tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47972641734631637572012-01-18T08:27:38.188+13:00The low-brow and the high-mindedCheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.comBlogger2991100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-329335090646261452012-01-06T10:53:00.001+13:002012-01-06T11:27:54.545+13:00

I'd meant to blog this much earlier, of course; put it down to what in the local vernacular is called "quake brain", a state of mind in which things are misplaced, forgotten, fall off the back of the desk, dry up, falter, and generally slip through your fingers. Quake brain (I loathe this and other chummy cliched coinings around Christchurch's natural disaster, but it's an accurate description,

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-71826763753212376262012-01-03T10:53:00.001+13:002012-01-03T10:55:00.624+13:00

"If Daddy did a massive fart, and you lit it with a match, then BOOM! There'd be a new sun." The small guy explains the formation of the universe. (How uncouth.)

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-522074604071499202012-01-01T11:55:00.002+13:002012-01-01T16:27:29.515+13:00

On a walk to Mona Vale last year, my three-year-old daughter made a sculpture. It was a few days after the big earthquake in June, and it was the first time we'd been out for a long walk. For a while, afterwards, you need to stay close to home. Immediately after a big earthquake, when the windows have stopped rattling and the ground is still again you hold the children close, and move around

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-66588690181690550372011-12-31T12:41:00.000+13:002011-12-31T12:41:17.020+13:00

That was 2011: my year in mobile phone pictures. (With acknowledgments to Philip Matthews, whose idea this was.) Pyne Gould Corporation Building, Cambridge Terrace, Christchurch. 13 February 2011 Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, 13 February 2011 Rose, St George's Hospital St George's Hospital, Merivale War Memorial, Elmwood School, 22 February 2011 Merivale, 22 February 2011

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-37091551350688074662011-10-15T15:23:00.001+13:002011-10-15T16:03:30.790+13:00

We're just back from a family holiday on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, which, as ever, involved plenty of sea and sand, and only as much culture as could be gleaned from the shelves of the Crocodile Hunter's Australia Zoo shop. Some characteristic cultural merch. Unfortunately I had quite a lot of work that I needed to take with me. There were several occasions during which I lay by the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-32552933318460175512011-09-30T08:33:00.000+13:002011-09-30T11:10:05.859+13:00

"Hey! Hey!" The three-year-old, in an accusing tone, pointing out of the car window. "That man has a ponytail!" The small guy, immensely weary, age seven, dragging his eyes up from his book. "Where?" "There!" "Where?" "There! The man with the ponytail!" "Oh, OK." "Why does he have a ponytail?" "Dunno." "Do you have a ponytail?" "Cretin. You know I don't." "Why does that man have a

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-8584922720886604832011-09-29T14:56:00.000+13:002011-09-29T19:30:17.633+13:00

As regular readers will know, one of the things I miss about being in the formal workplace (and consequently the subject of my occasional semi-wistful bloggery) is the swearing. I have no idea if other professional workplaces--accountants' offices, perhaps, or legal chambers--are as sweary as art galleries, whose denizens rival printers, mechanics and even various off-duty doctors of my

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-4525571793878316802011-09-23T13:13:00.000+12:002011-09-23T13:53:48.374+12:00

Tintoretto, Last Supper, oil on canvas, Venice, Italy, 1594. Via The Art Writer Over the years, I have been to a lot of art dinners. Some of these have been relaxed, stylish, enjoyable affairs: others have not. I've eaten dinner with art people after exhibition openings in cheap and cheerful Chinese restaurants where dinner is a thinly veiled excuse for terrible Karaoke performances. I've

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-6686669323369622032011-09-17T16:21:00.001+12:002011-09-17T16:21:13.111+12:00

At school recently, the small guy and his classmates had a go at writing poems in different styles, using models written by great modern poets. The small guy felt a particular affinity with the example he read by William Carlos Williams, and wrote this in homage. This is just to say I have put a rat in your bed in which you were probably going to sleep Forgive me you said you liked

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-73257292446126789922011-08-31T13:38:00.003+12:002011-08-31T14:46:44.306+12:00

"Resilience" is a word we're hearing a lot these days in Christchurch. In fact, the visionary new Central City Plan includes the words 'resilient' or 'resilience' 36 times in 154 pages. Our ruined city will be rebuilt with a foundation of resilience. The new buildings which populate it will be resilient to the violent seismic activity which we have now come to expect. Social resilience and the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-26348115403022317802011-08-30T07:23:00.001+12:002011-08-30T07:34:28.413+12:00

Over at the Herald, Sideswipe columnist and miscellanist Ana Samways has quoted a couple of Lies I Have Told My Children. 1. If you pee in the swimming pool, red dye appears in the water around you and an alarm goes off.     2. If you type in my smartphone password wrongly 10 times in a row, the phone will explode.Useful? You're welcome.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-55495077695608563862011-08-29T06:45:00.003+12:002011-08-29T06:45:00.172+12:00

Exeter Central Railway station, Devon, England. 31/07/1969. Wikimedia Commons, via Rosser1954. As the story goes, the publisher Allen Lane, returning to London from the West Country following a visit to crime writer Agatha Christie in the early 1930s, was trapped at Exeter railway station waiting for a train with nothing to read. He could buy cigarettes from a vending machine and flick

