Paired Topographics features a selection of Wayne Barrar’s projects from 1985 to the present, using the concept of the topographic to pair works in both classic and unconventional ways.

Barrar’s earlier work emerged out of an interest in visualising and thinking about the human-modified landscape, referencing historical topographic photography and the influential American contemporary exhibition New Topographics. While his more recent projects have engaged with nature at other levels, including via issues such as biotechnology and within the realms of science, the topographic has been an ongoing interest in his work.

Paired Topographics runs at Page Galleries (42 Victoria Street, Wellington) from 13 February to 7 March 2020.

For more info, see pagegalleries.co.nz.

Five photographs from a new project, The Crystal Darkroom, are being shown at Milford Galleries Queenstown from 11 May through 18 June 2019.

View from eroded cliff face to Palliser Bay, Wairarapa 2006 is one of the collection items discussed in New Zealand Art at Te Papa, a major new book published this month by Te Papa Press.

Edited by Mark Stocker, the book features around 270 artworks from Te Papa’s collection, with accompanying short essays by a range of writers. It’s available from bookshops, and from Te Papa’s online store.

Work from the series An Expanding Subterra is included in Strangers, an exhibition on show at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery to 26 August 2018. Curated by James Hope, the exhibition “explores feelings of eeriness and unease, focusing on the figurative as the origin of these states.”

In/Visible Landscapes – a suite of works from The Glass Archive – is part of SCAPE Public Art, Christchurch, 7 October-18 November 2017. The work includes a series of billboards in Hagley Park, and banner works and prints at Canterbury Museum.

Wayne will give an artist’s talk on The Glass Archive at 11am, Sunday 12 November, the Bird Hall, Canterbury Museum – further background available here.

Work will be included in two new group exhibitions opening later this month: Where the River Bends at the Ilam Campus Gallery, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 15 August to 7 September; and Interior Worlds at the Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 19 August to 19 November.

A review by David Eggleton of the recent exhibition The Glass Archive, Hocken Gallery (Dunedin), can be found in Art New Zealand, Winter 2017 (no. 162). The project publication was also reviewed by John Hurrell for EyeContact and appears online here. Both provide interesting and informative commentary on this project.