23 November 1999

Sculpture in the Gardens

Showing in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

7 December 1999 until 5 April 2000

The expansive Christchurch Botanic Gardens will again will again provide the backdrop for contemporary sculpture by three New Zealand artists in the fourth Sculpture in the Gardens 1999-2000 exhibition. A collaboration between the Botanic Gardens and the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, this event was initiated to celebrate the diversity of New Zealand sculptural practice.

The three artists chosen to participate in this years exhibition, Stuart Griffiths, Paul Cullen and Fiona Gunn, have created challenging and intriguing works which play on and reveal the environmental, spatial and historical resonances of their chosen garden sites.

Stuart Griffiths’ project for Sculpture in the Gardens 1999-2000, involves the framing section of the Botanic Gardens using a window constructed from slabs of chorite schist.

Fiona Gunn’s work will focus on the exchange of seed and living plants that occurred between England and New Zealand at the time the gardens were being planned and planted.

Paul Cullen’s planned installation will be placed on the site of the old Magnetic Observatory. Taking the form of a curved enclosed space containing tracks and a trolley, Cullen’s work reflects the history of the site and reveals illusions to the scientific concepts of gravity and inertia.

If you require any reproductions, background material or more information regarding the exhibition please do not hesitate to contact us.

• David Chin or Anna-Marie Dew: Ph (03) 379 4201 Fax (03) 379 4918

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