Object C copy

Amanda Wright, still from Object C and Asia Gallery (below), 2009. DVD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Amanda Wright

27 July - 23 August 2009 in the Square² Gallery

Untitled (painting conservation) / Asia Gallery / Object C
2008
DVD
duration: 35 minutes, 88 seconds, looped
Courtesy of the artist

Untitled (painting conservation) / Asia Gallery / Object C speculates on our relationships to and with objects in a museological setting. Each of the three works in this compilation looks at an aspect of care specific to museum practice: the conservation of an historical painting, the display cases protecting fragile objects, and the restoration of a fragment of rock. Amanda Wright is interested in our engagement with objects in this environment, and the differences between that and the ways we relate to material objects outside of the cultural institution.

Rather than focus on display or classification, which may be seen as the core focus of the museum’s operation, these works address our tentative interactions with fragile or precious items in institutional holdings. Allowed behind the scenes of the institution, we see a different dynamic at work, contrasting with the ordered display and ‘don’t touch’ protocol we are familiar with. With care, the conservator daubs the painting for dust; gloved, her gestures both deft and cautious, she probes the cavity of a chipped rock. Her movements reflect those of the dentist or surgeon, and the rock is pillowed like an infant. By prioritising a ‘phenomenology of care over the semiotics of display’, the artist invokes objects as temporal, delicate, almost animate.

Amanda Wright (born in New Plymouth in1972) lives on Waiheke Island, where she is currently conducting research for her next film project. This will contribute to an MA in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies with the University of Auckland. The compilation shown here comes from a body of work the artist completed toward an MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, from which she graduated in 2008. Significant recent works include her 16mm film Boundary Markers, completed in 2007. Between 1998 and 2006 the artist lived and worked in Kyoto, Japan, producing a variety of moving image work including the digital film study Miyadaiku. In 1996 she was a recipient of the Screen Innovation Fund for two short films, Etak: A Sense of Place, and Nga Reo Tawhito.