Open Call: Corner

Project space in Auckland, NZ

    • Rubee Prattley-Jones, My Window 2016; photo courtesy of the artist
    • Alexandra Baumgartner, Audience, 2015 (detail); image courtesy of the artist
    • Robyn Walton, SERIOUSLY, NO GOODBYES (detail), 2016, Corner window gallery; photo courtesy of the artist
    • Brendan Moran, Barricading Solutions, 2014; photo courtesy of the artist
    • Matthew Cowan, Wardog; image courtesy of the artist
    • Karyn Taylor, Jacob's Ladder 2014, Corner; photo by Rob Garrett
    • Gill Gatfield, Suffragettes 2016, CORNER window gallery; photo courtesy of the artist
    • Karyn Taylor, Jacob's Ladder 2014, Auckland; photo by Rob Garrett
    • Sam Clague, IMPACT, 2017, detail; photo by the artist
    • Rozana Lee, Lost and Remembered, 2017; photos by the artist and Philip Tse
    • Donna-Marie Patterson, Purity of Light (in memory of Petrus), 2016; photo courtesy of the artist
    • Katrin Kampmann, The Future of an Illusion 2016, (detail), watercolour and woodcut; image courtesy of the artist
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Seeking Project Proposals:

Curator Rob Garrett seeks proposals from New Zealand and international artists with emergent practices and innovative projects for the Corner Window Gallery project space.

Proposals may include solo, or collaborative, or group projects. Applications will also be accepted from emerging curators who are proposing an emergent practice project with one or more artists.

The Corner Window Gallery programme commenced in February 2012 and since that time we have presented new projects every 6-to-8 weeks.

Corner Window Gallery is a unique and highly visible window project space on Karangahape Road in central Auckland, suited to site-specific and experimental practices. Corner Window Gallery is curated by Rob Garrett and hosted by PAC - Paterson Architecture Collective and Athfield Architects.

Please email your proposal to Rob Garrett, Curator (garrett.rob@gmail.com). Please refer to the site plan below (PDF and JPEG files); and see our current and archived projects here...

Join a great list of Corner Window Gallery exhibitors:
Ayesha Green (NZ) & Ross Forbes (NZ)
Priscilla Hunter (NZ)
Chelsea Rothbart (NZ)
Meggy Rustamova (BE/GE)
Holly Davies (NZ) & Zainab Hikmet (NZ) curated by Zoe Hoeberigs
Estella Castle (NZ)
Andrew de Freitas (NZ)
Jenny Horrell (NZ)
Sylvie Boutelje-Chasteau (NZ) & Erin Forsyth (NZ)
Reweti Arapere, curated by Rachelle Forbes
Oleg Polounine (RU/NZ)
Justyna Scheuring (PL/UK)
Natalie Tozer (NZ)
Karyn Taylor (NZ)
Matthew Cowan (NZ)
Brendan Moran (NZ)
Mickey Smith (US/NZ)
Alvin Xiong (NZ/CN)
Yonel Watene (NZ) & Nicholas J Boyd (NZ)
Kathryn Stevens (NZ)
Glen Hutchins (NZ)
Alexandra Baumgartner (AT/DE)
Cleo Barnett (US/NZ)
Zuza Golińska (PL)
Susan Mabin (NZ)
Zoe Crook (NZ)
Catherine Cocker (NZ)
Robyn Walton (NZ)
Gill Gatfield (NZ)
Emma Wallbanks (NZ)
Rubee Prattley-Jones (NZ)
Katrin Kampmann (DE)
Donna-Marie Patterson (NZ)
Rozana Lee (ID/NZ)
Sam Clague (NZ)
Yukari Kaihori (JP/NZ)
Tales Frey (PO/BR)
Anh Tran (NZ)
Aaron Paterson & Sarosh Mulla (NZ)
Mimmo Catania (IT)
Bent (CL/NZ)
Sena Park (KR/NZ)
Bianca Lee Vasquez (US/FR)
Colleen Altagracia (NZ)
Anna Katarzyna Domejko (PL/UK)
Justyna Adamczyk (PL)
Marco Angelini (IT)

