Small Worlds

source: blogtepapagovtnz

One of the highlights of the updated Collecting Contemporary exhibition is the inclusion of three important works by contemporary New Zealand artist Jim Allen (born 1922).

Artist Jim Allen with his work ‘Tribute to Hone Tuwhare’, 1969. Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa

The three works – Small worlds, Tribute to Hone Tuwhare, and Space plane, environment no. 1 – were originally made for an exhibition at the Barry Lett Gallery, Auckland, in June 1969. This gallery was a hotbed of activity at the time: host to experimental art projects, poetry readings, and much besides.

Jim Allen’s 1969 exhibition Small Worlds: 5 Environmental Structures transformed the entire space into an immersive installation. While there were discrete works in the show, the overall intention was to creating a total, multi-sensory experience. Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to walk through the works – to look, touch, listen, and read.

At the end of the 1969 exhibition, the works were dismantled and the various parts were destroyed. The exhibition has since come to assume an almost legendary status in the history of contemporary art practice in New Zealand. However, it escaped wider public recognition until Jim Allen made the decision to reconstruct the works in 2010.

The reconstructed works were shown in the exhibition Small Worlds at the commercial gallery Michael Lett (no relation to Barry), and in the Points of Contact exhibition organised by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth and the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington. In 2011, Te Papa acquired the full suite of works for its collection. Collecting Contemporary is our first opportunity to put the works on public display.
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source: collectionstepapagovtnz

A sensory experience

Artist Jim Allen was a pioneer of post-object art in New Zealand during the 1960s and 70s.
Post-object art – generally known as conceptual art outside New Zealand – focuses on art as an experience, process, or vehicle for ideas. In doing so, it breaks with the traditional aesthetic presentation of an object.

In 1969, Allen, too, was seeking a break from the past. As Head of Sculpture at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, he wanted ‘to open a way that gave permission for others to follow’. He began using non-traditional materials and making site-specific, temporary installations, sometimes incorporating elements of performance.

Allen wanted to create ‘a sensory experience’ for the audience. ‘Being ourselves part of Oceania, and enjoying a close … physical relationship with the natural environment,’ he said, ‘I think we are especially receptive to an art form that makes use of simple tactile media.’

These works are contemporary refabrications of ones that artist Jim Allen first presented in 1969. They are key examples of post-object art in New Zealand.

Allen originally designed the works for people to walk through – a challenge to the accepted understanding of sculpture at the time. By creating a ‘small world’ that could envelop the audience, he was proposing that sculptures could be environments for people to experience rather than just objects for viewing.

In Tribute to Hone Tuwhare, Allen incorporates lines from a poem by his contemporary, Hone Tuwhare (1922–2008). The poem, called ‘Thine own hands have fashioned’, echoes Allen’s desire to create a rich, sensory experience.
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source: imageandtextorgnz

Forty years after opening at Auckland’s Barry Lett Galleries in 1969, Michael Lett will present two ‘environmental structures’ from Jim Allen’s seminal exhibition, Small Worlds.

Composed of PVC, nylon filaments, paper printed with text and lit with ultraviolet light, Allen’s companion structures take the ‘potency of material as building blocks for ideas,’ channeling both the physical and poetic qualities of his material to explore the affective potential of space, form and light. Originally dubbed ‘penetrables,’ the structures that comprise Small Worlds invite interaction between viewer and work, forefronting a conception of space as fluid and changeable, charged with the dynamics of active, perceiving bodies. As Christina Barton noted of the environments of the 60s and 70s, ‘they fulfilled Allen’s new conception of sculpture as an activity rather than an object…’**

Instrumental in the development of post-object and performance-based art in Australasia, Allen’s exhibition and educational history is extensive. During his tenure as Head of Sculpture and Associate Professor at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland (1960-1976), Allen produced exhibitions such as Small Worlds at Barry Lett Galleries (1969), Arena (1970) and the three-part performance Contact at the Auckland Art Gallery (1974).

Relocating to Australia in 1976 Allen was central in the development of the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide and Founding Head of Sydney College of the Arts (1977-87). In 2000 Allen presented the video works Contact, Post Objective and Hanging by a Thread at Artspace, Auckland and in 2006 Allen re-staged his 1976 performance, Poetry For Chainsaws, at Michael Lett, Auckland, and the two-part installation O-AR at St Paul Street Gallery, AUT, Auckland.
Copies of Jim Allen: Poetry For Chainsaws & Hanging by a Thread II – a publication released on the occasion of Allen’s previous solo exhibition at the gallery – will be available during Small Worlds. The publication is a hardbound, 45 page, limited edition book featuring a major essay by Dr. Leonhard Emmerling.