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PX – A Purposeless Production/A Necessary Praxis

PX – Snow Falls In The Mountains Without Wind

St Paul Street Gallery - AUT
Auckland
20 September – 12 October 2007
Genevieve Allison, Guy Benfield, James Cousins, Simon Glaister, Kerstin Gottschalk, Katharina Grosse, Simon Ingram, Imi Knoebel, Tumi Magnusson, Paul McCarthy, Judy Millar, Ben Morieson, Gerhard Richter, Nedko Solakov. Curator: Leonhard Emmerling
Sarah Hopkinson
Eyeline 66
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In his introduction to a panel discussion on painting, Thick and Thin (2003), Robert Storr speaks of painting metaphorically as ‘a big and oddly configured’ house; a ‘once grand but still liveable hotel’.1 Considering this analogy, one cannot help but imagine the first exhibition in ‘PX’, Leonhard Emmerling’s ‘A Purposeless Production/A Necessary Praxis’, as a rather rowdy tenant, spending all its time arguing in the hallways or beating down the walls, but stubbornly refusing to move out (maybe even secretly enjoying itself). On the other hand, Jan Bryant’s contribution, ‘Snow Falls In The Mountains Without Wind’, seems happy in its sprawling and ill-defined residence, perhaps throwing the odd party to celebrate it, but for the most part taking only what it needs and quietly going about its business.

Held over two months at St Paul Street Gallery, ‘PX’ was to be read as one exhibition presented in two parts with an abiding interest in creating a dialogue that would benefit both constituent shows and a wider discussion about contemporary painting. A daunting and perilous task by all accounts, considering the inexhaustible flow of debate around the medium’s status, and the growing resistance to those overbearing discourses. What eventuated where very two different shows that divided along lines of approach—both curatorial approach and approach to painting itself.

While the accompanying text to ‘A Purposeless Production/A Necessary Praxis’ heralded a return to the modernist debate about painting’s status as bourgeois commodity, as ‘purposeless production’, the show did not appear to follow this mandate and, in practice, read more as an inquest into certain relationships and attitudes contemporary painting has with/to its embattled history.

The main gallery, dimly lit and noisy, was