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-31033582375661576042011-07-21T15:30:00.003+12:002011-07-22T14:27:08.247+12:00

Yesterday the small guy and I paid a visit to the School of Fine Arts to see the annual sculpture exhibition, 'Heavy Pattern'. It's the eighteenth annual group show, and includes work by third and fourth year students and postgraduates. The sculpture lecturers are Neil Dawson, Rob Hood, Louise Palmer and Bronwyn Taylor. We'd come by way of PaperPlus where we were buying a birthday card for the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-34963850853614726242011-07-06T10:28:00.001+12:002011-07-06T10:57:43.389+12:00

Our three-year-old has recently become interested in titling her paintings and drawings. It's interesting watching her process of decision-making; sometimes her titles are informed by visual associations (a drawing with lots of circles might become "The rocks on Gran and Grandad's hill") and sometimes by images from stories that are currently on her mind. I like the simultaneous association/

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-27804627882188066222011-06-29T09:38:00.004+12:002011-07-03T13:42:49.045+12:00

Elmwood Park, looking toward Heaton Street, on an afternoon in June. On 13 June, when the second earthquake came, we were at the park. An hour or so earlier we'd been at home, and after the usual rush for the comparative safety of the doorway, we had sat on the couch and waited for some minutes, in that period of unnatural quiet that always falls after a large earthquake, when time seems to

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-75678283097129305142011-05-27T07:52:00.001+12:002011-05-27T07:52:00.372+12:00

Once, years ago, I was in New Plymouth for a few days, and went into an interesting-looking record shop. I flicked through the bins and inspired, asked if they had anything by Merleau-Ponty. The guy said he didn't think they did, but he'd look up the catalogue. I realised after a couple of minutes as he thumbed through the pages that I'd given him the wrong name. "Sorry, my fault, I mean Carlo

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-40358449200740759312011-05-26T16:14:00.003+12:002011-05-26T19:33:06.420+12:00

The small guy's class has been doing an economics unit at school, as a consequence of which his teacher has allowed trading with a special classroom currency, in order to teach the kids supply and demand, saving and spending, theories of pricing, and so on. The small guy was regrettably loathe to trade any of the thousands of small pieces of plastic nonsense that litter carpets all over our

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-61970204233393640832011-04-12T09:28:00.000+12:002011-04-12T09:28:02.896+12:00

Because George Lucas is not getting on with it quickly enough, the small guy has decided to write the next three episodes of Star Wars himself. He's completed Chapter VII as a project for school: this is the genre-bending Chapter VIII, featuring The Beatles having a massive fight with Justin Bieber and a pack of zombies. In describing the narrative to me, the small guy said "And then I played a

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-58449608245833518112011-03-21T10:16:00.001+13:002011-03-21T14:27:02.276+13:00

Something I really dislike is being commanded by a waiter to 'Enjoy!' whatever he or she has brought to the table. It can put me right off my food. When this happens, which it does quite often (or at least it did, prior to the earthquake, when cafes were open in the central city), I think to myself that -- actually -- I'll enjoy what's been served if it's any good, and if it's not, I won't,

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-54832693771403862472011-03-17T12:56:00.000+13:002011-03-17T12:56:27.024+13:00

He had me at "Relational aesthetics is when someone with an MFA wants to meet new people." In other videos, he discusses how Bruce Naumann saved the planet from an asteroid, and how to deal with curators.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-27474461933709114772011-03-11T12:22:00.000+13:002011-03-11T12:22:58.412+13:00

The Merivale Wolf hanging around the bins Here's a photograph the big guy took while biking to work through Merivale this morning. Clearly even before the quake Christchurch was always more than a little feral, but this is something else again.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-13167323680532772302011-03-07T12:52:00.001+13:002011-03-07T19:27:26.963+13:00

The story goes that when Winston Churchill was told by his finance minister that arts funding must be cut in favour of the war effort, he simply replied ‘then what are we fighting for?’ The story is apocryphal, but the sentiment is not, and it may be one to bear in mind as the furore over the future of cultural heritage in Christchurch grows increasingly heated in the wake of the devastating

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-72631291835113450662011-03-06T08:23:00.045+13:002011-03-06T17:12:22.234+13:00

When I was seven or eight years old, my family moved into a Georgian house in a cathedral town in the south-west of England. The house was built of rendered brick and stone. It had once been quite grand, by our standards at least; it had large sash windows, tall french doors, and a servants' wing of four small rooms which jutted into the walled back garden. My bedroom had a disused fireplace and

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-73145314397039675152011-03-01T10:42:00.002+13:002011-03-01T11:00:05.887+13:00

This time, when the earthquake came, it was just after lunch and I was at home, in the lounge with my daughter. She was watching children's TV. I was writing notes for a talk about the possible futures of public art in Christchurch. At 12.48pm, I sent a tweet. Three minutes later, at 12.51pm, the quake struck. If you have the misfortune to experience a major earthquake, and the great good

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-41696804069147395802011-02-15T06:53:00.001+13:002011-02-15T06:53:00.524+13:00

"Next Halloween I'd like to be a centaur. All I will need is the back end of a horse to attach to myself. Or maybe I could get a two-person centaur costume. I would be at the front end, because I'm better with people than Hamish is. Plus, if you were at the back end of the costume, there would be fart danger. If I was at the front then it would be me doing the farting." Image titled 'A young

