "And resources that would normally take me 20 minutes to get back home, here [in Europe] I need to find out where they are. So you're forced to work in a new way quite naturally."

ALICIA FRANKOVICH Alicia Frankovich recalls her first show in Italy well. "Afterwards I got all these people quizzing me. We were having these really intense discussions about my work and I ended up asking this one guy, "are you an artist? Or a gallerist?" I just thought from the way he was talking that he must be. And he said, "no, I'm an engineer'."

Frankovich was pleasantly surprised. "In my experience the general public [in Europe] just took contemporary art more seriously. Every second person had an opinion. And it's not that there's nothing interesting going on in New Zealand, it's just that it isn't as much of a centre for the art world. On the other hand, [the isolation] is what can make it just as interesting as anywhere else," she says.

Frankovich studied art and sculpture at the Auckland University of Technology and a week after graduating in 2002, she flew to Australia. She ended up in Melbourne at the Gertrude St Contemporary Art Spaces, well-known for cutting-edge work. There she was spotted by several visiting curators from further afield and eventually ended up with a residency in Ireland, several shows in Italy and inclusion in the 2007 Phaidon book, Ice Cream, "a global survey of some of the most significant emerging artists working today". Frankovich has spent almost a year in Europe and hopes to divide her time between the two hemispheres.

As to the effect of all this roaming, Frankovich believes it can only have a positive effect. "I think there will be a cross-pollination and the more things that are brought back, the more interesting it will be and the more desirable a destination [New Zealand] will become for European or other artists to consider."

SIMON DENNY Attending what he jokingly calls "the smallest art school in Germany", since April 2007 Simon Denny has been a student at the prestigious Staedelschule in Frankfurt. The school takes only a handful of students and the head of the school, Daniel Birnbaum, also happens to be the director of this year's 53rd Venice Biennale.

"In New Zealand the [arts] community is wonderful," says Denny, who is also part of the Gambia Castle artist-run co-operative based on Auckland's Karangahape Rd and whose work has been shown in Germany, England, Australia and Belgium as well as Liste in Basel, the international art fair for young (under 40) and emerging artists in Switzerland. He has work showing in Italy and Norway later this year.

A lot of Denny's work looks at how we receive and re-distribute information and, among various others, one of his interests is the notion of "camp".