LATITUDE – the Arthouse - 16 September – 4 October 2009
The word latitude - with implications for measuring, charting and describing relationships in geography, astronomy, aeronautics, photography as well as its implications in social contexts relating to manner, disposition, posture, viewpoint, or freedom from restrictions - sums up many notions in Bennett’s work.
A focus of this 2009 exhibition is the work Manipulate completed in November 2008 at the ZAIM Contemporary Art Space in Yokohama, Japan. During the period of the Arthouse show Bennett intends replacing the work Head-Space, currently outside the gallery with a new street work Orbit – eight metres in height, and extending notions of latitude further.
Latitude promises more of the unique Bennett amalgam of precise contemporary technology with hands-on experimentation and low-tech attention to detail and surface nuances. Robin Woodward’s description of T.R.I.G., How Near, How Far? offers some general insight into this show where several works are reminiscent of technologies
of land marking, surveying and navigating. They prompt immediate questions – what are these objects? Are they measuring devices? Clearly they are making a stand, stating the importance of measurement. But exactly what do they measure – physical, cultural, social dimensions? Or is it the precarious health of the globe, environmental issues, land claims, global warming? ….. Is there a suggestion that although the issues may be global, they need to be, and can be, addressed locally?
Graham Bennett’s sculpture continues to offer
an exploration not only of the spaces it occupies, traverses or creates, but also of the knowledge which pre-empts the initial enquiry and the significance of each subsequent work in relation to others. … offers the viewer endless dialogue …. and a physical expression of the human mind and energies and their relation to the wider environment. (Praxis in Practice abstract, Dr Cassandra Fusco, catalogue for NICAF Tokyo 1999)
there is no single answer to the questions he poses: but neither does he pose just a single, simple question. His work operates on a multiplicity of levels that reward close study and engagement both visually and intellectually. (from essay by Dr Robin Woodward How Near, How Far? for Koru Contemporary Art catalogue 2008, ISBN978-988-17747-2-9)
2008/9 a full-on twelve months for Bennett saw a major milestone installation in the Arthouse – PoDs – a description and an acronym - Points of Difference, Perpetuating our Divisions, Plot or Determine, Pathway or Direction, Proof of Doubt – Bennett’s list goes on. For Christine Whybrew the PoDs
are engaged as devices operating within broader systems of ritual, social relationships, demarcation or control. (Points of Difference, Christine Whybrew for the Arthouse 2008)
The year also saw the mounting of solo shows in Japan, Hong Kong, and Waiheke Island. A highlight was the construction of an installation in ZAIM Contemporary Art Space in Yokohama, Japan. This work heralded a fresh, new approach to the now familiar divisions of latitude and longitude. Suspended from the ceiling it comprised three sets of three metre long black, white, and transparent fins twisted, contorted and intertwined. Running concurrently at Galerie Paris, Yokohama was an exhibition of Bennett’s sculpture, and subsequently his small scale works were included in a show, entitled Attitude, launching garments from Donna Tulloch’s fashion label Mild Red. A successful collaboration for Dunedin’s ID fashion week had led to the invitation for Bennett and Tulloch to showcase aspects of NZ contemporary culture, timed to coincide with Yokohama’s Triennale of Contemporary Art.
Participation in numerous group shows included Conversations Across Time at Canterbury Museum, a clear statement on water conservation entitled Logic Evaporates in NG gallery, and larger outdoor works for Headland, Sculpture on the Gulf (Waiheke) and Sculpture in Central Otago (Wanaka).
