Feature: Auckland Art Gallery

I have promised you a chance to follow me on my journey here in New Zealand through weekly updates on this blog. But sometimes I become so enthusiastic about a subject that it just doesn't fit into the weekly format. The feature posts give me a chance to tell delve on such subjects without making it a necessary read for those who just want to follow my progress here.

Today, I'd like to tell you about the Auckland Art Gallery. It's located right next to my hostel in the beautiful Albert Park. Entrance is free, but you pay to view special exhibitions. Currently they are presenting the special exhibition "Light Show", which was previously exposed in the Hayward Gallery, London. You are not allowed to take photos inside the exhibition so only the first two images of this post are my own.

LEGO skyline

As you walk up to the museum, you start to notice that the white skyline behind the glass facade is not a silhouette picture printed on the glass. It is in fact real LEGO buildings of impressive stature. As a Dane I felt good that Danish LEGO bricks were used for art so far from home. Up close I was even more impressed. A favorite artist of mine, Olafur Eliasson, had designed the piece by simply giving the visitors the freedom to whatever they wanted with a massive amount of white LEGO bricks. The endless possibilities just happened to turn into a skyline, which up close had all the marvelous details that a creative mind can make. The piece was extremely popular visitors were constantly building new and ever more impressive projects.

LEGO Skyline from outside

Lots of families building their contribution

Light Show

The special exhibition starts off slow on the ground floor. The first piece is best described as a dangling, but static star made of curved light tubes. I liked how the lines suggested movement, but don't think the use of light was essential to the sculpture. In the room was also two minor works of different artists, but neither of them impressed. Walking onwards you are led past a luminous staircase suggesting heavenly ascent into a room with a massive installation. Three large columns made of an small, old, yellowish light tubes stood majestically in the middle of the large otherwise completely dark room. The warmth from the light tubes slowly fluctuated as the strength of the light slowly shifted. The three pillars had different frequencies, but all of them slow enough to suggest the slow breathing of a massive otherworldly being. The room is large enough for you to walk around the sculpture on all sides, but I was immediately drawn to the center. Standing there I could feel the pulsing heat and light from all three of the columns. When the moment arrived where all three were dark at the same time, I momentarily felt a chill from the absence of the being, which was shielding me in warm light.

The Auckland version of this sculpture has three identical columns

The Second floor

On the second floor the exhibition continued with an impressive opening piece. Cylinder II is much wider than the pillars on the floor below and it is made entirely of modern LED lights on thin iron bars. Two rings of bars surround the inner column and each bar hosts countless small LED lights. Software controls the thousands of lights with a combination of randomness and inspiration from nature. The show it produces is what makes the work special. It alternates between a wide range of expressions from organic shapes resembling burning fire to falling lights that could resemble meteor showers. When it goes dark it builds expectation and when it sparkles light everywhere it makes you feel light headed with relief. The ability of the software to control the lights and create such emotions is what made it my favorite piece of the exhibition.

Cylinder II resembles a centralized being at this moment

The next rooms had some mediocre pieces, but I was delighted when I found the contribution of Olafur Eliasson, "A Timeless Garden". It utilizes strobe light to seemingly freeze time in a room filled with small fountains. To experience it properly you have to view each fountain individually and let your eyes capture the pictures of water frozen in mid-air often in spectacular shapes. The illusion of water frozen in time is so strong that the scene becomes pristine and unlike any garden fountain.

These are a few of the fountains in "a timeless garden"

Before leaving I stood in line to watch a piece by James Turell only to discover that I had seen it before. It is in one of the "nine rooms" of Aros, the contemporary art gallery of my home town and it still failed to impress me. The guide tried to help us visitors perceive the depth of the red lighted room. It tricks your eyes by constructing a wall using only light. In fact people do sometimes see the installation and believe it to be a completely flat painting. You can put your hand in there to dispel that illusion, but you can't touch the second "wall", so most people just assume it is there.

Leo Villareal with people wondering what they are looking at

Much more to see

The rest of the museum offers much more art for the interested. After a short break I continued to see some drawings by Goya and a permanent contemporary art exhibition. But I was already filled up with impressions, so I didn't get as much from those. Aside from that there are exhibitions on classic sculptures, native art and international 20th century art.