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-88179682674548278882011-02-14T13:37:00.001+13:002011-02-14T13:51:14.967+13:00

A recent photo I took of the Baptist Church on the corner of Madras Street and Oxford Terrace, in the centre of Christchurch. Sited next to the central Fire Station, the Baptist Church is close to the monument to the 911 NYC fire-fighters, a large-scale public work by Graham Bennett constructed from horribly twisted steel girders from the World Trade Centre. It seems these days that half of

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-85552802543431572432011-02-11T10:26:00.000+13:002011-02-11T10:26:21.228+13:00

Sometimes I agonize for twenty minutes over writing a single sentence, wrestling with different constructions and nuances until I am heartily sick of both the job at hand and myself, and need to pop out for a coffee or a little walk. No such wafting about with the small guy, who is a man of action when it comes to writing and experiences no terror of the white page whatsoever. I admire the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-49274454654652915242011-02-02T08:47:00.001+13:002011-02-02T08:47:00.577+13:00

Ring ring! Ring ring! "Hello?"Pause. Click. "Hello! I am from the computer maintenance department." "Of what?" "The computer maintenance department for all the people in New Zealand who are online on their computers." "I am from the fuck off department."Of course I didn't say that, it would have been rude. But I should have. I wish I had. Bloody cold-calling call-centres. They are the new

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-25425420471122932762010-12-09T13:01:00.000+13:002010-12-09T13:01:16.469+13:00

"Heidegger is recorded to have laughed only once, at a picnic with Ernst Jünger in the Harz Mountains. Jünger leaned over to pick up a sauerkraut and sausage roll, and his lederhosen split with a tremendous crack."* On reading this, not for the first time it occurred to me that staying up late to watch Monty Python in the 1970s has entirely informed my worldview. *From Paul Johnson’s Humorists

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-36370075304066779492010-12-06T08:16:00.000+13:002010-12-06T08:16:38.519+13:00

Calling all Art Lovers "For the art hungry who are feeling the cold fingers of cultural starvation gnawing at their vitals, satiation is no longer a dream. Melissa Sharplin has popped up like the genie from the lamp to show the world her latest exhibition "Swit Swurl" held at Archibalds Audi showroom. Wrapped in a dress by Gillian Melhop, Melissa, looking gorgeous, almost competed with her own

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-48746730821573213782010-12-04T13:37:00.001+13:002010-12-04T13:52:53.467+13:00

Yesterday I took part in the inaugural Episto Tweet Conference on Twitter, organised by @HORansome (the admirable Matthew Dentith, academic philosopher of conspiracy theories and "one of New Zealand's top debunkers".) Here is @HORansome giving his opening address (nice suit): The rules were very strict. A paper in six tweets, one of which was to be the title, each of which must be numbered

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-20507772836169059182010-11-27T08:16:00.000+13:002010-11-27T08:16:03.708+13:00

Institute of Modern Letters, via Twitter.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-40106834171996189522010-11-22T12:22:00.001+13:002010-11-22T13:37:34.751+13:00

The small guy reviews Ron Mueck at Christchurch Art Gallery."Well, this one's showing someone who's just died. His eyes are closed and he's not breathing. You can't see his chest going up and down. You can't see why he died, but I reckon probably he was a scientist who shrunk himself in an experiment and it all went wrong. You've got to be a bit careful, doing experiments.""From the front, it

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-20516810231437622842010-11-08T20:22:00.001+13:002010-11-08T20:28:54.448+13:00

"Dancing's not working out too well, Mum. I have a doofus of a partner, named Ella, who keeps asking me if she's bossy. She's a nuisance. She IS bossy, but that's not the point. It's just tiring. Today I pretended I was asleep so I didn't have to talk to her."

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-26980656946965582602010-10-27T13:47:00.010+13:002010-10-27T21:42:50.077+13:00

I may have made a few ill-natured remarks in my time about my feelings in regards to the poetry voice, but I am, in fact, a keen—albeit a silent—reader of poetry. (Some people's poetry, that is; not everyone's; I do discriminate freely.)Consider my surprise then when a very welcome parcel stuffed with a friend's recent books and catalogues arrived, featuring this notice written prominently on the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-55640252508064147512010-10-26T20:11:00.003+13:002010-10-27T08:21:09.995+13:00

"If you are offended, then I am sorry." An excellent analysis of the Logic of the Conditional Apology, by Matthew Dentith.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-73611622490703014112010-10-22T09:56:00.001+13:002010-10-22T11:49:07.385+13:00

In my experience, holidays can be divided into two predominant types: cultural, where the object is travelling vast distances to look intently at rare and special things; and actual, where the object is to keep one's eyes closed for as long as possible while lying on the beach in the sun and pretending not to hear the children asking for drinks.Many holidays taken during my English childhood were

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-23693589552440011322010-09-25T14:05:00.007+12:002010-09-25T18:34:27.600+12:00

I came across this important document the other day: the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards' Guide to the Acceptability of Words on Television and Radio, 2010 [PDF].* It's an interesting index to the cultural changes in New Zealand society over the past decade, if you go in for that sort of thing. Or if you simply appreciate long lists of rude words published by a government body.Comparison with

