What do you do with an empty pink gallery space, (Pilot, in Hamilton) courtesy of a previous exhibition, called, Hey, Cutie! There’s only one thing you can do and that’s make love in it. It cries out for such employment. And that’s what artist, Lauren Burrow did. Well, almost. By proxy. What you see when you walk into the gallery painted in three shades of gorgeous pink, is nothing. You’re simply surrounded in soft cherry reds: flushed, rosy, glowing and blushing: and then you hear, if you listen carefully, the slightly muffled voice of the artist on a recording reciting her poem, while at the same time involving herself in self-pleasure. The poem is entitled, Full Body Msg (Massage) and was recorded during the artist’s residency at the physics room, Christchurch.  It lasts for 4 minutes 30 seconds and plays on loop. Here are some of the lines randomly collated from the poem. Things are more real if you say them out loud. Slow motion water falling mirror cage. Keep on going. When I was …

This is part three of a series that investigates Simon Denny’s Secret Power, the project representing New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale. The exhibition addresses the intersection of knowledge and geography in a post-Snowden world, and is split between two sites: the Marco Polo Airport, and the Marciana Library. Venice is strange. I looked across the canal to see the newest addition to the Biennale headquarters, the Australian Pavilion. The steel clad structure loomed on the water’s edge like a dark modernist beast, and the iron ore surface left no illusions about where they’d got the money for the eleven million dollar pavilion. Amidst plenty of pomp, Cate Blanchet cut the ribbon for the venues inaugural exhibition. Accurately titled ‘Wrong Way Time’, Australia takes the prize for big money flop of the 56th Venice Biennale. Perhaps strangest of all, the New Zealand representative at Venice has a German accent. In this fairground where nationalism is the binding oil, New Zealand backed a Berliner. Good call I reckon. The strongest pavilions at Venice are those …

This is part two of a series that investigates Simon Denny’s Secret Power, the project representing New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale. The exhibition addresses the intersection of knowledge and geography in a post-Snowden world, and is split between two sites: the Marco Polo Airport, and the Marciana Library. There is a long bridge that connects Marco Polo Airport to Venice. Crossing the bridge on the airport shuttle bus, I could see the dome of Santa Maria and the tower of Saint Marco. Familiar sights, though not due to any art historical training (I got a C in 104 Renaissance Italy). Instead, I’d spent hours scaling Venetian rooftops in Assassin’s Creed II. This kind of knowledge that was once privileged, difficult to attain, can now be acquired in some surprising ways: for the price of the water-bus up the Grand Canal, I’d already scaled 16th century Venice and killed the Doge. Walking off the wharf at Saint Marco, I noticed a Simon Denny banner draped over the big marble building to my left. I’d …