04 Dec 2017
New Zealand’s visual artists embraced the opportunity to present their works in the most important contemporary visual arts festivals in the world this year.
La Biennale di Venezia in Venice, Italy, and the five-yearly documenta hosted in Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece, were venues to some of New Zealand’s finest visual artists.
Creative New Zealand was proud to present Lisa Reihana as New Zealand’s artist for the 57th La Biennale di Venezia. Lisa Reihana: Emissaries featured the artist’s vast panoramic video in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–17, alongside interrelated photo-based and sculptural works that explored and disrupted notions of beauty, authenticity, history and myth.
“The best artwork at the Biennale? That will be Lisa Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus, in the New Zealand pavilion ... Where most panoramas present a fixed viewpoint, this one moves and unfolds in a riveting animated sequence that took 10 years to complete and that deserves to be recognised as one of the key artworks of recent years.”
– The Sunday Times (UK)
Numerous international media outlets highlighted Lisa Reihana: Emissaries as one of the top pavilions this year, including The Telegraph, The Times, The Venice Insider, frieze, The Upcoming, Elephant Magazine and The Art Desk.
New Zealand artists were exhibited for the first time at documenta – one of the world’s largest and most highly regarded contemporary art exhibitions. Work by the late Hone Papita Raukura Hotere, Mata Aho Collective and Nathan Pohio brought a voice from Aotearoa New Zealand to the European stage.
“We have selected these artists to show ground-breaking and radical forms of art. They have not only shaped, and continue to shape, New Zealand art history, but also make a significant contribution to the international discourse on contemporary art,” said documenta curator, Hendrik Folkerts.
Artform – Visual Arts
Location – Italy, Germany, Greece
Funding – International Presentation Fund ($700,000 Venice; $122,798 documenta)
This is one of 10 stories from our Annual Report 2016/17 about the diverse range of arts projects and organisations that Creative New Zealand funded.
For a quick visual overview of how much revenue was received and how it was invested see Our Year in Review: Creative New Zealand
For detailed information see Arts Council of New Zealand (Creative New Zealand) Annual Report 2016/17 (PDF 1.7MB)
Share this