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-15410627888568372382010-09-23T11:18:00.007+12:002010-09-23T15:10:07.208+12:00

The golden kakapo from Canterbury Museum, detail from an installation by Ronnie Van Hout at the Robert McDougall Gallery, 2009, from the Snare/Mahanga exhibitionWhen we moved back here nearly four years ago, I found Christchurch like a ghost town. It wasn't so much that the city was dead, but more that it was UnDead, to me at least: after fifteen years away I encountered the ghosts of my former

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-77035610596780369872010-09-12T07:57:00.001+12:002010-09-12T08:16:47.991+12:00

Some post-earthquake photographs I've taken in and around the city over the past couple of days.I took the first series through the car window, driving past the old brick Methodist church on the corner of Rugby Street and Papanui Road in Merivale on Saturday morning. The crane is lifting off the spire.Notice on the door of our favourite Christchurch cafe, C1 Espresso in High Street.The historic

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-59931801719558220402010-09-11T08:26:00.005+12:002010-09-11T21:22:44.868+12:00

I find it comparatively straightforward to write about nonsense, as will be evident to even the most cursory reader of my blog. My speciality is the art-inflected trivia that I stumble across in everyday life, which is a foil to the slightly bigger brain work that I do elsewhere. My subjects are multiple and various, and usually involve the moments of collision between two worlds—the high-minded

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-84761946670486495582010-09-03T10:00:00.004+12:002010-09-03T10:25:19.615+12:00

Image: Drinking at the Hammer Museum, with Ed Ruscha behind the bar and Tom Marioni to the far right. Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez for the LA Times.‎"The act of drinking beer with friends is the highest form of art." San Francisco artist Tom Marioni, author of a memoir entitled Beer, Art and Philosophy, has put together a series of beer-fuelled art happenings since 1970 which have taken place

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-26499931510328422972010-07-07T10:07:00.000+12:002010-07-07T10:07:08.467+12:00

In search of a quick snack, I went out to the kitchen in the half dark and cut a slice of bread. When I saw my plate in the light, I didn't really fancy it.*And in bed later, I swear I could hear the scrape of the bread knife against the carpet as the tiny evil Bread Man pulled himself up, stair by creaky stair. Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! *Unlike the time Johnny Cash, or possibly Beethoven, appeared on

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-89633176392577180982010-07-01T14:56:00.001+12:002010-07-01T16:32:30.150+12:00

There was news of an interesting cultural discovery the other day in Canterbury: the old coat of arms of the University of Canterbury, designed by the artist Bill Sutton and made in lino by Sutton and his students from the School of Fine Arts in the 1950s, has been painstakingly restored by conservator Emily Fryer after being found in a shed.The shed, on a private property in Eyrewell, was

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-80727995031794204522010-06-30T06:48:00.007+12:002010-06-30T06:48:00.724+12:00

Andy Warhol had soup for lunch every day for 20 years. His favourite home-cooked dinner was turkey and potatoes, "because it looked so simple and clean". Picasso liked ancient eggs, stilton and preserved ginger. Edward Hopper was partial to "cans of the friendly bean". Jeff Koons served his favourite food, tuna burgers, at his 50th birthday party. And while Louise Bourgeois had a lifelong

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-88678474549937865612010-06-23T11:35:00.008+12:002010-06-23T14:45:33.173+12:00

A kereru, or New Zealand pigeon, photographed on the wires in Merivale this morning. With their short wingspan and plump square bodies, kereru are the Chinooks of the bird world. I've seen them a couple of times lately in the city, and heard the startlingly Deer Hunteresque whump!whump! of their wings overhead in the park. Here's an image of kereru I came across a while ago, which might go

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-77916379083425383612010-06-22T13:55:00.006+12:002010-06-22T15:37:42.385+12:00

I've been favourably considering the proposition that only people who haven't worked in an art gallery would find Gordon Ramsay particularly rude or stressful.Likewise the Hotel Inspector. "Fuck the stupid bears! I don't give a shit about them." "It's just junk." "I loathe these burgundy napkins." Very mild indeed.I'm currently a bit obsessed with Ruth Watson's latest televisual venture, Country

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-58094349476908145402010-06-21T13:11:00.005+12:002010-06-21T14:19:12.768+12:00

The other day I found myself in the difficult situation of needing to explain to the small guy the difference between swearing and other kinds of dubious language."What about 'you dick'?" said the small guy. "Is that swearing?""Um, no, not really.""Loser?""No.""Fool? Cretin? Idiot?""No. They're not very nice, but not swearing.""Bugger?""Yes, that's a swear word.""Really? I saw it written on the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-79350150193124723792010-06-20T12:25:00.012+12:002010-06-21T10:07:10.673+12:00

Frances Hodgkins, Pleasure Garden, 1932, watercolour, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o WaiwhetuThe Pleasure Garden Incident -- as it's known to history, like the title of a novel Robert Ludlum deemed too fruity for publication -- tore a mighty rift through Christchurch's art world of the late 1940s.Following Frances Hodgkins's death in 1947, the British Council sent six of her

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-57796811355989709302010-06-09T10:29:00.001+12:002010-06-09T11:54:41.922+12:00

