Thunking Room
2 page spread in LA style barometer Flaunt for chanteuse Anika Moa, that explores the edge in the angst. “One of the things you will hear throughout Thinking Room is the same melancholy moodiness that infuses…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Urban cowboy
NZ-born Keith Urban was named Best New Artist in US Country Weekly magazine’s 2003 Fan Favourite Awards. More than 65,000 US country fans voted in this year’s poll.(23)
Edge divas
Maori language musician Hinewehi Mohi features in Adventure Divas, a best selling book by US writer/editor turned intrepid documentarian Holly Morris. A few years back Morris traded in her desk job in order to scour the…
South Pacific
“A major new talent destined for greatness”. Samoan Jonathan Lemalu, continues to stun the UK music scene. As well as featuring on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, the bass baritone received the Young Artist Award…
Wai 100%: Something Old, Something New
Wai 100% nominated in Asia/Pacific and Innovator categories of the BBC’s World Music Awards. Singer Mina Ripia and producer Maaka McGregor have created a sound described as a “startlingly original combination of the ancient and the…
Edge Quake
Salmonella Dub’s epoynmous DVD reviewed in The Weekend Australian. With a large Australian following and formidable live reputation Elizabeth Coleman finds the Kaikoura dub waves don’t disappoint: “from the animated single Platectonics through to the exhilarating Push…
Home and away
The latest work by acclaimed ex-pat composer Lyell Cresswell is, appropriately enough, about exile. Shadows Without Sun, which premieres with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in mid-December, fuses the voices of a bigoted 19th century Highland preacher and…
Rhombus nices it up
Wellington-based musical collective Rhombus headline at Mullumbimby’s Mullum Music Festival in late November, having this month released their third full-length self-titled album. Initiated in 21, Rhombus presents a seamless blend of hip-hop, soul, funk, dub and bass…
Blue-eyed soul brother
Brit-based Kiwi-born Daniel Bedingfield continues his assault on the U.K pop charts with a second No.1 hit, “If You’re Not the One.” Bedingfield’s album, Gotta Get Thru This, has seen him compared to Craig David and…
Aotearoa Ark
Auckland band Goodshirt get big ups in SMH’s Metro: “irresistibly catchy, clever pop quirk that mixes up the laid-back idiosyncrasies of Pavement with classic melodic pop, new wave and retro synths. It could be too…
On the edge of Country
New Zealand country music star Kylie Harris from Edendale Southland (pop 57), Timaru, Hamilton and Rotorua broadcasts to 34 million US homes daily on leading Nashville cable program On The Edge of…
Girl From Invercargill
“Helen Henderson mines her New Zealand heritage, creating music with a unique blend of folk, rock, blues and country sounds, along with her own provocative “Down Under” attitude.” (Dec 2)
Nuns fly high in Seattle
Seattle Weekly chats with “one of New Zealand’s coolest exports” – David Kilgour of The Clean. Kilgour answers questions on a musical career which spans 20 years; from 1981’s “coughing, cursive, and practically perfect Boodle Boodle Boodle” …
Shift in Aid Delivery
“In an effort to get more value from taxpayers’ dollars, the government wants better co-ordination between development agencies in the Pacific,” Johnny Blades writes for the Guardian. “The type of aid approach…
Mammoth but fragile
Australian scientists have found that eggs from the giant flightless moa were miniscule and vastly disproportionate to the bird. Eggshells identified by DNA as belonging to the two largest, heaviest moa species, Dinornis robustus…
Ah Van Switches Sides
New Zealand Warriors utility Aucklander Patrick Ah Van, 22, has signed a one-year contract with West Yorkshire rugby league team Bradford Bulls. Of Ah Van’s switch, Warriors chief executive Wayne Scurrah told the club…
International Expertise
Palmerston North midfielder Nick Roydhouse, 22, who transferred from Hartwick College to play football for Syracuse University in New York, is profiled by local publication The Daily Orange. In 27, Roydhouse was part of…
Art Attack in Basel
Influential art journal Art Forum notes a first time edge presence at the Liste 01 Young Art Fair in Basel. Wellington’s Hamish Mckay Gallery showcased artists including Ricky Swallow, Michael Harrison, Ronnie van Hout and…
“Freewheeling, irrepressibility & incoherence.”
