Emil McAvoy

Helen

2011-10-30T19:17:00.001+13:00

Helen
Emil McAvoy
2011
Archival pigment on Hahnemuehle 100% Cotton Fine Art Photo Rag 320gsm

Original source: photographer and date unknown
National Publicity Studios
Copyright Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga
Wellington [AAQT, 6418, 29, 11]

Winner of the 1st Runner Up Award, 20th Annual Wallace Art Awards
The Dowse Museum, Lower Hutt, 29/10 - 4/12/2011

CAUCASIA: Selling New Zealand at the 1970 Japan World Expo

2011-02-14T13:15:00.007+13:00

Image: Archives New Zealand

Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga

Wellington Office [AAQT, 6540, 1, 3, 39]

Closing celebration & free digital catalogue launch

Featuring performances by Sam Hamilton, Radio Cegeste & DJ Tom Henry

5:30-7pm Friday 25 February, projectspace B431, Elam School of Fine Arts

Supported by Kirin Beer

Open Thursday–Saturday, 11am-4pm, 17–26 February

or by appointment ph +64 27 425 6498

In 1970 Japan was much further away from New Zealand.

The Japan World Expo, then the largest exhibition of its kind, marked New Zealand's first participation in an international fair since the Second World War. It was motivated by a range of cultural, economic and political imperatives, and achieved through the cooperation of a wide range of state agencies. The New Zealand Pavilion, the National Film Unit three screen spectacular This is New Zealand, and our wider participation in Expo '70 events were celebrated as an international success.

CAUCASIA is a presentation of a suite of digitally restored official New Zealand Government Publicity photographs documenting the New Zealand Pavilion. These national treasures have been unburied and selected from Archives New Zealand's collections by artist Emil McAvoy to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Pavilion and the highly popular national tour of This is New Zealand. The restored photographs are accompanied by a screening of the National Film Unit documentary This is Expo.

The artist describes the New Zealand Pavilion's presentation of Aotearoa as “a modern Western paradise in the South Pacific, a presentation pitched to an international, primarily Japanese audience.” The promotion of international trade and tourism were central to these representations of New Zealand's landscape, cultures and people. CAUCASIA revisits this moment and its performance of national identity on an international stage. McAvoy asserts, “these images confront us with how we saw and sold ourselves as a nation, and ask us to reconsider how we do so now.”

A free digital exhibition catalogue will be released at www.emilmcavoy.com on 25 February. To celebrate the publication launch Sam Hamilton and Radio Cegeste will be performing sound works in dialogue with the exhibition, alongside internationalist selections from DJ Tom Henry.

CAUCASIA is an outcome of a University of Auckland 2010-11 Summer Research Scholarship and is supported by Archives New Zealand and the National Library.

projectspace B431

Elam School of Fine Arts

Ground Floor

Main Fine Arts Building

University of Auckland

20 Whitaker Place

www.projectspaceb431.auckland.ac.nz

CAUCASIA free digital exhibition catalogue

2011-02-13T12:58:00.000+13:00

Image: Archives New Zealand

Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga

Wellington Office [AAQT, 6540, 1, 3, 37]

download CAUCASIA free digital exhibition catalogue here

Issues & Returns: Borrowings from the National Publicity Studios Archive

2010-11-17T15:15:00.000+13:00

Premiere
Elam Graduate Show
20-21 November 2010
Elam School of Fine Arts
University of Auckland
20 Whitaker Place

An outcome of the Archives New Zealand 50th Anniversary Scholarship

Rainbow Warriors

2010-09-06T12:57:00.007+12:00

Rainbow Warriors (2010)

Emil McAvoy

Cast aluminium, custom acrylic lacquer

Rainbow Warriors (2010) is the latest work in an ongoing series utilizing a custom modiﬁed

version of the infamous, and now ubiquitous, PR24 Riot Baton. The baton was ﬁrst

introduced in to the New Zealand Police via the Red and Blue Squads in instances of

police brutality against civil rights protestors during the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour. The

ﬁrst work in McAvoy's series, Better Work Stories (He Patu! Ano) (2007), also makes

reference to the baton's appearance in the 1980's historic police rape trials and the

concurrent police recruitment campaign of recent focus in national media.

An edition of Better Work Stories was sold on the auction site TradeMe in reference to Red

Squad second-in-command Ross Meurant's controversial sale of his 'Minto Bar' on the

site; Meurant's baton being named after veteran human rights protestor and anti-

Springbok Tour ﬁgurehead John Minto. It sold to a South African collector for $NZ20,000.

McAvoy's online auction also operated as a discursive platform for issues or stories raised

by the work, where members of the public were able to discuss these directly with the

artist. Proceeds from the sale were donated to Rape Prevention Education.

Rainbow Warriors extends the conceptual terrain of Better Work Stories into a broader

critical engagement with New Zealand national identities. It is coded to resist simple

identiﬁcations, yet its playfully provocative signiﬁers may incite viewers to do so. The title

makes reference to New Zealand's history of international level environmental protest, and

was painted on the Twenty Fifth Anniversary of the bombing of the ﬁrst Rainbow Warrior

vessel, another yardstick in our historical landscape. The rainbow colours also evoke an

association with the homosexual rights protest movement, of which the artist's mother was

a key New Zealand literary member in the 1980's when he was a child.