In New York in 1991 -- which is quite a long time ago now I think about it -- I visited the Sonnabend Gallery in SoHo. I had no idea what was on. When we got there, the walls were covered in a series of very large, slightly expressionist pencil drawings on paper. The paper was rippled, in places, and a bit crinkly, like a newspaper that's been left in a potting shed for a year or two. The

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-59222151018421165442010-05-27T10:10:00.003+12:002010-05-27T10:12:26.042+12:00

"The greatest threat to art is posed by Occupational Health and Safety regulations."-- Adam Jasper, reviewing the 4th Auckland Triennial in Frieze.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-53953250951574492202010-05-26T13:29:00.003+12:002010-05-27T10:28:44.198+12:00

Lately our house has been gripped by collection-mania. The small guy has been furiously eating his way through groaning bowls of cereal, even to the point of regularly asking for Ricies and ice-cream, a dish of his own invention, for dessert. The object of his desire is Weetbix rugby cards, for which he has conceived a rare and burning passion. His conversational starters these days include such

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-55296372929311323002010-05-12T10:05:00.006+12:002010-05-12T10:58:16.761+12:00

I was listening the other day to a podcast of architect Guy Marriage in conversation with Lucy Orbell on Radio New Zealand's 'Arts on Sunday' programme. (Available here for a short time.) They were speaking about the architecture of the Adam Gallery, an institution which last year celebrated its tenth birthday. As they walked through the gallery, Marriage spoke about why he thinks the Adam --

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-67048986069234371822010-04-01T10:58:00.004+13:002010-04-01T13:43:01.991+13:00

Some of the most memorable art experiences I've had have been off the clock and off the wall, outside art galleries. Taking a special trip to see a work of art in a distinctive setting somehow compresses and distills your experience of the work. Maybe the effort required to see it makes you pay single-minded attention to what's in front of you, unlike the way that works in art galleries have to

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-78689522447463711332010-03-31T07:09:00.006+13:002010-03-31T10:38:34.408+13:00

I've sat on a few committees in my time, and I've always been fascinated by the way they work. The first 'proper' committee I was appointed to, something or other to do with Women's Suffrage in the early 1990s, included a sole male member (so to speak) who had been put there -- or so he announced proudly -- as a punishment for repeatedly making sexist remarks in the council chamber.On the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-84026800511850270842010-03-29T13:14:00.003+13:002010-03-29T14:37:31.778+13:00

Don Peebles, Work in Progress, 1980A friend who worked as a cameraman in New York in the early 1990s had a polaroid of a vaguely familiar older man stuck to his fridge door. Yes, he said, it was Clement Greenberg; he'd just shot a documentary about modern art in which he'd been interviewed. During the shoot, when Greenberg discovered that his cameraman was a New Zealander, he asked if he knew an

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-78497022290103154272010-03-29T07:07:00.003+13:002010-03-29T09:19:56.069+13:00

Doris Lusk, Canterbury Plains from Cashmere Hills, 1952, oil on board, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Last Sunday we drove up to the Port Hills in search of the landscape Doris Lusk painted in 1952. From the city below, the hills were shrouded in low cloud. It seemed doubtful we'd see anything at all, yet alone a sixty-year-old view. I was sure I'd seen it before; I distantly remembered

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-26688634939285767842010-02-17T12:38:00.004+13:002010-02-17T12:41:35.250+13:00

The small guy and I collaborated recently on a review of the new children's exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. You can read it here.It was a lot of fun working with him, and I think we might do it again.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-39590255155556221882010-01-18T14:21:00.004+13:002010-01-18T14:28:52.414+13:00

The after-lives of famous artists, in Clarence Street, Riccarton, Christchurch.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-32724222941049045572009-12-11T12:14:00.003+13:002009-12-11T12:17:15.959+13:00

The small guy gets into the Christmas spirit with a homemade card.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-33283232259181574912009-12-08T07:11:00.004+13:002009-12-08T08:16:49.448+13:00

Lately my life has been locked in a dialectical struggle between, on the one hand, the extremely brainy books I'm attempting to digest for my university work, and on the other, the minor domestic incidents which pepper my existence like pellet holes on a West Coast road sign.Recently these have included (but are not limited to) the following:1. The hair clippers blowing up in the middle of two

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-57095678212743357832009-11-14T20:32:00.005+13:002009-11-14T20:46:44.399+13:00

Oh dear. As soon as I saw this brilliant cartoon by artist William Powhida regarding recent developments at New York's New Museum [click on text link for a big detailed version], I couldn't help but imagine what the equivalent in the New Zealand art world might look like. If anyone draws it, it had nothing to do with me, OK?Via JamesWagner.com. William Powhida's drawing appeared on the front

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-87609973111836011902009-11-13T14:06:00.003+13:002009-11-14T09:38:30.968+13:00

A gratuitous night-time self-portrait, Lartigue-style.Yesterday evening a friend and I drove into town to photograph Fiona Pardington's new illuminated billboard, installed a couple of days ago on the Worcester Street facade of the Christchurch Art Gallery. The image is Pardington's photograph of a small hand-blown glass ship, enlarged to monumental public scale. It looks strong in the daytime,

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-67194878406596352232009-11-05T08:34:00.002+13:002009-11-05T08:34:00.625+13:00

