Portraits loom large in 21st century showcase

The 21st century is five years old and the avalanche of art continues, here and overseas. But nothing has emerged that defines the art of the new century - except variety and the acceptance of almost anything as art if it is in an art gallery.

A walk along Karangahape Rd is local confirmation of this global situation. Starting at Artspace, the exhibition is by a Belgian artist who lives in Mexico and works with lots of parallels.

Francis Alÿs, whose show to be continued runs until November 19, works in a variety of media.

Isolated in the main gallery's huge space is his shot at conceptual art. A canvas standing on the floor is lettered with his meditation on the things he is not doing when he is walking.

Then around the corner is his documentary art with a piece of newspaper about an attack on police and the lynching of two men which he has illustrated with a little oil painting of the men hanged from a lamp post. Then there is an exquisite shady pencil drawing of the centre of Mexico City. This and the walking meditation are complemented by a slide show of 80 images of hawkers and labourers who walk the city streets.

Finally, in the third room, there is a short film about a plastic bottle being kicked around the pavement of the central square and then existing briefly and perilously on the roadway.

The artist is not defined as a painter or sculptor. He does a bit of everything. His drawing is admirable and he evokes sympathy for the bottle rolling back and forth and in danger of being squashed. It works as metaphor for anyone in peril, at the mercy of people and circumstance. The conceptual piece is swallowed in the great white space of the main gallery.

It is good to see the work of an international artist here but the variety of this work leads to a curious loss of intensity in individual pieces.

That painting by itself can still work forcibly is shown across the road at Ivan Anthony until November 15. Liz Maw is showing four big paintings, all carefully drawn and precisely painted. The works have elaborate traditional frames as part of the ensemble. The show is called Colleen, Two Roberts and The Immaculate Conception.

Colleen is a big, apricot-pink stylised nude with red nail polish and a faraway look. She is surrounded by the curves and folds of seashells. In The Immaculate Conception, a similar nude is perched on a haywain borrowed from Constable. She sheds light on a burning bush a la Moses. Nearby is an icecream castle. Beyond a stream is an idyllic landscape with small birds in flight over it. The whole is serene, surreal landscape with an erotic twist.

This painting is a new departure for Maw. The two Roberts are closer to the style she has established. They stand, tall and over life-size against a plain background. They have an extraordinary presence as a whole and oddities in detail. One Robert (clearly Robert Plant), clad in a cloak, is all brooding and blue. He has a jewel in his navel, a wound on his torso, long hair crowned with an unlikely tiara, a bird hovering on his chest, a belt marked with runes and tight pants with feathers spouting from his crotch.

He has bare feet and so has the other Robert who is in a suit, clutches a straight-edge, and has his head stitched on in the manner of Frankenstein's monster.

The three giant figures have much more authority than the landscape which looks frankly experimental, and the paint is rougher. In the big figures the slick, smooth style and iconographic bits and pieces reference the swagger portraits of past centuries and give a modern spin much more effectively than by simply borrowing Constable's cart and composition. It is a sparse exhibition but the three tall figures reinforce Liz Maw's reputation as a highly independent artistic spirit.

There is nothing sparse about the work of Peter Madden at Michael Lett's until November 12. The show is called Silk Cuts because much of the work is cut from vivid magazine photographs. The material gained in this way is reassembled in collages of enormous complexity. Each has a special mood but all have a touch of the macabre. There is usually a skull somewhere.

One of the most impressive is The Awkward Orchard which is both dancer and bird and, unlike the other collages, is full of movement.

These wall works are trumped by the small sculptural works. Madden is full of the idea that he is an artistic alchemist and that he can make precious art out of anything by covering it with gold. So in the show we have a gold stool, a golden bicycle seat, a golden baseball bat and even golden nail clippings.

These works do not transmute reality but other less simplistic works do. There is a book secured by three clamps whose pressure fails to hold the innumerable snakes that escape from its pages in a colourful writhing mass. A skull covered with roses is decadently effective. These composite works combine shape, concept and collage in a striking use of a variety of media.