Unnerved

A Queensland Art Gallery Touring Exhibition

Unnerved explores a particularly rich, dark vein found in contemporary New Zealand art. The psychological or physical unease underlying many works in the exhibition is addressed with humour, parody and poetic subtlety by artists across generations and mediums. Bringing together a range of works from the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery, Unnerved engages with New Zealand’s changing social, political and cultural landscape as the country navigates its indigenous settler and migrant histories.These works explore a changing sense of place, the continued importance of contemporary Maori art, biculturalism, a complex colonial past, the creative reworking of memory, and the often interconnected mediums of performance, photography and video. If the vision is unsettling, it is also compelling and Unnerved: The New Zealand Project offers us new ways of seeing one of our closest neighbours.

Major sculptures by Michael Parekowhai, installations by Lisa Reihana, paintings by John Pule and Shane Cotton and photographs by Gavin Hipkins, Yvonne Todd and Anne Noble will feature alongside video art by Campbell Patterson, Sriwhana Spong and Nathan Pohio.