Young Contemporaries exhibition

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 32

Young Contemporaries exhibition

The Young Contemporaries exhibition, at the Canterbury Society of Arts gallery, from September 10 to 27. Reviewed by Penny Oride.

For this year’s president’s exhibition, the Canterbury Society of Arts has chosen to mount an exhibition of student work from New Zealand’s two university schools of art — Elam, at Auckland University, and Ham, Canterbury University’s School of Fine Arts. The Society of Arts provides an important venue for displaying the work of young artists, especially local graduates’ end-of-year submissions. The present exhibition manifests interesting changes in assessing student work as the selection has been entirely by panels of elected students. The C.S.A. exhibition officer chose not to divide the work into school sections but has considered the show as a whole. So when viewing the work it was an interesting exercise to identify the institution before checking the catalogue. At first it appeared that the pressure of fashion or contemporary taste had overwhelmed stylistic diversity between the schools. But at the same time certain influences and characteristics have also presented themselves, reflecting the possible effects of teaching personalities and variation in the emphasis and direction of each institution.

This was evident to a greater or lesser degree in all departments. For example, the poster and catalogue designed for the exhibition by Hamish Meikle uses the 45 deg angles and possesses the modernist rationality and clarity one has come to expect from Canterbury. The Elam prospectus designed by Anna Hanson exemplifies some freer post-mod-ern aspects in the use of colour, motifs, general

format and presentation. The Aucklanders’ work did appear more diverse — as their selectors had hoped — ranging from the quite traditional “Detail from 72 Guilford Street, Ashhurst,” by Karl Maughan, to a sophisticated painted construction,” “Untitled,” by Jan Barnes. The Auckland works showed irreverent humorous attitudes which also came through in their photography whereas the Canterbury works often appeared serious to the point of being dour. The painting of Ham students presented the customary warmed-up expressions in the rendering of certain stock figures, shapes, and even colours. They also demonstrated a deep interest in space, plane and contour. Three videos were a late offering by Canterbury students and Auckland was sadly not able to organise a contribution at short notice, of the three, Varmia Sydow’s docu-mentary-cum-homage to her father, “Carl Sydow, 1940-1975," appeared the must competent and coherent. One may well wonder, in seeking to detect theeffects of the teaching institutions on the students* art if they are being over-' taught or under-taught and how much the direction of the work is aimed at the ever-growing consumer market. It is a difficult time now for both students and teachers of art. All the old certainties and authority can no longer supply a firm set of values as the modernist demand to “ make it now" appears to be replaced by an exhaustednecessity to "appropriate” other ages’ and artists’ images. At the same time the art market is booming. Given luck and a good career , strategy this decade of emerging arfind more opportutstes to climb to stardom. -

The danger, of course, for all present students is superficiality, sickness, emptiness and some arrogance. ■ ■ But one should not dwell only on the pessimistic views of consumer developments and art market pressures. The over all impression gained by viewing the exhibition is hectic diversity and youthful vitality mixed with a certain coolness and sense of determination. It will be interesting to trace the future developments of this group of students.