Poster art hits the headlines

The four finalists for the country's richest arts prize, the Walters Prize, have been named. Arts editor LINDA HERRICK reports.

A mocked-up New Zealand Herald poster helped one artist reach the list of four finalists contending for $50,000 in the country's richest contemporary arts award, the Walters Prize.

The screenprinted poster, Death Defying Art: Immendorff's Farwell [sic] Address, dated January 27, 1988, is part of Michael Stevenson's multimedia show selected by the Walters Prize jury.

The other three finalists are Gavin Hipkins, who is Auckland-born and lives in Vancouver, and Aucklanders Yvonne Todd and John Reynolds.

Stevenson is a New Zealander who lives in Berlin.

The judges, whose identities were kept secret from each other, were Auckland Artspace curator Robert Leonard, Dunedin Public Art Gallery curator Justin Paton, Unitec design school head of theory Anna Miles, and Wellington art critic and curator William McAloon.

The works will be displayed at Auckland's New Gallery from June 8, and the winner will be chosen by Venice Biennale director Harald Szeemann, who will announce the results at a gala dinner to be held in mid-July.

The Auckland City Gallery art and access programmes manager, Louise Pether, said the judges' choices were "unpredictable".

"We all had different names in our heads.

"The intention is to create a prize so people would be aware of the work our contemporary artists are doing and every two years we're going to get another four coming in who are unpredictable.

"The four judges did not discuss their choices with each other. They didn't know who each other was.

"I know they brought more than 10 names to the table and they had to convince each other to come to a unanimous agreement on the final four. It took six hours to make the final selection."

The Walters Prize is based on an artist's body of work over the past few years, rather than a single item.

Stevenson's Herald "poster" was part of a mixed media show, Call Me Immendorff, exhibited at Galerie Kapinos in Berlin and at the Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington.

With posters, newspapers clippings, video and banners, the show harks back to the controversial Auckland Art gallery residency in 1987-8 of German neo-expressionist artist Jorg Immendorff.

During his residency, Immendorff's flamboyant lifestyle and radical (for the times) appearance made him the subject of death threats

A dead rabbit and bird were nailed to his door.

Stevenson has taken those events, Immendorff's response and the social context of the time to create 37 posters and framed fake newspaper clippings.

Alongside posters which proclaim "He fought back with his art", Haere Ra Jorg" and "Partied and Painted to the End" are headlines such as "Revolution in NZ", "1000s Lose Jobs" and "Ex PM stars in Rocky Horror."

Hipkins' Walters Prize entry, The Homely, comprises 80 photographs of everyday objects in a touring exhibition which is showing at the Sargeant Gallery in Wanganui.

Yvonne Todd's Asthma & Eczema show is also a series of photos focusing on the banality of suburbia.

John Reynolds' Harry Human Heights exhibition is a series of 75 oilstick drawings.