Ten must-see art shows in Chch this month
When winter makes it too cold to venture outdoors, try visiting one or more of these 10 exhibitions on, in or near Christchurch during July.
Janna van Hasselt and Harley Peddie, Snapdash! Ashburton Art Gallery, 327 West St.
Blue and pink objects that look like party-foam spray and donuts, materialising from the gallery’s coloured walls and floor make Snapdash! an irresistible immersive experience.
This is the forth occasion in the past two years I have encountered Hasselt’s distinct fusion of painting, sculpture and architecture (as she described it) and it continues to surpass all previous expectations.
Snapdash! is at the Ashburton Art Gallery until August 18.
Ande Whall, Sell the Miniature Horse, The Corner Store, 314 Cashel St.
Sell the Miniature Horse is a solo exhibition from Christchurch-based artist, Ande Whall in the recently opened gallery space of The Corner Store.
Whall describes his work as ‘‘in the Stupid-ism style,’’ but on the evidence of Sell the Miniature Horse there is a wisdom, (and purposeful lack of wisdom) that connects it with Post-Simpsons television cartoons from the 1990s like Doctor Katz and King of the Hill.
Whall and The Corner Store are welcome additions to the city’s gallery scene.
Sell the Miniature Horse runs to July 31.
Vanessa Arthur, To be everywhere at once yet nowhere at all, The National, 249 Moorhouse Ave.
Contemporary jeweller Vanessa Arthur’s documentation of the intimate and fleeting detail of the urban environment is an encounter with the materials and form of beautiful objects.
Arthur crafts her surfaces; painting, scratching and weathering with an understated authority that she has refined to near perfection. (Arthur was recently invited to participate in Iwa: New Zealand Makers, a selected survey of 40 years of Aotearoa jewellery.)
To be everywhere . . . runs until August 4.
Disenchanted Prophets – Photographs of Waitangi Protest, Canterbury Museum, Rolleston Ave.
Disenchanted Prophets is a touring exhibition of photographs of the Waitangi day Treaty grounds predominantly from the 1980s.
Photographs by Mark Adams, Bruce Connew, Gil Hanley, John Miller and Ans Westra collectively provide evidence of the power of an idea – ‘‘Honour the Treaty’’ – which assumes an inevitable momentum all of its own.
Toured by Te Ko¯ ngahu Museum of Waitangi, Disenchanted Prophets runs until September 2.
Nathan Pohio, Spyglass Field Recordings Vol 4: Sfakia – day for night, Jonathan Smart Gallery, 52 Buchan St.
What to expect from Nathan Pohio (Ka¯ ti Mamoe, Nga¯ i Tahu) and his first solo exhibition since representing Aotearoa New Zealand in Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel?
Spyglass Field Recordings Vol 4: Sfakia – day for night is a visual diary, acknowledging Documenta and reconsidering where his practice might now be heading.
Spyglass Field Recordings runs until August 4.
Helen Calder, Supports and Surfaces, Nadene Milne Gallery, 10 Bath St.
For more than a decade Calder’s work has offered a tactile and aesthetic experience of painting through refined objects that may not necessarily be paintings.
The work in Supports and Surfaces, is familiar – yet unfamiliar – directing our attention to both its painterly surfaces and the devices and structures supporting the folded acrylic skins they hold.
Supports and Surfaces runs to July 27.
Tiffany Singh, A Collective Voice, 66 Gloucester St.
Auckland-based Tiffany Singh brings two installations to CoCA’s North Gallery: OM MANI PADME HUM and The Journey of a Million Miles Begins.
More than 1500 metres of coloured silk ribbon circling the gallery’s walls is a welcoming gesture, encouraging visitors to take time to sit and listen to migration stories of Aotearoa New Zealand.