Important information:

  • There is no closing date for this Open Call: we are interested in receiving proposals continuously.
  • There is no budget for the Corner programme. All projects are self-funded.
  • Sound and scent projects are excluded so as not to interfere with the activities of the architecture house that hosts the space.
  • To apply: please send images of the proposed project, brief artist/s statement including how the project suits the Corner site; artist CV/s; and selected images of recent projects you have completed.
  • Image files should be approximately 1000 x 1400 pixels (jpeg format preferred).
  • Please email your proposal to Rob Garrett, Curator, with 'Corner proposal' in the subject heading: contact@robgarrettcfa.com

Some special characteristics of the Corner Window Gallery space

Compression, doubling and expansion of space

The physical dimensions of Corner are of course small. The K Rd side is only 1 metre deep; the Edinburgh side is half that; and there are only 5.35 metres of wall along the two sides. However, because it is a street corner / street window space, there are three spatial phenomena that occur concurrently, meaning its true power as a space cannot be appreciated simply from the floor plan.

First: compression. The physically tight dimensions of the space mean that, especially for large works, there is an almost claustrophobic sensation that they have been squeezed into the space. While our typical exhibition gestures are to give art works lots of ‘breathing space’ in a gallery, the Corner space provides us with a wonderful opportunity to create a very close-up, noses-pressed-to-the-window experience of art. Installing very large paintings in the space can have a profoundly ‘immediate’ and compelling experience for the viewer…. And it is the viewer’s experience that leads us to the second phenomena, doubling.

Second: doubling. As a glassed-in window space where viewers’ experiences of the art are always from outside the glass, refractions of light, the reflections of both interior and exterior objects and light-sources become part of the work. Very rarely is there an experience of the work that does not include the viewer perceiving some reflection of themselves or what is behind them at the same time as seeing the artwork. The Corner space is always perceived, concurrently as two spaces: an in front space and a behind space; as both something that is behind the glass and as something that is beyond the glass. Doubled. Some of the art projects have deliberately played with this through their own reflective or light-emitting properties. But viewers are not always standing close to the windows. This brings us to the third concurrent phenomena.

Third: expansion. Massive expansion. Corner faces, and is seen from the opposite corner of the street intersection; as far away as the Thirsty Dog. That’s more than 50 metres away. It’s 20 metres to the pavement directly opposite on K Rd and at least 10 metres across Edinburgh street to the opposite pavement. This makes the space one of the largest ‘gallery’ spaces in the country. Understood in this context, very large works ‘squeezed’ into the space may seem compressed from close-up, but they are also very ‘readable’ from long distances. This is a feature that several artists have deliberately worked with by very successfully installing works that you might otherwise think were too big for the space.

Floor and pavement levels alter perceptions

When installing wall-mounted works in the space, the height of each work needs to be judged by eye, especially by standing on the pavement in front of each window; rather than from standing on the actual floor of the gallery space. Generally, we have found that for installations of wall-mounted works where it is possible for viewers standing on the street to see both walls at the same time, you need to hang works on the shorter wall about 40cm lower than you'd expect.

This is because the viewing conditions for the two walls are slightly different: For the long wall, the viewer stands on the pavement at precisely the same level as the internal floor; whereas for the short wall, the pavement slopes down and the viewer is standing about 40cm lower than the level of the internal floor.

The total height of the walls

You will see from the elevation plans that the total height of the gallery walls is 3.1 metres. However, this height is only really appreciated by viewers who stand within a metre-or-so of the windows. This is because the obscure-glass louvres covering the upper 85 cm and the 27-cm ground level window frame create the perception of the windows as an elongated ‘wide-frame’ for viewers looking at the space from further away.

It is therefore possible to create installations that are experienced quite differently from a distance from close-up where the higher portions of the wall are only revealed to those standing nearby.

    • Corner window gallery volume of space
    • CORNER floor plan and elevation JPG 2168 x 1222 pxl
  • CORNER floor plan and elevation PDF
  • CORNER floor plan and elevation PDF

  • Download file
    • CORNER window gallery floor plan
 
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