Artist Michael Parekowhai is representing New Zealand at the Venice Art Biennale, which opens on June 4, and bloggers Jim and Mary Barr are there watching Michael's grand installation be unloaded, a process involving cranes and barges and lots of potential complication (but no actual major hiccups so far). You can follow the action on Jim and Mary's blog at the link here. The image below is from their blog, showing one of the crates containing Michael's work being unloaded.
Some of you might remember that we featured some photographs of Michael's installation, On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer, in our April May 2011 issue.
We were lucky enough to see the works - a heavily carved grand piano, and two bronze replica pianos with giant bulls atop them - at a warehouse in west Auckland before they were packed up to be shipped to Venice. It was an amazing event - the carved piano was being played while the bronze bulls stood guard nearby, and there was something in the air that caused quite a few people to weep. In a nice way.
The photographs of the works below are by Jennifer French, courtesy of Michael Lett. The Venice Biennale is on until October 25, a fantastic excuse to visit that spectacular city (as if an excuse was needed).
