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City Gallery
30 May - 22 Aug 2004 |
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Curatorial
Statement | Artist's
Résumé
Ronnie van Hout is seriously funny. Mercurial, provocative
and hilarious, the scenarios he plays out for his audience
are always shifting, preoccupied with ideas of the self
and the artist's identity. 'I'm In' announces one work
from 1998, yet, in the same breath, announces 'I'm not
in'. The cacophony of voices which inhabit a Ronnie
van Hout work are diverse, but somehow together the
effect is perversely cohesive. Van Hout developed his
interactive artwork On The Run while he was living
in Wellington as the recipient of the Rita Angus Fellowship,
a partnership between the Thorndon Trust, Massey University
and City Gallery Wellington.
The audience is invited to enter and walk through the
artwork, a shack built in the gallery. The shack is
actually a jail and, in a dazzling Houdini-like feat,
the artist has escaped his prison cell, leaving nothing
but a model of himself, set up to fool the complacent
prison warden. Out of a window we see a pristine New
Zealand landscape, into which the artist has presumably
disappeared. We see the warden in his office, peering
at a monitor, seemingly oblivious to his prisoner's
reckless journey.
Using technology provided by Telecom's Advanced Solutions
team, audiences and van Hout himself can text or email
messages to the prison warden, which appear on the computer
screen. 'I was attracted to the idea', says van Hout,
'that it would be possible for me to interact with the
work when I was away from the gallery, increasing the
image of the escaped artist, somewhere in the world,
on the run.' By sending messages on van Hout's behalf,
gallery visitors can assume the role of the artist,
momentarily taking the starring role in an ever-changing
performance. Present, yet not present, the artist's
escape can be charted through these posted messages,
a gleeful reminder of the warden's failure to contain
him.
Emma Bugden
The artist wishes to thank Francis van Hout and Gerard
Brown.
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