David Herkt This is not writing, by Julian Dashper, (Clouds & Michael Lett, 2011), $39.95. ‘Why should one understand anything? Should we not just experience it?’ – Julian Dashper (p. 75)1. Memento MoriIn September 2010, the first anniversary of the death of New Zealand artist Julian Daspher was marked in New York by exhibition of […]
Helter-skelter
Jamie Hanton The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader, edited by Stella Brennan and Su Ballard, (Aotearoa Digital Arts and Clouds, 2008) 240 pp., $60.00. The Landfall Online Review seems like an appropriate place to review The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader; an opportunity to consider the digital lay of the land from within. It is also a […]
Late and Early
Peter Entwisle Mary Kisler, Angels & Aristocrats Early European Art in New Zealand Public Collections, (Random House, 2010), 399 pp., $74.99. Angels & Aristocrats is a landmark, a useful reference, and one can simply enjoy its fine illustrations – though it has limitations and flaws. There has been very little published about the old European […]
The Eye and Hand in Action
Jodie DalgleishRichard Parker: Objectspace Masters of Craft, by Richard Fahey (Objectspace, Auckland, 2010), 119 pp., $35.00. Together with curator and author Richard Fahey and photographer Haru Sameshima, Auckland’s Objectspace gallery has produced a thoughtful and generously illustrated exhibition publication and monograph on the distinctive work of Richard Parker. As Objectspace Director Philip Clarke states in […]
Quintessentially No. 8
David ElworthyLiving Language: Exploring Kiwitalk, by Elizabeth Gordon (Canterbury University press, 2010), 256 pp., $35.00; In the Paddock and on the Run, by Dianne Bardsley (Otago University Press, 2010) 464 pp, $50.00; Place Names of New Zealand, by A.W. Reed, revised by Peter Dowling (Raupo Books, 2010) 502 pp., $50.00. Within a decade or two […]
From People’s Rag to Scandal Sheet
Adam GiffordTruth: The Rise and Fall of the People’s Paper, by Redmer Yska (Craig Potton Publishing, 2010), 200 pp., $50.00. Every Thursday the presses would start at Garrett Street a stone’s throw from Wellington’s Cuba Mall, first hesitatingly, then faster, until a torrent of inky tabloids would roll down the rickety conveyer belt. During the […]
The Lightness of Being Bill Culbert
David EggletonBill Culbert: Making Light Work, by Ian Wedde (Auckland University Press, hardback, illustrated, 272 pp., $99.99. Have lightbulb, will travel. Sculptor Bill Culbert embodies the expatriate artist condition. He left New Zealand in 1957 at the age of 21 to attend the Royal College of Art in London and has lived overseas ever since. […]
Worlds Within
Jamie HantonA Micronaut in the Wide World: the Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy, by Gregory O’Brien, (Auckland University Press, 2011), 182 pp., $59.99. Back and Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious, by Gregory O’Brien, (Auckland University Press, 2008), 104 pp., $34.99 Imagination, and all its mighty power, is at the […]
Sense and Sensibility
Lawrence JonesThe Commonplace Book: A Writer’s Journey through Quotations, by Elizabeth Smither (Auckland University Press, 2011), 192 pp., $34.99 ‘Regarde. — Colette’s last word.’ This brief entry from one of Elizabeth Smither’s commonplace books might be the watchword of her volume. In her response to this quotation, she defines the meaning for […]
Painted Words
David Eggleton Towards a Promised Land: On the life and art of Colin McCahon, by Gordon H. Brown (Auckland University Press, 2010) hardback, colour plates and illustrations, 216 pp., $79.99 Evangelism takes strange forms. Arthur Stace, a former alcoholic who became a Christian, spent thirty-seven years chalking the word ‘Eternity’ in beautiful copperplate onto the […]
Touching Earth
Lindsay Pope How the Land Lies: Of Longing and Belonging, Pat White (Victoria University Press, 2010) 239 pp., $35.00 The eye, the ear, The mind in action, these I value. – Heraclitus, from Fragments In 2009, as a member of Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters Writing for the Page group, I had the […]
Trigger-happy
David Eggleton Brian Brake: Lens on the World, edited by Athol McCredie (Te Papa Press, 2010) 352 pp., $99.99 Photojournalism is politics by other means, a form of persuasion, a type of propaganda, where photographs might proselytise on behalf of a world-view. Brian Brake (1927–88) was, as this book tells us, ‘New Zealand’s best-known photographer’, certainly […]