Pioneer of postmodernist NZ art, Richard Killeen, featured in Art Asia Pacific. Killeen’s recent works revisit the “cut-out” form with which made his name in the late 70’s. Deceptively simple in appearance, the works…
4WD Bellissima!
Contemporary artist Michael Stevenson is representing NZ at the 50th Venice Biennale 2003 – the oldest and most prestigious art event in the world. Described by the NZ Selection Committee as “a passionate archivist of our culture,”…
Modernism revisited
NZ born Northern Territories (Australia) based artist Peter Adsett recently exhibited at the Grant Pirrie gallery in Redfern, Sydney. Adsett describes his More Rot series as a purely abstract visual representation of cross cultural debate: “In this…
Barr & Barr
Wellington curators and strategists Jim Barr and Mary Barr head the survey by London art magazine Contemporary of 21 international collectors. An essay by William McAloon features work by Ronnie Van Hout, et al, Michael Parekowhai, Michael…
Readymade mule at Basel
Et al.’s exhibition ‘altruistic studies’ – a “non-peopled, computer-generated performance” – installed at the Basel art fair in early June, their fourth at the international show, has once again sparked curiosity about the group’s identity. Et. al…
Gift giving with film
Auckland-born artist Sriwhana Spong, 29, celebrates her Balinese heritage in “distinctively grainy ‘amateur'” Super 8 films like 2005’s Muttnik and its sequel Nightfall, works which have been exhibited throughout the world. Interviewed in Art World Spong explains…
Illuminating the Canal
Artists Francis Upritchard and Judy Millar’s installation spaces at this year’s La Biennale di Venezia “reflect Birnbaum’s theme of Making Worlds with intense microcosms, one in an intimate former residence, the other in a place of worship,”…
Millar in colour
Painter Judy Millar explains her international reputation over her local to Art World: “I’m in the curious position that no one really gets what I’m doing, and they never did.” In the early 2000s, Millar’s relentlessly colourful…
“Crazy guy” gets his dues
Kinetic artist and New Zealander Len Lye, who “waltzed through several art movements, genres and countries” and who is becoming widely recognised as a major contributor to the story of 20th Century art, is bio-ed by…
Yuk Yum
NZ artist Denise Kum to take up residency at Adelaide’s Experimental Art Foundation, bringing in her plastic shopping carry-bags her unique brand of toxic materialism, mixed media and cultures – popping a pin in the speech…
Shopping with Billy Apple
Ground-breaking NZ artist Billy Apple featured in The Tate Liverpool’s Shopping exhibition. Apple’s work appeared alongside Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray and Andy Warhol in a retrospective of “a century of art and consumer culture.” Apple’s 1964…
When, Will I, Will I be Famous
SMH art critic Peter Hill muses on art, fame and celebrity, praising the playful personas of NZ artist Patrick Pound. He compares Pound to English YBA chief Damien Hirst: “For a decade he has been working…
Taranaki to Toronto
Gregory Burke has been appointed to the position of Director, The Power Plant Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre Toronto commencing September 2005. A native New Zealander, Gregory Burke is currently Director of the Govett-Brewster…
Top Shots
The photographer who captured Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Mt Everest hosts a retrospective at Lab X in Melbourne. Alfred Gregory documented Hillary and Tenzing’s feat in a series of images that became recognised…
Exploration of light
NZ art luminary Bill Culbert staged his second solo exhibition “Black and Light” at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Soundan Lane, Sydney. “In this exhibition, Culbert uses the three-dimensional form of fluorescent lights and flat, matt-black lines…
Readymade mule at Basel
Et al.’s exhibition ‘altruistic studies’ – a “non-peopled, computer-generated performance” – installed at the Basel art fair in early June, their fourth at the international show, has once again sparked curiosity about the group’s identity. Et. al…
Ideas of transformation
Upper Hutt-born painter Shane Cotton recently held a three-month residence at Sydney’s Artspace where he prepared works for upcoming 2008/09 shows at Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland and Kaliman Gallery in Sydney. Art World’s Laura Murray talked…
Censored views
The work of New Zealand photographer and artist Bruce Connew features on the cover of the latest issue of UK literary magazine Granta (#105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009). Censored 2008 is a photographic artwork that…
Up-and-coming Upritchard
Artist to watch Francis Upritchard features in the 48th issue of Object magazine. “An exciting talent … Upritchard’s art locates value in the personal and the imperfect … finds a way of accommodating beauty, rendering…
Mad for glamour geeks
Auckland artist Peter Stichbury’s acrylic portraits of stereotyped “yearbook” characters feature in the latest Art World magazine, with his 2000 work ‘Juvenile’ taking the cover. “Stichbury is highly regarded for creating stylish, satirical portraits of his own…
Gimblett at the Guggenheim
New York/Auckland artist Max Gimblett features in the latest issue of Art World, in an article by collaborator John Yau about the influence of Asia on the artist’s work. Gimblett, who has long had a…
Possibilities in names
Porirua-born artist Michael Parekowhai’s latest sculpture will soon be unveiled at Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Art World eports. “The sculpture is a groups of ten boys dressed up as American Indians, each of whom contemplate the viewer with…
Digging a little deeper
The work of Auckland-based digital and multimedia artist Lisa Reihana is deconstructed in the winter 2009 issue of Art & Australia by feature writer Jon Bywater. Titled ‘Mana and Glamour’, the article looks beyond well-catalogued ideas that…
All Things Wild and Innocent
One of our most internationally prominent artists, NYNZer Max Gimblett exhibited at San Francisco’s Haines Gallery in April. The 30 year New York resident’s refined and harmonious canvases are created utilizing a process akin to alchemy….