Image via Worth1000How was your day at school? I asked the small guy.Today, said the small guy, I had to break up the Fang Gang. J. stopped being our enemy, and it's only fun being in a gang when you've got an enemy and then you can have a war. When you haven't got an enemy there's not much to do. After J. stopped being our enemy we played Star Wars for a bit, and then the gang broke up at the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-25980707256123781032009-11-04T11:17:00.002+13:002009-11-04T11:30:01.865+13:00

Rita Angus, Cass, 1936, oil on board, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o WaiwhetuOn the way back from the West Coast, we took the turn-off to Cass. In the Craigieburn Ranges between Arthur's Pass and Castle Hill, Cass is about 120 kilometres from Christchurch and feels utterly remote. You take a turn-off from State Highway 73 and drive along a shingle road for nearly a kilometre

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-64526922436784639532009-11-03T13:51:00.006+13:002009-11-03T19:50:38.792+13:00

It is no secret that the West Coast and I are not friends. Our dislike of one another is entirely mutual and goes back almost thirty years. It was born out of various family holidays from which I was delighted to return; the sort of depressing minibreak on which one family member is coming down with something nasty, someone else has forgotten to pack something essential, two people are ignoring

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-21598081990215743842009-10-24T17:50:00.009+13:002009-10-24T18:40:19.590+13:00

Came across this in a second-hand shop in central Christchurch today: the kind of dismal shop filled with stacked mattresses and plastic chairs and old metal TV trolleys, advertising 'Social Welfare Quotes' on a hand-lettered poster near the door. Of course, it wasn't for sale, this sort of thing never is: which is probably just as well, as I suspect there's no house that's really quite big

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-29783983172102750042009-10-23T12:30:00.001+13:002009-10-23T14:37:33.868+13:00

Images via BitRebels Like many New Zealanders, I am a habitual champion of the underdog. I can't help myself. I'm all for the gingery Shane Cameron over the sleek racehorse Tuaminator, Dame Malvina over Dame Kiri, Ronald Hugh Morrieson over Frank Sargeson: Colin McCahon over every other international modernist master. I'm always looking for the transcendent moment of brilliance in the face of

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-23376075945525131892009-10-14T12:29:00.002+13:002009-10-14T13:00:57.737+13:00

The recent school holidays have given me a new appreciation of the sheer anthropology that is involved in being the mother of a son. This was clearly illustrated to me by a couple of playdates which the small guy had over the past fortnight. The first was with his best friend, and I overheard a conversation between them which went much like this.'Boogers? What are boogers?''They're bogies. Bogies

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-51314802984422402842009-10-13T12:44:00.009+13:002009-10-13T20:34:42.338+13:00

When graphic designers mock up a page for a client, they drop in dummy text as a placeholder to show how the published version will look. The old stand-by placeholder text is the very dull Lorem Ipsum, a Latin passage from Cicero which has been used by designers and compositors since moveable type was invented in the 15th century. ("There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-22640785268688839942009-10-08T13:07:00.007+13:002009-10-09T11:02:06.021+13:00

Some artists -- Bill Hammond, et al, Henry Darger, and so on -- are famously reticent about their work, and there's nothing wrong with that. But equally, I always admire an artist who's happy to front. Here's the latest in the small guy's epics of crime and punishment."The grumpy jellyfish is stinging the shark up the bum. Pretty much everyone’s grumpy, except the octopus, who’s happy. He’s

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-32332581452474179942009-10-05T14:08:00.003+13:002009-10-05T14:18:17.867+13:00

Penthouse: You got a lot of heat from publishers at first, didn't you? Was it your style or your content that most editors found hard to swallow?Smith: They objected to both. They said I had sick attitudes for a woman. I'd get letters, "We find your thinking and ideas and your morals very immature. Write back when you mature." I was twenty-six, for Chrissake! They were looking for the usual

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-11839593785742823642009-10-01T15:01:00.006+13:002009-10-01T22:45:16.756+13:00

Colin McCahon, I Am, 1954, image via Art New Zealand.A little while ago -- following a remarkably irritating encounter with the Christchurch City Council's booking system for children's swimming lessons which still has me gritting my teeth when I think about it; a system based, I assume, on close observation of railway ticket offices in the Indian subcontinent -- I canvassed opinion about

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-11249503374002736482009-09-23T07:04:00.000+12:002009-09-23T07:04:00.058+12:00

New Zealand Morris dancers performing the ‘black joke’ , one of their most embarrassing and idiotic moves, for patrons of the Wellington pub Britannia. Image from Te Ara. Needless to say, I will be discouraging the small guy from anything remotely resembling this sort of thing, although in truth I think it most unlikely that I'll need to.What I really don't like about Mondays, said the small guy

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-30624374477762610882009-09-22T12:54:00.007+12:002009-09-23T07:34:10.885+12:00

In 1960, American social critic Dwight MacDonald wrote 'Masscult and Midcult', an influential and excoriating essay in which he expressed his utter loathing of the middlebrow culture first derisively described by Virginia Woolf three decades earlier. As MacDonald saw it, the loathsome midcult fell well short of both the high culture with its specialisation and drive for excellence, and the low

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-65451795665437950272009-09-21T12:56:00.002+12:002009-09-21T18:43:00.685+12:00

