Artists Alex Monteith

First presented at ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland in 2017, Ka paroro o haumumu: Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions at Dunedin Public Art Gallery is an expansion on this project following her residency in Otepoti Dunedin as part of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery New Zealand Visiting Artist Programme. The exhibition, on until 29 September, presents Monteith’s new video works, alongside a real-time process of inventorying collections of midden material loaned from Southland and Otago museums, performed by collaborators Vicki Lenihan (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu), Koreana Wesley-Evans (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) and Baylee Smith (Ngāti Maniapoto). Read Alex's interview with the Otago Daily Times here, and for further information on this exhibition, see here.

Dunedin Public Art Gallery
30 The Octagon, Dunedin 9016
Open daily from 10am-5pm

Alex Monteith has a new exhibition open at ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland. Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions has been an ongoing project for Monteith for over six years revisiting a collection of material from Te Mimi o Tū Te Rakiwhānoa (Fiordland coastal and marine area) held at Southland Museum and Art Gallery Niho o Te Taniwha. Monteith has been working with local iwi to facilitate the research and reappraisal of this collection. The exhibition consists of the collection, and a video installation by Monteith Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions, In Light of Time (2017), alongside photographs by Mark Adams' from 2014. The exhibition runs until 27 October 2017. For further details about this exhibition, see here.

ST PAUL St Galleries
40 St Paul St
Auckland City
Tuesday - Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 12 - 4pm

Three of our talented artists have been selected to create sculptures for the 2017 headland Sculpture on the Gulf at Waiheke Island. David McCracken and Gregor Kregar return, and Alex Monteith (in collaboration with Michelle Lee) will make her SOTG debut. 

There were almost 250 proposals submitted, which were narrowed down by a group of experts to 34 selected artists based in New Zealand. It is always a highlight on the summer calendar, and draws large crowds. Next year it will run from 3rd February to 26 February. For further information, visit their website.

Images from top to bottom:

David McCracken, Massive Vessel, from the 2015 hSOTG

Gregor Kregar, Pavilion Structure, from the 2013 hSOTG

Alex Monteith, Red Sessions (Stent Rd Taranaki), 2009, performance and video installation

T.J. McNamara's thoughts on Alex Monteith's spectacular Shadow V showing at Lorne St until 2nd July 2016. 

"The effect of this symmetry is that as the waves surge forward, the centre drives up the sand like some strange ravening shape-shifting beast thunderously crashing in as an ungovernable, murderous force with wild spume blowing the top of it." Read the full article here.

Surface Movments is a collaborative place-based project, led by local artist Alex Monteith, that will culminate in a free surf lesson at Te Piha; Piha Beach, Tamaki Makaurau in February 2016.

Leading New Zealand artist and former surf champion Alex Monteith has a long interest in our economic and ecological relationship to specific localities.  Using the format of a free surf lesson, Monteith offers an experience of being in Piha that connects participants to local political and cultural contexts. Promoting barrier-free access to the lesson is important, and the event is open to people of all ages (over the age of 6) and all abilities. Collaboration with a number of partiesis also vital to facilitating the surf lesson. Monteith will collaborate with Piha communities connected with the ocean; particularly the surf schools of Piha, surfers with a history at Piha, local historians , including Pita Turei, Piha Surf Life Saving Club, and locals at large to create a lesson that foregrounds the various economical, ecological and cultural meanings that Piha Beach holds for mulitple groups simultaneously.

Accompanying the live, participatory performance event is an exhibition at Te Uru. Over the course of February, custom-made rash vests will be installed in a gallery space, their function latent until they are used in the surf lesson, before being re-installed again in the gallery space. Video footage from the event will later be added to the exhibition.

Surface Movements at Piha Beach and Te Uru extends projects that Alex has undertaken at Lyall Bay, Wellington, and Shark Alley, Mt Maunganui Tauranga, but is the first in her own community.

Details of the event and exhibition will be added to a Te Uru Facebook page and website page as details unfold.

Surface Movements: a live surf lesson as performance event
14 February 2016, Piha Beach

Surface Movements: an accompanying exhibition
30 January – 13 March 2016, Te Uru

Alex Monteith's single-channel moving image work Cascade Cove in the Shadow of 150,000 Bones, 2015 (13mins) has been selected for Les Rencontres Internationales in Paris, January, 2016.

Les Rencontres Internationales is a major event dedicated to the contemporary practices of the moving image, which offers a space to discover and reflect upon new cinema and contemporary art.  It draws leading figures together in the fields of cinema, contemporary and digital artists, researchers, institutional supervisors and emerging organisations.

For more information visit their website here.

This month we're pleased to announce our new partnership with Academy Cinemas. To celebrate the Academy's new Sunday Documentary Series we will be providing short clips of original artwork by gallery artists to run before each documentary. First up is a four-part series by Alex Monteith, Mechanical Foreshore. The series will feature four short works by Monteith, one to be screened before each Sunday documentary during September.

Gallery artist Alex Monteith is currently exhibiting at Tauranga Art Gallery. Big Wave Aotearoa is made up of three elements: a major video installation, a 'live action' project filmed at Mount Maunganui and an installation featuring retrospective performance material. Visit Tauranga Art Gallery before 6 April to view.

Read T.J McNamara's NZ Herald review of Temporary Mechanisms online here.