19 April 2013
Press Release
For Immediate Release
The Art of Shigeyuki Kihara: A Research Symposium – Saturday 4 May 2013
Held in conjunction with the mid-career survey exhibition Shigeyuki Kihara: Undressing the Pacific, at the Hocken Collections (20 April to 8 June), this symposium will broadly explore Kihara’s creative work, artistic development, and the critical issues that it raises from diverse disciplinary perspectives.
The symposium will feature two keynote presentations. Ron Brownson, the Senior Curator of New Zealand & Pacific Art at the Auckland Art Gallery will present “Shigeyuki Kihara and the Shadow of Photography”. Dr. Katerina Teaiwa, Convenor of Pacific Studies at Australian National University will speak on “The Art of Talanoa: Dialogue, Provocation and ‘the Space between’ in Kihara’s Work.” The remaining speakers represent a diverse range of disciplinary approaches and cultural backgrounds, including Japan, Samoa, Australia, and the United States.
The recent award of the Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award and a New Generation Award from the Arts Foundation signals Shigeyuki Kihara’s growing recognition as a significant international artist, whose dynamic career includes a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2008), with works and performances presented at, amongst others, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; Trondheim Kunstmuseum; Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art; de Young Fine Art Museum of San Francisco; Musée du Quai Branly; Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand; Asia Pacific Triennial; Auckland Triennial; and the upcoming Sakahan Quinquennial held at the National Gallery of Canada in May 2013. Kihara’s upcoming solo museum exhibition will be presented at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in August 2012.
Of Samoan and Japanese heritage, Kihara interrogates the ways that art, performance, and the public interact and prompt dialogue about understanding the complexities of humanity. Her oeuvre includes photographs, dance performance, video installations, and interactive community performances. Kihara’s work comments on issues such as colonialism, European representations of Indigenous peoples, gender, globalization, sexual minorities in the Pacific, and tourism.
This event is sponsored by the Cultures, Histories and Identities in Film, Media and Literature Research Network and hosted by the Department of History & Art History, the University of Otago, Dunedin.
List of presenters:
Session One: 9am to 11am
Julia Waite, Auckland Art Gallery – “Savage Nobility: Constructing an Urban Pacific Identity”
Daniel Michael Satele, University of Auckland – “Shigeyuki Kihara’s Anachronisms”
Bernida Webb-Binder, Cornell University (USA) – “The Alternative Modernity of Shigeyuki Kihara”
Yayoi Mashimo, Japan Lutheran College/Tokyo Union Theological Seminary – “Kihara in the Classroom: A Pedagogic Challenge to the Art History Survey Course in Japan”
Session Two: 11.30am to 12.30pm
Keynote Address: Ron Brownson, Senior Curator, New Zealand & Pacific Art, Auckland Art Gallery – “Shigeyuki Kihara and the Shadow of Photography”
Session Three: 1.30pm to 3pm
Dr. Mandy Treagus, University of Adelaide – “Shigeyuki Kihara’s Culture for Sale and the History of Pacific Cultural Performance”
Andrew Clifford, Curator, Centre for Art Research, University of Auckland – “Shigeyuki Kihara and the Performance Archives”
Dr. Jonathan Marshall, University of Otago – “Ambiguous Returns: Ghosts and Spectres in the Work of Shigeyuki Kihara”
Session Four: 3.30pm to 4.30pm
Keynote Address: Dr. Katerina Teaiwa, Pacific Studies, Australian National University; President, Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies – “The Art of Talanoa: Dialogue, Provocation and “the Space between” in Kihara’s Work”
ENDS
The Art of Shigeyuki Kihara: A Research Symposium
Saturday 4 May 2013, 9am to 4.30pm
Hutton Theatre, The Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand
This event is free of charge and is open to the general public.
