One Day Sculpture
One Day Sculpture was New Zealand's first nationwide commissioning series of temporary, place-based public artworks. Taking duration and place as its starting point, One Day Sculpture stretched the format of the scattered-site exhibition over time and space.
Javier Tellez, Intermission, 2009 Taranaki, New Zealand. Commissioned for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe
Liz Allan, Came a Hot Sundae: A Ronald Hugh Morrieson Festival, 2008. Commissioned for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe
Thomas Hirschhorn, Poor-Racer, Christchurch, 2009. Commissioned for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe
Superflex, Today We Don't Use the Word Dollars, Auckland, 2009. Commissioned for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe
Heather and Ivan Morison, Journée des Barricades, 2008 Wellington, New Zealand. Commissioned for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe
Instead of presenting a cluster of artworks within the framework of a single exhibition, the programme offered the opportunity to engage with each newly commissioned work for one day only, one after the other, as a cumulative series across New Zealand over one year.
One Day Sculpture: An International Symposium of Art, Place and Time brought together leading international curators, cultural theorists and historians, participating artists, writers and curators to address the principal ideas and contexts that have informed the development of the series. The symposium considered the issues underpinning the commissioning and production of temporary place-responsive artworks in the public domain. In particular it examined:
The ways in which conventional notions of permanency and monumentality in public sculpture are being challenged;
How artists are approaching and producing places as unstable, contested sets of relations rather than fixed sites;
How ephemeral, performative and viral forms of contemporary art are demanding active engagement outside the gallery or museum; and
What the implications are for emergent curatorial practices in terms of presentation and distribution.
Conceived as both a document and critical expansion of the series, the One Day Sculpture book, edited by Claire Doherty and David Cross, combines an anthology of newly commissioned texts by authors such as Melanie Gilligan, Amelia Jones, Daniel Palmer, Jane Rendell, Terry Smith and Mick Wilson with in-depth considerations of each of the 20 projects. Published by Kerber. ISBN 978-3-86678-333-1. → Read the introductory chapter
Funders and supporters
One Day Sculpture was funded and generously supported by Creative New Zealand; Massy University College of Creative Arts; The Chartwell Collection; University of the West of England, Bristol and Massy University Foundation. For further details on all funders and supporters please visit www.onedaysculpture.org.nz
