This current exhibition at Corban Estate Arts Centre in Waitakere City, Aotearoa features contributions from various DIG alumni. One room of the exhibition is given over to Mark Whyte and the his gravitas defying 'Graviton Gravy' Show. An amazing installation of 70 individual works made from paint flakes that defies easy categorisation and at once speaks of the diverse and the generic nature of community and humanity.
(Images copyright Mark Whyte 2006)
The Art of Assemblage also features a tribute to Master Assemblagist and DIG contributor Peter Sauerbier who is sadly recently deceased and features the work of 2 other DIG acolytes The Reverend and Andrew Hall.
(Artwork copyright - The Reverend 2006)
Peter Sauerbier (Statement about Peter to accompany exhibition by The Reverend)
I first came to meet Peter Sauerbier through my wife. I was excited to hear of an amazing old Dutch assemblage artist and hoped to meet him. I did meet him and over the course of several years was lucky to get to know him better. Through him I also discovered a secret cabal of West Auckland assemblagists, each decidedly individual but all with a common love of the unloved!
I could write about the endless wonder and joy of Peters work, his innate craftsmanship, and inventiveness but you would already know of that and know how hard it is to describe so I wont.
I remember regular visits to the house for official and unofficial reasons. We would drink tea, eat Spekulaas (Dutch biscuits) and have wonderful rambling, fascinating esoteric talks. I would use the opportunity to drop in Dutch words (I lived in Holland for a year) where appropriate, which always seemed to tickle him.
I would look around his cornucopia of a house and every time would see something new that he had made.
Always in awe of his art, I was nervous asking him to contribute something to a humble zine I was producing with a friend. He contributed 2 exquisite, accomplished and funky drawings generously and without condescension. These drawings were rendered on the toilet using a specially adapted table so as not to waste precious creative time! They were the 2 most popular pieces without a doubt and with all ages and tastes. Real genius always shines through.
It was my pleasure to be able to exhibit some of his work whilst working at WCC , bending ears passionately to get a piece bought for the city collection. Here at CEAC I was privileged to be able to do the poster for the exhibition and speak at the opening. I am regretful that I could not ever get the idea of a book off the starting line but still hope that some sort of chronicle of the life and work of this extra-ordinary man will come to fruition.
I said at the opening of the retrospective, that one of the most precious things about Peter was that he was a custodian and celebrant of quality. He belonged to a time and had a great understanding of quality, quality of materials, quality of design and quality of craftsmanship. This ‘quality’ Peter fossicked, saved, conserved, restored and recreated with even greater quality of invention and production. In the disposable age, this quality has gone and so has one of its guardians.
To me Peter was never old; he always shone with a vitality and spark that few could match. He was as interested in the future as the past and was as creative if not more at 70 than most of us could be in our prime.
Peter it was always a privilege and a joy to know you and the quality and delight of the memory, like that of a Victorian light-switch, will never fade.
I first came to meet Peter Sauerbier through my wife. I was excited to hear of an amazing old Dutch assemblage artist and hoped to meet him. I did meet him and over the course of several years was lucky to get to know him better. Through him I also discovered a secret cabal of West Auckland assemblagists, each decidedly individual but all with a common love of the unloved!
I could write about the endless wonder and joy of Peters work, his innate craftsmanship, and inventiveness but you would already know of that and know how hard it is to describe so I wont.
I remember regular visits to the house for official and unofficial reasons. We would drink tea, eat Spekulaas (Dutch biscuits) and have wonderful rambling, fascinating esoteric talks. I would use the opportunity to drop in Dutch words (I lived in Holland for a year) where appropriate, which always seemed to tickle him.
I would look around his cornucopia of a house and every time would see something new that he had made.
Always in awe of his art, I was nervous asking him to contribute something to a humble zine I was producing with a friend. He contributed 2 exquisite, accomplished and funky drawings generously and without condescension. These drawings were rendered on the toilet using a specially adapted table so as not to waste precious creative time! They were the 2 most popular pieces without a doubt and with all ages and tastes. Real genius always shines through.
It was my pleasure to be able to exhibit some of his work whilst working at WCC , bending ears passionately to get a piece bought for the city collection. Here at CEAC I was privileged to be able to do the poster for the exhibition and speak at the opening. I am regretful that I could not ever get the idea of a book off the starting line but still hope that some sort of chronicle of the life and work of this extra-ordinary man will come to fruition.
I said at the opening of the retrospective, that one of the most precious things about Peter was that he was a custodian and celebrant of quality. He belonged to a time and had a great understanding of quality, quality of materials, quality of design and quality of craftsmanship. This ‘quality’ Peter fossicked, saved, conserved, restored and recreated with even greater quality of invention and production. In the disposable age, this quality has gone and so has one of its guardians.To me Peter was never old; he always shone with a vitality and spark that few could match. He was as interested in the future as the past and was as creative if not more at 70 than most of us could be in our prime.
Peter it was always a privilege and a joy to know you and the quality and delight of the memory, like that of a Victorian light-switch, will never fade.
Peter Sauerbier - Rust In Peace
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