Auckland artist James McCarthy produces a site specific work using sound-based performance for the latest contribution to Te Tuhi’s drawing wall. For over a decade he has been active in influential performative collectives such as From Scratch during the early 1990’s, and his own group Rotaction in which McCarthy custom built instruments for each of the members. His wall drawings continue to appropriate materials with certain acoustic qualities—such as steel and piano wire—to respond to the sonic qualities of space while extending a material and visual engagement with architecture.
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Curator Charlotte Huddleston has written: “this series of works represent a shifting of space and temporality for McCarthy into site responsive and specific instruments inhabiting a space bounded by ephemeral performative action and artefact. McCarthy’s activation of the drawings is informed by his long association with minimalist and serial music forms combined with his skills of improvisation and as a percussionist. Using location as a base McCarthy deftly and lyrically relays the physical relationship of sound and materials through serial improvisation.”
McCarthy will perform his drawing at the opening preview and the work will be viewable for the duration of the exhibition.