Sarjeant Happenings: Exhibition observes what we see and don’t see

The last series of exhibitions are on display at Sarjeant on the Quay, which will close in late June. Photo / Bevan Conley

Observations: From the Collection is part of the last season of exhibitions to be held at the Sarjeant on Taupō Quay before it closes in late June in preparation for the move back to the redeveloped Sarjeant Gallery on Pukenamu Queen’s Park.

Collection curator Jennifer Taylor Moore says the exhibition comprises “quite a disparate group of works” and is a selection that gives pause in a busy world for thoughts, feelings, ideas and observations about what, and how, we see and don’t see; what we do and don’t do with the mountains of data we record.

The aim was to show a breadth of the collection, some old favourites and more-recent acquisitions across a range of media — paintings, photographs and sculpture. The exhibition is the Sarjeant’s first opportunity to exhibit Place for Observation of Dualities, which was gifted to the gallery two years ago by painter and sculptor Andrew Drummond.

“We were thinking about different ways of observing and recording the world around us. There’s a really interesting conversation happening over time [between the five works] about different senses, perceptions, observations, recording, and a bit about environmental concerns.”

Curiosity (1891) was acquired in 1924 and is a starting point in past time for the exhibition. In this painting by Eugen Von Blaas, two young women are perched on a ladder against a brick wall. “We don’t know what they’re looking at, and we are never going to know, but it’s all about looking. This is also before photography, so to tell stories artists had to paint.”

Eugen Von Blaas' large oil on canvas, Curiosity, was painted in 1891 in Europe and is on display at Sarjeant on the Quay until June 30 as part of the exhibition Observations: From the Collection. Photo / Supplied

A sepia-toned photograph called The Children’s Hour (1923) by Janet Allan and Agnes Martin shows a group of children sharing headphones and listening enthralled to the BBC programme that ran every day of the week at 5pm from 1922 to 1964 — perhaps seeing an inner world rather than their surroundings.

The looker becomes the looked at in Michael Illingworth’s Photographer (1968). “What’s interesting about this work is that he’s looking right at you. His camera’s pointed right at you and he’s waving to get your attention. You think you’re looking at the painting, but the painting’s actually taking a photograph of you, the viewer. So it’s sort of switching you around. You become the observed at the same time as being the observer.”

And again in Anne Noble’s Penguin (Nagoya Aquarium) photograph from her Antarctica series (2003), there are several possible layers of observer and observed. The photographer is photographing the aquarium visitors who are recording what is happening in front of them on their mobile phones. And we as viewers see this record. The penguin is just a blur going past.

”What you’re looking at is their phones. So, yes, they will have a lasting record of the moment, but they were never participants in it themselves. The whole world just becomes a blur. All that appears to be important is what’s on your phone screen which means that we are not forming our own memories of events as they happen. Instead, we’re so busy recording them that we’re not actually there in the moment, we’re not using all of our senses to experience it ourselves.”

The blurred image of the aquarium penguin and screen-happy visitors leads into the sculptural work by Drummond, which redirects the viewer’s gaze down through two copper-coiled funnels towards the earth. The sculpture is a kind of pseudo-scientific instrument, a motif favoured by Drummond. The large copper coils are like amplifiers or listening devices, reminiscent of ear trumpets.

“It’s trying to draw our attention to the earth. But also what I see in it is our preoccupation with recording things all around us, making all these observations about the world but we’re not really doing anything to improve things. We are recording the rise of sea temperature and loss of species, collecting statistics, mapping all these issues, but not actually fixing anything. We just keep on going and making things worse. So [the work concerns] that environmental aspect and recording for the sake of recording without actually doing anything with the data once you’ve got it.”

The environmental theme is even more pronounced in two other concurrent exhibitions Aves and Theatre Country.

Observations: From the Collection runs at Sarjeant on the Quay until June 30.