• Spinoff Art co-edited by Megan Dunn and Mark Amery

Launched on 3 July, Spinoff Art is a new section of their website, dedicated to asking the big and small questions about New Zealand art and the issues it raises which will be co-edited by Megan Dunn and Mark Amery. As Megan Dunn wrote in the first article to appear in Spinoff Arts:

“We miss reviews of art exhibitions in mainstream media. We miss reading them and we miss writing them. Where can you read a punchy yet informative and maybe even entertaining review of an exhibition while it is still on? There’s Metro four times a year and a few local papers too like the Otago Daily Times and Art Beat in Christchurch. However, in the North Island, most newspaper reviewing of the visual arts has curdled and died. Yet, the art scene here is livelier than ever. Online, great platforms like The Pantograph Punch specialise in long-form essays about art and culture. But we saw an opportunity at The Spinoff to focus on shorter reviews, interviews, news and hey maybe the occasional heist story too.

And so, thanks to the generous support of Creative New Zealand, Mark Amery and I are gathering a coterie of smart writers across the country to regularly report on art. Caution: the news won’t always be good. Everyone’s a critic and so are we. The good, the bad and the ugly – we’ll look at some of all of it. We’ll publish a wide range of writers writing about a wide range of artists. As co-editors, Mark and I will also challenge one another on our content and preferences. Art is as varied as life and just as contested. Our reviews will aim to give an informed opinion and we know as readers you’ll have your own take too. Let’s agree to disagree if we have to. Contemporary art isn’t always ‘neighbourly’, it’s not always trying to make friends with you or your mum. But then again sometimes it is. Even in 2019, art still has the power to break your heart. Or at least prick your corkboard in all the right places with its crazy, fever dream.”

Megan Dunn is the author of one slender irreverent book, Tinderbox. She has written a miscellany of art reviews, previews, puff & fluff pieces, artist interviews and rogue pieces of creative writing masquerading as art essays. She’s done it all and even liked some of it. There’s more about her at her website, megandunn.org.

Mark Amery has worked as an editor, reviewer and broadcaster since the early ‘90s. A former reviewer and journalist for the Listener and Sunday Star Times, he was a critic at the Dominion Postfor 12 years before finally being successfully fired. He edits an arts and media bulletin for The Big Idea, and is an occasional producer and presenter for RNZ’s arts show Standing Room Only.