The Daylight Show | 13 Emerging Artists
“[It is] the interaction of the onlooker which makes the painting…It’s always based on the two poles, the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from that bipolar action gives birth to something—like electricity. Don’t say that the artist is a great thinker because he produces it. The artist produces nothing until the onlooker has said, ‘You have produced something marvelous.’ The onlooker has the last word on it.” – Marcel Duchamp in conversation with Calvin Tomkins in Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews, p. 31
By Nadine Rubin Nathan
It is difficult to think of Peggy Guggenheim today as a young woman with no formal training in art history (but a romantic penchant for artists) floating around pre-World War II Europe. The legacy left behind by the American art collector, patron, and socialite in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice looms large. Her contribution to the art world stands as one of the most significant and impactful – the Peggy Guggenheim Collection comprised of more than 300 works spanning a wide range of artistic movements. From surrealism to abstract expressionism, it embodies Guggenheim’s dedication to challenging artistic conventions, embracing new forms of expression, and nurturing emerging talent.
But forget for a moment that the artists in her collection now read like the Who’s Who in 20th Century Art and cast your mind back to the early 1930s when Guggenheim leaned heavily on Marcel Duchamp as a mentor, describing him as the most influential person in her life. It was Duchamp who introduced her to artists and who taught her how to be the best possible onlooker. Though Duchamp often wrestled personally with the commerciality of art, he recognised in her someone who had the means to support unknown artists and who would create gallery spaces to show their work. Duchamp advised Guggenheim not to use her inheritance to acquire established masters, but to focus instead on emerging artists. “I took advice from none but the best. I listened, how I listened! That's how I finally became my own expert,” Guggenheim said.
As an engaged onlooker, Guggenheim purchased pieces by Picasso, Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst, and risked her life to save many of their works from destruction at the hands of the Nazis (for more on her richly storied and very controversial life don’t miss Foënander Galleries’ private screening of ‘Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict’ at The Bridgeway Cinema in Northcote Point on Sunday 8 December at 3:15pm).
Escaping war-torn Europe with her art collection, Guggenheim returned home to New York and opened her Art of this Century gallery in 1942. For the next five years it became a nexus for exiled European artists and young emerging Americans. Art of this Century housed Guggenheim’s personal, permanent collection of works by artists who were becoming famous, alongside temporary exhibitions by emerging artists in a commercial gallery space called The Daylight Gallery. The art critic Clement Greenberg wrote of her in the New York Times: “She gave more showings to more serious new artists than anyone else in the country.” She played a pivotal role in launching the careers of many Abstract Expressionists, most notably Jackson Pollack.
Then, as now, dealer galleries played a crucial role in the art world ecosystem. They are the primary onlooker giving a stamp of approval to emerging artists and, in turn, literally opening the door for them to engage with further ‘onlookers’ in the form of collectors and art appreciators. Inspired by Guggenheim's dedication to emerging artists, Foënander Galleries’ end of year show, The Daylight Show showcases the diverse perspectives and innovative approaches of 13 emerging artists connected to Aotearoa.
The choice to show 13 artists riffs off 31 Women, Guggenheim’s 1943 show that highlighted new perspectives being explored by women artists including Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, and Frida Kahlo. Aotearoa, of course, has its own history of women having to fight to find space for their work within galleries and institutions. Modern Women: Flight of Time, on at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki until February 2025 highlights the leading role women artists played in shaping the development of modern art in New Zealand through seizing control of their own representation.
And while the mahi continues for contemporary female artists to completely address the imbalance, Foënander’s The Daylight Show confidently integrates all genders, perhaps as a nod to the fact that as a female-run dealer gallery it is naturally more balanced in its representation. Foënander Galleries takes this one step further with Guggenheim in mind, providing a platform for diasporic artists too – at least 7 of the 13 artists in The Daylight Show hail from foreign lands, but now call Aotearoa home.
The Daylight Show brings together a dynamic group of new talent who reflect the diversity and creativity of ideas that define contemporary society – the art of our century, if you will. Exploring themes of environment, history, identity and the intersection of traditional and modern practices, it is at once inspired by and echoes Peggy Guggenheim's belief in the power of art to challenge, inspire, and liberate.
Kiwi-Filipino Andrea Bolima, currently based in Naarm/Melbourne, makes paintings that navigate the intriguing boundary between the recognisable and the abstract. Her gestural manipulation of adjacent swathes of delicate colour, result in pale undertones that emerge as sinuous lines—each nuanced and open to interpretation. Also currently residing on Wurundjeri land Ōtepoti-born Ruby Brown’s (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine, Scottish and Danish) sculptural wall reliefs probe the fragile balance between presence and absence and question the Western ideal of perfectionism. Working with acrylic paint on found materials on board, the fluid surfaces of her water tapestries encourage viewers to engage deeply with the enigmas that emerge from fragmented or obscured perspectives.
Marcus Hipa, born and raised in Alofi, Niue Island, has a MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts. His usually large-scale practice engages with narratives of history and culture, celebrating the values, traditions, and sense of community, while also illuminating the social and political challenges that confront Pacific peoples both in the region and in Aotearoa. The smaller diptych for this show is inspired by his Samoan grandmother, a singer and weaver, and looks at who came before and what came before and the impacts that people make on us.
A recent Fine Arts graduate from Massey University, Pākeha artist Jessica Swney employs playful, hand-tufted wool to create faintly recognisable shapes. Her practice draws on both memory and experience to interrogate the dynamics faced by young females navigating social interactions within a patriarchal framework, hinting at how societal pressures and personal experiences influence their strategies for asserting themselves.
Born in Aotearoa, Vishmi Helaratne is of Sri Lankan descent. Their practice weaves together painting, sculpture, drawing, and methods of hospitality. Piping the medium onto their canvases in a method reminiscent of cake decorating gives the works in this show a tactile juiciness as they delve into the complexities of cross-cultural identity shaped by the migrant experience to explore not fully belonging.
Cat Guevara, a Colombian visual artist now based in Tāmaki Makaurau was born in Bogota from a ”paisa” mother and a ”llanero” father. Her practice delves into the representation of the female form within Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. Here, the ceramic’s empty functionality intertwines with primitive views of the woman's body and colonial interpretations of the New World’s emptiness. The pieces in this show are both meditative in nature. The double vessel whistles when gently rocked creating a sound that was said to communicate with the ancestors. Meanwhile the terracotta studies evoke “architecture without architects,” functioning as reservoirs of time, memory, and space. They invite visitors to sit, rest, and reconnect with inner landscapes, echoing the cyclical motion of the moon and embodying themes of permanence and impermanence.
