Announcing The Walters Prize 2018 finalists

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki will stage the ninth iteration of the biennial The Walters Prize exhibition from August 18, 2018. Artists are nominated for the Prize by an independent jury for an artwork first exhibited in the preceding two years that has made an outstanding contribution to contemporary art in New Zealand.

This year’s nominated artists are announced as: Ruth Buchanan for BAD VISUAL SYSTEMS, 2016, exhibited at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, October 2–December 22, 2016; Jacqueline Fraser for The Making of Mississippi Grind 2017, 2017, exhibited at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, May 20–October 15, 2017; Jess Johnson with Simon Ward for Whol Why Wurld, 2017, exhibited at Carriageworks, Sydney, March 30–June 25, 2017; Pati Solomona Tyrell, Fāgogo, 2016, exhibited at ST Paul Street Gallery, Auckland, June 8, 2017–July 21, 2017.

The 2018 jury, comprising four leading curators and critics from New Zealand commented:

“The selection represents our genuine attempt to work across multiple fronts within a continually shifting contemporary art scene – by consolidating and considering practitioners who have, within their distinctive artistic practices, made outstanding contributions to the contemporary art field. Our selection includes work that expands ideas of sex, gender and ritual; installations exploring the legacies of feminism; and work that embraces and pushes technologies of moving image and animation.”

The Walters Prize of 50,000 NZD will be awarded to one of the four nominees by a judge who is an esteemed figure in the field of curatorial or critical practice internationally. Previous Walters Prize judges are Harold Szeemann (2002), Robert Storr (2004), Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (2006), Catherine David (2008), Vicente Todolí (2010), Mami Kataoka (2012), Charles Esche (2014) and Doryun Chong (2016). The judge for the 2018 Walters Prize will be announced later this year.

Previous Walters Prize winners are artists Yvonne Todd (2002), et al. (2004), Francis Upritchard (2006), Peter Robinson (2008), Dan Arps (2010), Kate Newby (2012), Luke Willis Thompson (2014) and Shannon Te Ao (2016).

The jury for the 2018 Walters Prize are: Stephen Cleland, Curator, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi; Allan Smith, freelance curator and Senior Lecturer, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland; Lara Strongman, Senior Curator, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū; Megan Tamati-Quennell, Curator Modern & Contemporary Māori and Indigenous Art, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

The Walters Prize was inaugurated in 2002 under the joint initiative of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and founding benefactors and principal donors Erika and Robin Congreve and Dame Jenny Gibbs. From 2004, Dayle, Lady Mace became a major donor, joined by Christopher and Charlotte Swasbrook in 2014. The Prize endeavours to focus on the achievement of artistic excellence, demonstrated by a relevant work or body of work, as it is seen to impact on or exert influence over contemporary art in New Zealand.

The Walters Prize 2018 forces us to confront the strength of New Zealand art, its diversity and unique position in our global environment. In a variety of ways, the nominated works express the divergence of “popular culture” as it stands in the New Zealand locality. In these works, visual systems are unpacked from cultural and gendered positions. All artists begin with their contemporary moment, expressed through the here and now, and lead us astray through their architecture, narrative, and playful distortions of space and time.

Exhibition Curator: Natasha Conland, Curator Contemporary Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Contact: Samantha McKegg, Communications Officer, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
samantha.mckegg [​at​] aucklandartgallery.com; T +64 21 548 480