Crunching genetics
Roger Hellens from New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research has identified the genetic code for Golden Delicious apples meaning growers will be able to produce crunchier, juicier and healthier fruits. Hellens said: “We will…
Constitution Conundrum
Former Labour deputy Prime Minister Dr Michael Cullen is calling for an end to the British monarchy. This month Cullen, who stepped down from Parliament when Labour lost power in 28, will deliver a…
Urban shark attack
New Zealand filmmakers Andrew Todd and Johnny Hall are making a horror film inspired by a road trip which took them through the town of Oamaru. They describe the moment: “We passed through…
Mudgway then Melbourne
Cambridge jockey James McDonald, 18, has became the first apprentice to win a Mudgway Stakes with Keep The Peace winning in the group one feature at Hastings. It was the third group one win…
Clement’s Double Life
“One of the reasons I went into comedy and acting was that I was sick of being shy,” Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement tells the Guardian’s Killian Fox. “I guess I have…
Catwalk curves
Designer Caroline Marr’s label The Carpenter’s Daughter returns to New Zealand Fashion week this year showcasing her Winter 21 collection for women with curves. Specialising in “Clothing for Curvy Girls”, producing 1 per cent…
Gore filled retribution
A supernatural horror film made by New Zealand director David Blyth made its European premiere at this year’s Fright Fest in London. “A controversial cult film in the making, Wound, explores the wicked…
Guardian Wins Red Dot
For the second year running, Massey University honours graduate and designer Annabel Goslin, 22, has won a prestigious Red Dot Design Award for her sports face protector. Last year Goslin entered an all-purpose sports…
Rugby and Much More
The arrival of a 25 metre-long New Zealand rugby ball on Circular Quay “within cooee of the Sydney Opera House” marks one year until the 211 Rugby World Cup kicks off. As a conspicuous…
Claim to Fame
On a barista training course at Auckland’s Allpress Espresso, the Guardian’s Chris Mugan learns the flat white-making mantra: “stretch, whirlpool, surf” in the city that claims the iconic drink as their invention. “The brew…
World-class Dining
“Auckland’s subtropical climate, Polynesian culture, unpolluted waters and cosmopolitan buzz have combined to create a world-class dining scene,” according to the Guardian’s food writer Kevin Gould. Gould is particularly taken with Peter Gordon’s “two,…
Book award winner
Auckland historian Dame Judith Binney’s Encircled Lands has been awarded the New Zealand Post Book of the Year. Encircled Lands explores the history of the Tuhoe people’s journey for autonomy. Dame Binney received $15,…
Speed Queen on Salt
Christchurch-born Miriam MacMillan is the third New Zealander and first New Zealand woman to earn a “2 MPH hat”, which she claimed driving a 2.1 litre Honda CRX at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah,…
Ride of Your Life
Heli-biking in Queenstown is “an exhilarating experience and a must for anyone visiting” the southern city, recommends the Telegraph’s Tarquin Cooper. “Visit New Zealand for rest, relaxation and rugby; unless, you’re a die-hard who…
