1. What is the background to the Walters Prize?
The Walter's Prize was named in honor to the later New Zealand artist Gordon Walter's. The prize itself was established in 2002, by founding benefactors and principal donors Erika and Robin Congreve and Darne Jenny Gibbs, working together with the Auckland Art Gallery. Gallery Patron Dayle Mace provides additional support to the artists for their participation in the Walter's Prize Exhibition. The Walter's prize winner will receive $50,000.
2. List the 4 selected artists for 2010 and briefly describe their work.
a) Saskia Leek - Yellow is the putty of the world. Oil on board.
Leek's palate of whitish blues and whitish yellows has evolved from paintings that respond directly to the look and the mood of the sun-faded prints and paint by numbers pastels and is treated in the exhibition yellow is the putty of the world clearly as the subject itself.
b) Fiona Connor - Something transparent. MDF, Plywood, plastic and acrylic.
Fiona's work makes the most of unsettling potential of the double take. Positioning multiple reproductions of the glass facade and public entrance tot he gallery in situ one behind the next. Fiona's main focus was all about how spaces operate within specific communities.
c) Dan Arps - Explaining things. Mixed media.
He has made careful formal guestures with materials as banal as breakfast cereal and sheets of newspaper - things a long way from the everyday of art.
d) Alex Monteith - Passing Manoeuvre with 2 motorcycles and 584 vehicles for two channel video. Dual channel video installation.
Alex's work is a 13min 38sec video using a motorbike and trying to find out what is illegal according to the NZ roadcode. Alex's uses two perspective's, one looking from behind to the front and another looking from the front to behind the driver.
3. Who are the jury members for 2010?
The Jury consists of 3 people; Jon Bywater, who was a lecturer in Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Rhana Devenport, who is Director of the Gorett - Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth. Leonhard Emmerling, who was Director of St Paul's St at AUT University and is now Visual Arts advisor at the Goethe Institute in Mnich, Germany.
4. Who is the judge for 2010 and what is his position in the art world?
The Judge for 2010 is a man called Vincente Todoli's. Vincente has had a career in visual arts for 20years now. He was director, Tate Modern from 2002-2010, Chief Curator 1986-88 and then Arte Moderno 1988-96 and founding director of Museu Serralves, Porto, Potrgual from 1996.
5. Who would you nominate for this years Walter's Prize, and why? Substantiate
you answer by outlining the strengths of the artists work. What aspect of their work is successful in your opinion, in terms of ideas, materials and/or installation of the work?
I think I would nominate Fiona Connor for this years walter's prize as I found hers the most interesting. The strengths of her work were the ideas that she was trying to portray and how she portrayed them. I have to say that i definitely did double take on her work possibly even 2 or 3 times. I didn't even really realize that it was a work. Then i read the Statement on the wall and kind of had to laugh...."Makes the most of the unsettling potential of the double take". This is exactly what she was trying to get me and other people to do all along. She did it very well.