Phil Dadson - Pianoforté
Colloquium series at the Contemporary Art Annex
6 October - 5 November 2000
Phil Dadson (b. 1946), one of New Zealand's most innovative inter-media artists and
experimental music composers, will present an installation to challenge and heighten the
senses in the McDougall Contemporary Art Annex Gallery and basement from 6 October to 5
November 2000. Dadson will creatively integrate technology with the visitor's physical
presence in the spaces by creating a site-specific environment based on movement, sound
and sight. The conversion of the Annex basement to a rudimentary exhibition space and the
relationship between the upstairs and downstairs levels will subvert conventional
expectations and art practice regarding public, private, aesthetic, non-aesthetic, single
and multiple spaces.
Phil Dadson's (b. 1946) sculptural synaesthesia of sound, video/film and installation
has been resonating throughout the national and international art world since the early
1970s. By integrating media in solo and collaborative work, Dadson has continued to define
an aspect of Post-Object Art in New Zealand, which cuts across traditional boundaries in
the arts. Dadson is best known as a composer, experimental musical instrument builder and
performer with the ensemble, From Scratch. He formed From Scratch in 1970,
upon his return from working with the renowned Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra
in London. Between 1971 and 1976, Dadson worked as a moving image maker and co-founded
SeeHear Films and Alternative Cinema in Auckland, before his appointment to the Sculpture
Department of the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland. He has received several major awards
since 1990, including the Grand Prix Award at Cannes/Mildem for the film 'Pacific 3,2,1,
Zero' in 1994 and the Fulbright Cultural Travel Award, USA for a From Scratch tour,
in 1991. Dadson is currently Senior Lecturer/Head of Intermedia/time-based arts at Elam.
The Dadson exhibition will be accompanied by a substantial catalogue with an essay by
Wystan Curnow, writer, freelance curator, art critic and lecturer of English at the
University of Auckland. Curnow's critical writings and observational documentation of
Performance and Post-Object activities of the 1970s and 1980s have made an integral
contribution to the understanding, development and survival of these practices.
This exhibition is presented as part of the Colloquium art project, designed to
celebrate innovative practice in areas outside mainstream art production, endorsed by
Turning Point 2000 as a significant visual arts event for 2000.
Belinda Jones
This exhibition was held at the Robert McDougall Contemporary Art Annex in the Arts Centre.
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