Sarah Munro's Prototype

Curated by Nicole Edwards and Linda Tyler.

In 1934, the Machine Art exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art promoted commodity designs that revealed the inner workings of things instead of hiding them behind contrived facades. Influential ideas were German Bauhaus "functionalism" (form follows function), and the austere, so-called "international style". Contemporary New Zealand art that emulates or replicates commodity designs is brought together in Clean Machine: the look of Sarah Munro's Prototypes suggests that they might be useful without any actual function being specified; Scott Eady produces serried ranks of machines derived from Russian Constructivism; Anton Parsons makes giant sculptures which reproduce machine-based codes; Gina Jones draws on her architectural training to produce practical-looking wall panels that use laser-cut steel, sandblasted Perspex and LED lights; Sarah Hughes hand-paints the distortions of computer screens while Aiko Groot's kinetic sculptures endlessly reconfigure simple geometric forms re-humanising the technical and mechanical by searching for the personality in the machine.

Admission free

The Gus Fisher Gallery
74 Shortland Street, Auckland
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday, 12-4pm; closed Public Holidays

Phone: 9 373 7599 ext 86646
Email: gusfishergallery@auckland.ac.nz
Website: www.gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz