"TIFFANY'S KYOTO A MAJOR JIM SPEERS PROJECT"
2000-07-28 until 2000-08-31
ARTSPACE, Auckland
Auckland, , NZ New Zealand (Aotearoa)

In August Artspace will be presenting a new Jim Speers art installation, Tiffany's Kyoto (opens Friday 28 July). Speers says, It's a fantasy exterior/interior, a place you imagine yourself being - your personality extended by taste in every direction, from the surfaces you touch to the air that you breathe. Speers' glass partitions, mirror wall, fairy lit trees, plywood origami sculpture, his sea of pristine white oil barrels and Western soundtrack offer a distilled atmosphere. The title suggests the mandarin Tiffany's shop window displays of Gene Moore relayed through Asian affluence; or, as critic Stella Brennan has it, in a recent article on, the glamour of international winter, the winter they dress for on catwalks.

A few years back Speers explained nothing by describing his works as neither ordinary objects passing themselves off as art, nor works of art passing themselves off as everyday things. Since then he has cemented his position as a key figure in New Zealand art with numerous solo and group shows in dealer galleries and public museums. His lightboxes stole the show in Signs of the Times, Wellington's City Gallery 1997 new artists' exhibition, he represented New Zealand in the 1998 Sydney Biennale. In 1998 he also was Olivia Spencer Bower Fellow, and is currently Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago. Jim Speers is on a roll.

Artspace director Robert Leonard sums up the peculiar appeal of Speers' work: Speers' work is hard to explain, and it's really about that. The works remind you of all these things, things you can't quite put your finger on. It's about putting you in that frame of mind, like just before you remember the name of the actress in that film by so and so. He likes to trap you in that moment before you name it and nail it.

Tiffany's Kyoto has been supported by Sauvarins, Mico Metals, Timpan City, Treescape and Ullrich Aluminium.

Related Links:

Jim Speers at The G@llery, Sept 1998.

Indepth Arts Resources for New Zealand

Other Important Exhibitions in New Zealand