The four pairs of batons that evoke the forms of rugby goal posts, along with the hot rod

ﬂamed phalluses reference the masculinist, heterosexually-oriented rugby and custom car

cultures. In contrast, the rainbow colours speak to the alleged homoeroticism of such

cultures, and spectrums of singularity which resist such easy reductions of identity. The

cross formation and ﬁre iconography may evoke histories and treatments of homosexuality

within Christian churches, further connected to the Wallace Arts Centre's former history as

a religious building. Yet the cross symbol exceeds its particular association with

Christianity as an ancient representation of sacred unity and transcendence.

McAvoy's recent work excavates New Zealand's social and cultural histories for new

identiﬁcations and ways of making meaning in series which intersect conceptually and

materially. He has exhibited, screened and performed throughout New Zealand and is

represented in public and private collections.

Being John Minto

2010-04-01T03:34:00.005+13:00

Artist Emil McAvoy is responding to veteran human rights protestor John Minto's recent arrest and the police confiscation of his loudhailer by launching the MintoPhone. The MintoPhone is a hacked loudhailer which connects to an iPhone. The iPhone speaks text including Twitter feeds through computer voice generators, and can also play music and sound files through the loudhailer.

Minto was recently arrested for alleged disorderly behaviour during a protest against the participation of Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer at the ASB Classic Tennis Tournament. Minto and seven others will appear in the Auckland District Court this Thursday 1st April to face charges. Minto and others had their loudhailers confiscated, and are attempting to have the charges dismissed and their loudhailers returned. Minto also had his loudhailer confiscated during his 1981 anti Springbok tour protests, which was destroyed by police before it was returned.

McAvoy's wider art project titled 'Being John Minto' includes the modified megaphone painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag, a series of public performances, a Twitter feed on the artist's website, a Facebook group, and a charity auction of the MintoPhone on TradeMe. The artist intends these to provide platforms for public discussion and debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, human rights including the right to protest, and the relationship between politics and sport. Proceeds from the sale of the MintoPhone will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. Public comments can made on:
www.twitter.com/beingjohnminto
www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=281234809
www.facebook.com/group.phpgid=103278983043106

To celebrate the launch, McAvoy will be performing with the MintoPhone at undisclosed locations around central Auckland on Thursday 1st April from 9am until 12pm using sound generated from the text of Minto's court submission, public comments on Minto's recent protest sampled from internet blogs, the live Twitter feed and selected music.

McAvoy is also known for his controversial sculpture 'Better Work Stories (He Patu! Ano)', a series of three phallic tipped police riot batons, a critical engagement with the baton's history in the 1981 Springbok Tour and historic police rape trials. The work was a finalist in the 2007 Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Awards, was listed for sale on TradeMe and the proceeds donated to Women's Refuge. Details of public comments on the work can be viewed at:
www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=113185901

McAvoy is an artist, writer, and Master in Fine Arts student at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. More details at:
www.emilmcavoy.com

'Discursive Formations' at SCANZ 2009

2009-11-26T09:03:00.000+13:00

I recently presented a paper at Interconnections: SCANZ 2009 Symposium

It is entitled 'Discursive Formations: Circumnavigating the 'crop circle' phenomenon via contemporary art theoretical discourses'

The paper considers how the ongoing 'crop circle' phenomenon could be read as a form of contemporary art, and how this could be constructed via art theoretical discourses. It takes Roland Barthes' Death of the Author as a point of departure to consider the formations' contested authorship, and how this contestation is central to our evolving understandings of this enigmatic and widely misunderstood phenomenon.

This is an ongoing research interest and area of critical creative engagement. My research is transdisciplinary, yet grounded in a cultural studies approach.

More recent and historical formations can be found here:

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/2009.html

http://www.cropcircle-archive.com/archive/index.php?language=en

Photographs: Olivier Morel and John Montgomery, 2009:
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/tidcombe/tidcombe2009.html

Better Work Stories

2009-11-26T08:55:00.001+13:00

Better Work Stories (He Patu! Ano) (2007)

Cast aluminium, automotive enamel.

It may be best to begin framing this work and its contexts by referring to the accompanying digital catalogue.

This work premiered as a finalist in the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award judged by Leonhard Emmerling.

An edition of the work was concurrently posted for sale on Trade Me as another conceptual dimension to the public project. Through the question and answer function of the site members of the public were able to post comments and questions to discuss the work with the artist and each other.

The item was sold to a private collector who as a young punk had been beaten by police with the long baton, as it was often referred to during the 1981 Springbok Tour when first introduced to the New Zealand public. The work also drew inspiration from recent historic police rape cases involving the long baton. The proceeds from the online sale were donated to Women's Refuge. The edition exhibited at the award is now owned by the Trust Waikato Art Collection.

A revised publication is forthcoming in 2010, documenting the original work, the online discussion and media reportage.

Forgotten Pretty Things

2009-11-26T08:50:00.001+13:00

Forgotten Pretty Thing AKA Edison Hates the Future (2006) was a live improvised audiovisual performance in collaboration with Damian Stewart AKA Frey utilizing the Thomas Edison Sound and Motion Picture Archive as source material.

Edison's archive contains key heritage items of early cinema and sound reproduction available in the public domain. The emergence of these 'new media' of the time ruptured established notions of the real and traditional modes of representation. Stewart's and my reinterpretation of Edison's archive, and his problematic and controversial history, was grounded in this consideration, and deployed contemporary new media, in the form of real time computer processing of video and sound material, in the realization of the work.

Reciprocity at Interdigitate

2009-11-26T08:45:00.016+13:00

Reciprocity (2006) was a live improvised audiovisual performance with Damian Stewart AKA Frey at Interdigitate.

The only inputs it utilized were live audio and video feeds of the audience via microphones and cameras distributed throughout the performance space, which were then processed in real time, and projected back to the audience in a feedback loop.