Curatorial Statement | Artist's Résumé


A lone figure glides (or more often stumbles!) along Wellington-based artist Maddie Leach's work The Ice Rink, skate blades cutting into the pristine white surface. The audience is crucial -The Ice Rink becomes complete only when activated by a viewer's participation.

An 18 metre long, fully functioning ice rink, Leach's work functions on several levels: as an abstract minimalist sculpture, with beautifully rendered geometric lines, as a Duchampian 'ready-made' brought into the gallery context, and as a community project, an open gift from the artist to gallery visitors. Presented in a city without a public ice rink, Leach offers visitors the chance to don skates and perform in front of other viewers. But the artist's 'gift' to her audience comes with a caveat: skaters must be prepared to only skate one person at a time, to perform for others, to become a spectacle along with the work itself. The gallery space is transformed, temporarily, from white cube to an active space for social contact and play.

Leach's accompanying DVD work The Lilac Ship continues the artist's interest in sites for public recreation, her camera following a cruise ship as it slowly drifts into Wellington harbour. Glowing through a purple haze, the massive ship appears solid and impenetrable, a sealed off playground for the rich and idle. Including the more private world of The Lilac Ship alongside the public accessibility of The Ice Rink offers a meditation on the different ways communities get together to socialise and play. Bringing into the art gallery the rules and procedures for an entirely different realm of interaction, The Ice Rink, in the words of arts writer Tina Barton, 'explores the nature of contemporary experience as it is played out in the arenas of public life.'

Built to order by Petone-based company York Refrigeration, The Ice Rink represents the culmination of four years of joint research between York and the artist. As such, The Ice Rink presents a powerful argument for the possibilities offered by active collaboration between artists and industry.

Emma Bugden

The artist would like to thank York Refrigeration and Burgess Matting & Surfacing Ltd for their support of her work in Telecom Prospect 2004. www.yorkref.com www.burgessmatting.co.nz