I've come across a few good quotes recently. First this discussion of the importance of creating problems in your work, from artist Chuck Close, via Glasstire, a continually interesting site for visual art in Texas:'For me, the most interesting thing is to back yourself into your own corner where no one else's answers will fit. You will somehow have to come up with your own personal solutions to

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-11618878008371082142009-09-19T13:57:00.014+12:002009-09-21T13:38:17.363+12:00

As the Rugby World Cup draws ever closer -- and we're now able to monitor our growing excitement second by second, courtesy of the countdown clock recently unveiled in Cathedral Square by Mayor Bob Parker -- plans are afoot all over the country to spruce the place up so that our overseas visitors will see us in our best bib and tucker. Everywhere you look there are new rubbish bins, roads,

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-72332024826508906932009-09-18T10:24:00.009+12:002009-09-21T13:39:44.382+12:00

It's been a dry spell in the blogging life: while twittering like a maniac, and scribbling away offline, I've been on the blogging wagon for the past month. Last night, however, the clouds burst and the rains came, and here we are again this morning. Kia ora and hello.With season two of Mad Men now a distant memory, there is now officially nothing to watch on New Zealand TV if you're not keen on:

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-36628911986145805982009-08-19T15:52:00.004+12:002009-08-19T16:01:19.489+12:00

Louise Bourgeois, Sleep II, 1967, marble on two wooden timbers, Tate Modern'Editing is everything. Writing a first draft is akin to moving a big block of marble into a sculptor’s studio. It’s hard, and it requires some finesse, but mostly it’s just heavy lifting. It isn’t art. The art happens when the marble starts getting chipped away to find the Pieta within. And that is the role of the editor

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-47520327078591572992009-08-18T13:47:00.003+12:002009-08-18T16:50:56.734+12:00

I've written before about the way certain artists come to completely own the landscape they live and work in. I can't see photographs of Long Island, for example, without the view rearranging itself into an Edward Hopper painting: I've had Ed Ruscha moments in L.A., driving past anonymous motels and gas stations; in Christchurch in the spring and summer, there are weeks on end presided over by

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-65101987636308760812009-08-17T11:59:00.000+12:002009-08-17T12:16:31.973+12:00

A new public art work for Christchurch? Taking its lead from the salvage punk aesthetic, and channelling Tony Cragg and Bill Culbert as well as the 'evil spirit-catching' bottle trees of the American South, this installation appeared in a garden near the Elmwood shops over the weekend.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-36155559632595818452009-08-13T14:02:00.005+12:002009-08-13T14:21:01.586+12:00

The small guy has been at it again: his own version of the Captain Underpants franchise continues its theme of crime and just retribution with a recent excursion into the very topical UFOlogical genre, with the completion of Captain Underpants and the Turbo Toilet 2000 and Professor Poopy Pants and the Zombie Lunch Ladies and the Bionic Booger Boy.Once at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School George

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-50914192532897291372009-08-12T10:30:00.000+12:002009-08-12T11:21:34.247+12:00

One of the most recognisable fonts designed in New Zealand in recent years is 'Parihaka', the typeface drawn by Neil Pardington (Kai Tahu), Aaron McKirdy and George Clarke for the exhibition and book Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance at City Gallery Wellington in 2001. The typeface was used for the title of the book, as well as for indvidual chapter headings.Gifted by the designers to the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-34842271026086510742009-08-11T13:15:00.002+12:002009-08-11T13:30:35.463+12:00

Left: Elvis Presley, c.1971. Right: Colin McCahon,1961. Photographed by Bernie Hill. Courtesy of Gordon Brown © New Zealand Magazines. Via Te Papa.The latest collaboration between Auckland's Objectspace and Jonty Valentine (curator, writer, graphic designer, and academic) is an exhibition and book entitled Printing Types: New Zealand Type Design Since 1870. It's an important event, representing

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-41792862924027198992009-08-06T21:19:00.000+12:002009-08-06T21:19:34.772+12:00

Toss Woollaston, Sunset, Grey River'What a beautiful sunset!' said the small guy, who's started noticing such things, as we drove to the library this evening.'How would you describe the colours?' I asked (he's doing adjectives at school).'Greyish blue like a whale -- in fact, that cloud looks like a whale smoking a cigarette while it's eating a salmon -- and butt-cheeks pink.'

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-56578210861712378262009-08-06T12:15:00.006+12:002009-08-06T12:33:52.702+12:00

Jeff Koons, Girl with Dolphin and Monkey (The Whitney Museum of American Art 75th Anniversary Photography Portfolio), 2006, chromogenic crystal archive print.'I’m so involved in contemporary art myself that I’m much more interested in art from a different time. I have a little bit of a sense what it’s like to be alive today, to try and make work today, so contemporary art isn’t so important to

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-29597519876470148702009-08-05T07:27:00.014+12:002009-08-13T03:13:33.729+12:00

Yesterday I flew to Auckland to farewell a dear friend. I think funerals are private affairs, so I'll just confine myself to saying that the commemoration was as warm, as funny, as packed with people, as surprising and yet as straightforward as befitted the intensely well-lived life being celebrated.In moments of heightened emotion, or at times of some kind of historical import, I often find

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-13540223658665475492009-08-04T12:24:00.005+12:002009-08-04T13:25:41.641+12:00

