Robert Leonard | |
|---|---|
 Robert Leonard setting up the exhibition 'Yvonne Todd: Creamy Psychology', 2014 | |
| Born | 1963 |
| Occupation | Art curator, writer and publisher |
| Notable awards | 2002 J.D. Stout Research Fellow at the Victoria University of Wellington. |
| Website | |
| robertleonard | |
Robert Leonard (born 1963) is a New Zealand art curator, writer, and publisher.
Robert Leonard began his curatorial career at the National Art Gallery (now Te Papa Tongarewa) in Wellington. In 1985 he was the first Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council/National Art Gallery curatorial intern scheme trainee and the next year he was appointed as the National Art Gallery's first Curator of Contemporary Art. In 1991 he was appointed as the first curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, [1] and three years later moved to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery as a curator under director John McCormack. In 1997 he became the Director of Artspace in Auckland. [2] At the end of his three-year term Leonard was awarded the year-long John David Stout Fellowship in New Zealand Studies, [3] which he completed in Wellington before returning to Auckland in 2003 as a curator at the Auckland Art Gallery. [4]
Leonard left New Zealand in 2005 to become Director of the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) [5] in Brisbane, Australia, where he remained for the next eight years. In 2014 he returned to New Zealand as Chief Curator at City Gallery in Wellington. [6] A controversial restructuring of City Gallery in 2021 disestablished this role [7] and he spent the following year on projects including an advisory role with Webb's Auctions, and editing the magazine Art News New Zealand . [8] He returned to Brisbane to take up the directorship of the IMA in Brisbane for a second term in 2023. [9]
Early in his career Leonard curated one of the most influential exhibitions mounted by the National Art Gallery (now Te Papa Tongarewa), [10] Headlands: Thinking Through New Zealand Art . Commissioned by the MCA in Sydney, [11] Headlands sparked discussions around Internationalism around who or what should represent New Zealand art and cultural appropriation focusing on the koru series of paintings the artist Gordon Walters started with the work Te Whiti. As academic Conal McCarthy put it, “Headlands is an exhibition that everybody has an opinion about.” [12]
Leonard curated other overseas exhibitions of New Zealand artists, including New Zealand's representation at the 2002 Venice Biennale, Michael Stevenson: This Is the Trekka, [13] and Simon Denny: Secret Power in 2013. [14] Leonard also curated Gavin Hipkins: The Colony for the 2002 São Paulo Biennial [15] and the New Zealand presence at the Asia Pacific Triennial in 1999. [16]
Other exhibitions curated by Leonard include:
Leonard is a writer and commentator on contemporary art. [30] In 2002 he was J.D. Stout Research Fellow at the Victoria University of Wellington. His published work includes:
Leonard has worked with a number of art publications including Midwest (co-edited from 1992 to 1996), [38] the Reading Room Journal (co-edited in 2007), [39] the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art (managing editor from 2007 to 2013, [40] and Art News (editor from 2021 to 2022). He was also a member of the editorial Board of Art and Text from 1994 to 1999, [41] and has edited a number of books including The Critic's Part: Wystan Curnow Art Writings 1971-2013 (2014, with Christina Barton and Thomasin Sleigh). [21] and Creamy Psychology / Yvonne Todd. [26]
In 2020 Leonard established the publishing imprint Bouncy Castle. Its first publication was The Homely II, [42] a photographic project by Gavin Hipkins co-published with City Gallery Wellington. It won a Best Award for 2021. [43] In 2023 Bouncy Castle co-published Giovanni Intra Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994-2002 [44] with the American publisher Semiotext(e). [45]
Leonard Charles Huia Lye was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. He is best remembered for his 1933 short film "experimental Animation 1933," better known as "The Peanut Vendor."
Andrew Drummond is a New Zealand painter and sculptor. He attended University of Waterloo in Canada, graduating in 1976. He was a Frances Hodgkins Fellow in 1980.
Billy Apple was a New Zealand artist whose work is associated with the London, Auckland and New York schools of pop art in the 1960s and NY's Conceptual Art movement in the 1970s. He worked alongside artists like Andy Warhol and David Hockney before opening the second of the seven New York Not-for-Profit spaces in 1969. His work is held in the permanent collections of Tate Britain, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Chrysler Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, National Gallery of Australia, Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, the Christchurch Art Gallery, the University of Auckland, and the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Belgium.
Michael Te Rakato Parekōwhai is a New Zealand sculptor and a professor at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. He is of Ngāriki Rotoawe and Ngāti Whakarongo descent and his mother is Pākehā.
The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art.
Wystan Tremayne Le Cren Curnow is a New Zealand art critic, poet, academic, arts administrator, and independent curator. He is the son of Elizabeth Curnow, a painter and printmaker, and poet Allen Curnow.
Lisa Marie Reihana is a New Zealand artist. Her video work, In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] (2015), which examines early encounters between Polynesians and European explorers, was featured at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
Christina Joy Barton, known as Tina Barton, is a New Zealand art historian, curator, art writer and editor. She was director of the Adam Art Gallery between 2007 and 2023.
Gavin John Hipkins is a New Zealand photographer and film-maker, and Associate Professor at Elam School of Fine Arts, at the University of Auckland.
Ann Shelton is a New Zealand photographer and academic.
Giovanni Intra was an artist, writer, and art dealer who moved from his native New Zealand to the United States in 1996.
Darcy Bruce Espie Lange was a New Zealand artist born in Urenui. Lange studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts (1964–1967) creating hard-edge abstract sculptures before studying at the Royal College of Art in London and shifting his focus to moving image and photography.
Denise Kum is a New Zealand artist. Her works are held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and the University of Auckland art collection.
Selwyn Peter Webb was a New Zealand art dealer and gallery director. He was a supporter and promoter of art, and particularly contemporary New Zealand art, for over sixty years. Webb's work spanned public art museums, publishing and the founding of the Peter Webb Galleries and Webb's auction house.
Headlands: Thinking Through New Zealand Art was an exhibition of New Zealand art organised in partnership by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney and the National Art Gallery, Wellington, in 1992
The Sue Crockford Gallery was a contemporary art dealer gallery in Auckland, New Zealand.
John Maynard is an Australian film producer and film distributor who also played an important role in the development of New Zealand art museums.
Ian Andrew Hunter was a Northern Irish artist, art curator and cultural advocate who worked in New Zealand and England.
Choice! was a ‘game-changing’ exhibition of contemporary Māori art curated by George Hubbard and exhibited in the Auckland gallery Artspace from 25 July to 17 August 1990.
Ronald Norris O'Reilly was a librarian who promoted and exhibited contemporary New Zealand art. He served as Christchurch city librarian from 1951 to 1968, and director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery from 1975 to 1979.
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