Presented by: Christina Barton

In writing a monograph on the life and work of New Zealand-born conceptual artist Billy Apple (b.1935) (Auckland University Press, due October 2020) I have had to grapple with various challenges posed by the artist to my discipline of art history. This seminar outlines these challenges and introduces some of the ways this artist has required me to rethink the subject of biography and to re-envisage both local and global art histories.

Biography:

Christina Barton lectures in Art History at Victoria University of Wellington. Since 2007 she has been Director of the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi. Here, she has devised a respected programme of exhibitions, public programmes and publications, as well as managing the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection. She is well-known as a curator, writer, and editor who has made a substantial contribution to art history in New Zealand, including co-editing Reading Room: A Journal of Art and Culture, and The Critic’s Part, the collected art writings of Wystan Curnow (VUP/AAG & IMA), Wellington and Brisbane, 2012).