When criticising a mutual acquaintance's art practice, an artist friend of mine once said in all seriousness: 'I always knew his work wouldn't be up to much when I called round once and saw how he'd decorated his house. No decent artist could have lived with those kitchen cupboards, let alone painted them that colour. I won't even begin to describe the lounge suite.'I've thought about this a lot

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-62484013303190259262009-07-31T11:52:00.001+12:002009-07-31T12:30:29.013+12:00

I was lucky enough to work with Julian Dashper several times over the years, and each time was an unforgettable experience. The most precise and exacting of artists in regards to the presentation of his work, he was also one of the most straightforward and delightful people I've ever worked with.Over the past day, I've been thinking back over those times. Each project was characterised by a

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-48016354444653839142009-07-30T11:34:00.006+12:002009-08-05T12:40:31.989+12:00

I learned this morning of the death of Julian Dashper with great sadness. He was not only one of New Zealand's most important artists, he was also a warm-hearted, hilariously funny, and optimistic person who quietly opened the door for so many others. The New Zealand art world will be a poorer place without Julian in it, and I expect the exact nature of his significance as an artist and a thinker

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-51645037888463746862009-07-29T19:36:00.004+12:002009-07-29T20:18:33.217+12:00

One of the issues with relational aesthetics that I've been thinking about is that its practices are frequently run like a science experiment where no data is collected. Interventions are made: a scenario is set up; an artist places an object or a gesture or an opportunity into the public milieu, and often that's sort of where it ends. Art people go to see the work; the general public might bump

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-9349104282876814132009-07-27T10:16:00.000+12:002009-07-27T10:16:55.506+12:00

The first week of the school holidays, it rained. And the baby had a cold. We were like caged lions prowling around a pen, thoroughly bored with the unchanging scene and, it must be said, with one another's company from time to time. It seemed that everything interesting the small guy thought of to do, an adult would forbid. And when an adult thought of something to do, that happened to be the

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-77538660662845967192009-07-24T12:06:00.007+12:002009-07-25T14:20:41.813+12:00

Although -- cough cough -- some of my dearest friends are poets, and I'm a fairly keen reader of poetry, I have no tolerance at all for spoken word poetry. None. My essential problem is with the poetry voice. I have found myself for various reasons (none of them to do with personal enjoyment) at many poetry readings over the years, where the poet -- who five minutes earlier may have been

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-53013439206963919082009-07-24T07:02:00.006+12:002009-07-24T07:02:00.794+12:00

No. 1 in an occasional series of accidental public artworks: Ronnie van Hout's Failed Robot sticker grinning up from the concrete floor of the Christchurch Art Gallery's underground carpark.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-50601589239299292242009-07-23T09:27:00.004+12:002009-07-23T09:41:09.982+12:00

'It's got a floor thing, and you can go on it, and it's all white. There are lines. Daddy and I pretended we were in a maze. It was a lot of fun.'The small guy on et al's installation that's obvious! that's right! that's true! which opened last night at the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-33952737229754150852009-07-22T12:44:00.004+12:002009-07-22T12:49:52.857+12:00

This morning, when proofreading an essay, I found that I'd accidentally written 'art shitorians'.I immediately thought of Freud's dictum that all errors are products of the subconscious. 'They have a meaning and can be interpreted,' he said, 'And one is justified in inferring from them the presence of restrained or repressed impulses and intentions.'Or perhaps not so repressed, in my case.

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-38492864427344393962009-07-22T11:45:00.008+12:002009-07-22T16:55:12.478+12:00

When you work with artists and collections for a while, you inevitably get to thinking about them in a certain way. This artist belongs with that one, you think to yourself; these works are part of this school; these ideas are the particularly interesting ones; and you go about your business accordingly. It's not really a bad thing: not so much a prescribed way of thinking but more like an

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-90072896442193636532009-07-15T15:01:00.003+12:002009-07-16T13:05:46.813+12:00

As I have been known to remind him from time to time, the big guy is a very lucky man indeed: and one of the ways his good luck is manifest is to be married to someone as keen on westerns as he is. Blame it if you will on all those winter afternoons in our respective childhoods stuck in front of Bonanza, The Virginian and High Chapparal, and in my case the endless John Wayne seasons on the BBC

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-54200907545060622392009-07-09T12:57:00.003+12:002009-07-09T13:31:52.391+12:00

A few of my favourite things: some quotable lines I've come across in the past few days. (Now I need to engineer the opportunity to use them.)1. Don't we all..."He gets into trouble with freestanding sculpture or easy narratives using animal life, tribal figures or women’s orifices."New Zealand's hardest-working art critic John Hurrell, on Rohan Weallans's new show 'Rogue', at Ivan Anthony.2. The

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4797264173463163757.post-23659968964262798472009-07-07T09:04:00.005+12:002009-07-10T12:29:03.458+12:00

When the old guy down the road moved out, the wreckers were there within days. The rooms he'd lived in for 45 years were reduced to matchwood within a matter of hours. In the morning the house -- nothing fancy, a rendered 1930s bungalow -- was still standing: by afternoon knock-off it was a pile of splintered plasterboard and broken timber in the middle of the section. The demolition crew left

Cheryl Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05831267597649352995noreply@blogger.com3