ABOUT ESSAYS
ArtNow
Feb 05 2021
ArtNow Essays is an online venue where writing’s imaginative potential meets editorial rigour. In its commitment to the essay, a form that can draw readily from journalism, criticism, and memoir, this site seeks to cultivate a culture of independent, critical and original commentary on contemporary art. Its aim is to deliver serious, well-researched, and intellectually stimulating writing to engage readers and build an informed audience for the visual arts.
Each month readers can expect an essay of 1,500 to 2,000 words, each offering a distinctively critical point of view on artists, art works, exhibitions, publications, issues or themes within the world of contemporary visual art.
ArtNow Essays is led by an independent commissioning editor who is invested in the craft and convinced of the value of writing as a device to connect artists and their practices with audiences and their contexts. They are in turn supported by an editorial advisory whose members are drawn from across Aotearoa New Zealand’s public gallery sector and with representation from freelance and emerging writers with diverse interests and backgrounds. This structure is designed to ensure independence but also secure a responsibility to the needs and aspirations of the culture.
ArtNow Essays is aimed at an audience of art experts, non-specialist but art-literate readers, and uninitiated but intellectually curious readers with interest in the visual arts. ArtNow Essays acknowledges the hybrid nature of the arts and seeks to cultivate audiences from adjacent fields including the performing arts, film, theatre, and music by covering points of common interest and convergence. Essays are free to download as PDFs and sharing is encouraged.
While based in, and committed to, the arts in Aotearoa New Zealand, ArtNow Essays understands there is a wider international context within which artists in and from Aotearoa New Zealand live and work. It seeks to keep doors and minds open and does not discriminate on the basis of age, class, race, gender, colour, belief, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation or geographic location.
Editorial Advisory
ArtNow Essays are commissioned and edited by members of the advisory group, led by Christina Barton, and with input from Anthony Byrt, Abby Cunnane, Sophie Davis, Simon Gennard and Hanahiva Rose.
–Christina Barton, director Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, art historian, curator, writer and editor based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
–Anthony Byrt, writer currently working with Alt Group, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
–Abby Cunnane, director The Physics Room, Christchurch, writer and curator based in Ōtautahi Christchurch
–Sophie Davis, manager and curator Hastings City Art Gallery Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga
–Simon Gennard, writer and curator, assistant curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth
–Hanahiva Rose, curator Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, and writer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
–Hiraani Himona, director Te Tuhi, Pakuranga Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
–Stephanie Post, co-founder and co-director of ArtNow
Essays has been made possible through the support of Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and members of the Aotearoa Public Gallery Directors’ Network (APGDN). APGDN is an informal consortium of publicly funded galleries from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand the directors of which meet occasionally to share knowledge and advice about their operations and find collective means to improve their organisations’ visibility, support the arts ecosystem in Aotearoa New Zealand, and foster audience engagement.
The idea to establish a digital platform for good, independent art writing in partnership with ArtNow.NZ was conceived during the 2020 lockdown due to the COVID pandemic.
Participating Galleries:
Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi Victoria University of Wellington
Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi
Govett Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre
Gus Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland
Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga – Hastings City Art Gallery
New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata
Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui
Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery
Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery | Auckland University of Technology
Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato and ArtsPost Galleries & Shop
Previous Commissioning Editors
Lachlan Taylor is an arts writer. He holds MAs in Art History and Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Lachlan has worked for public and commercial galleries in Aotearoa including Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Artspace Aotearoa, and Michael Lett. From 2021-2023 he was the Commissioning Editor for ArtNow Essays.
Lachlan steps down to begin a PhD in Art History at the University of Texas in Austin, USA, as a recipient of a Fulbright New Zealand Award.
During his time with ArtNow, Lachlan commissioned 15 Essays, 8 Thinking Out Loud pieces and worked with more than 27 writers. Lachlan’s stated ambition for the Essays on ArtNow was to offer “an online venue where writing’s imaginative potential meets editorial rigour. In its commitment to the essay, a form that can draw readily from journalism, criticism, and memoir, this site seeks to cultivate a culture of independent, critical and original commentary on contemporary art. Its aim is to deliver serious, well-researched, and intellectually stimulating writing to engage readers and build an informed audience for the visual arts.”
Tendai John Mutambu, the first editor of the ArtNow.NZ essays, launched the new platform and saw it through its first six months until September 2021. Tendai is a curator, writer, film programmer, and editor based in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland. He is now contemporary curator at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Until his return to New Zealand in 2021, he was Assistant Curator, Commissions and Public Programmes at Spike Island in Bristol, UK. He has previously worked as Programming Fellow at Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival where he curated Artist in Focus: Marwa Arsanios; and as Assistant Curator, Contemporary at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre. Projects include: The Conch #22 at South London Gallery (forthcoming, March 2021); WE ARE HERE, a series of five film programmes and installations of Artists’ Moving Image from the British Council and LUX collections touring internationally from 2019 to 2022; Twenty-Two Hours at ICA London as part of the BFI London Film Festival (2018); Sriwhana Spong a hook but no fish (2018), David Clegg loca projects / correction (2017); Projection Series 8: The Long Dream of Waking (2017) curated with Sarah Wall; Projection Series 7: First as Fiction, Then as Myth (2017) curated with Sophie O’Brien; Potentially Yours, The Coming Community (2016). Tendai has written for Frieze, Ocula Magazine, Runway Journal of Contemporary Art, ICA London, the British Film Institute, LUX Moving Image, Art News New Zealand, Art New Zealand and several exhibition catalogues including, most recently, Zac Langdon Pole’s Art Journey (2019).
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ArtNow Essays is independently commissioned by the editor. The views expressed on ArtNow Essays are the authors' and are not necessarily held by ArtNow.NZ, the commissioning editor, editorial advisory, participating galleries, APGDN, or Creative New Zealand. While this platform does not publish readers’ comments, constructive feedback is welcome. Send your feedback to essays@artnow.nz.