Saturday, 26 June 2010
Lauren Lysaght - The Nita Gini Collection
The Nita Gini Collection: Lauren Lysaght
26 June - 15 August 2010 in the Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery Wellington
Lauren Lysaght presents a unique gathering of 'Crown Lynn' objects,
drawing on her grandmother Nita Gini's collection. These objects
are all constructed by the artist using cardboard, plaster of Paris
and an array of other craft and found materials. Lysaght has also
created the plinths and display furniture for the exhibition, using
bizarre and highly theatrical materials including fake leopard-skin
fabric, wood veneer and found items.
Veering dramatically from the formality with which
collections are often presented, The Nita Gini
Collection represents a singular and idiosyncratic
response to the Crown Lynn story familiar to many New Zealanders.
The exhibition adopts a brassy, mischievous and indomitably
homemade aesthetic to consider objects we often call 'precious', in
a new and extremely colourful light.
Gregory O'Brien writes in response to this body of work, 'An artist
pathologically interested in unpromising and unlikely materials,
Lauren Lysaght is in fine iconoclastic form…' Larger-than-life,
this work continues a story where the objects have become almost
characters in their own right. The Crown Lynn narrative is far from
complete, in the Nita Gini Collection it
continues, irreverent and exultant.
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