The Weight of the Door (Zurich)
May 29 - June 1
Wellington
R T Nelson Award
The Weight of the Door (Zurich) is the
continuation of a sculpture series inspired by Le Corbusier's design of a door
handle for Ronchamp Chapel, France (1954). Le Corbusier reused versions of the Ronchamp handle
including in his final work of architecture Le Pavillion Corbusier, Zurich
(1967).
To a contemporary gaze, the exaggerated
dimensions of these sculptures move these translations from door handle to
associations with hand weights or solid hourglass’, and the objects are heavy–
surprisingly heavy; it is cast bronze from a turned wood model.
Blue Fleur. Natalie Guy & Sandra Bushby
April 23 - 17 May, 2024
Christchurch
Ilam Campus Gallery
“Looking to the Stations of the Cross, Guy considers the
meditated
or framed view, through which she approaches the compositional
definitions in the Stations. She chimes with Paul’s peculiar colour symbolism,
creating cut-out shapes to reference the figures. Literal windows in
Guy’s
sculptural pieces echo Paul’s mediated
view: the hinged
doors and windows in
the poem, and the formal framings of the Stations”.
Joanna Osborne
The Staircase
February 24 - March 24, 2024
Waiheke Island, Auckland
Sculpture on the Gulf
Guy, whose practice is interested in the legacy of mid-century modernism, was drawn to this moment of misrecognition as a sign of modernism’s enduring influence within architectural design. The Staircase paraphrases this handrail design again as a sculptural object, a peculiar armature that calls up Scarpa’s spectre to Waiheke, where many examples of faux modernist residencies can be found, perhaps bearing his influence without knowing it.
The Imaginary Mountain
February 3 - March 31, 2024
Kirikiriroa - Hamilton
Boon Sculpture Trail
Referencing the architecture of Hamiltonian Rod Smith (1933 - 2023) and the influence on his work of the Finnish modernist architect Alvar Aalto (1898 – 1976). Inspired by their natural environments, both architects designed jagged rooflines suggesting mountain ranges. The sculpture combines the rooflines of Smith’s Te Rahui Tane Hostel in Hamilton and Aalto’s Santa Maria Assunta in Riola di Vergato, Italy.
Brise Soleil
2023
Brick Bay
The Weight of the Door
July 27 - August 20, 2022
Sumer
Using the bronze door handle from Notre-Dame du Haut as its source—La Corbusier’s chapel in Ronchamp, France—The Weight of the Door presents a series of objects that the artist describes as translations. This fragment of the chapel structure, isolated, removed its vitrine surround.The bronze form appears here as a series of distortions. Horizontal and vertical iterations of varying lengths and proportions that differ from the source. A series of bronzes presented not on plinths but directly on the gallery’s concrete floor, dispersed.
Auckland-based photography and moving image-artist Gavin Hipkins and sculptor Natalie Guy, who each contend with the early aspirations of modern architecture. Borrowing the title Le Corbusier’s early writings on repetition and order, together they unpack the famed architect’s zealous ideals for the makeup of the future city by contending with traces of his legacy.— Stephen Cleland
