2005 - ET AL.
et al., "the fundamental practice", 2005. Design: Kelvin Soh.
Core Team Members
Commissioner: Gregory Burke
Curator: Natasha Conland
Project Manager: Terry Urbahn
Exhibition Attendants
Emily Cormack, Tessa Giblin, Sharonagh Tengblad, Richard Wormley
Project Publication et al. the fundamental practice
Editors: Greg Burke, Natasha Conland
Contributing Writers: Jim Barr, Mary Barr, Mark Kremer, Chris Kraus
Designer: The Wilderness
Publisher: Creative New Zealand
The collective et al. staged the fundamental practice for the New Zealand pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2005. The site-specific installation was located directly behind the Santa Maria della Pietà church (La Pietà) on the Riva degli Schiavoni.
the fundamental practice continued et al.’s process of research and investigation, using techniques of procedure and presentation from other ideological systems – scientific, military, political, revolutionary. Using computer programming, the installation involved both audio-visual and kinetic components. It took the form of a metaphysical machine - shuffling, sorting and creating from a diversity of belief systems.
In the installation space, with little guide, the viewer became an explorer, having to feel comfortable with a condition of not knowing, while finding a route through belief systems and their mechanised representatives.
Crucial to the fundamental practice were moments when movement, sound and speech were orchestrated, seemingly autonomously, into a unified crescendo. This increased a sense that the objects and voices were attempting to engineer the viewer’s consciousness.
Subsequent to the project at Venice, et al. were invited to mount an earlier work, altruistic studies, within the prestigious Art Unlimited programme at Art 39 Basel 2008. Iterations of the fundamental practice were later shown at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and Artspace, Auckland.
More on the artist
et al. is an anonymous artists’ collective based in New Zealand.
Central to et al.’s work is an exploration of the human tendency to establish truths and orthodoxies in response to the unknown. This is reflected in et al.’s long-standing choice not to reveal their identities. The collective is currently steered by one artist who remains anonymous outside the title et al.
The artists involved have a 20-year history of exhibiting under a variety of titles that include personal and group histories, androgynous names and gender switching. These identities have also been associated with discrete practices involving objects, paintings, films, sound-works, books and installations. Their work draws on fragments of images, ideas, objects, texts and even voices and involves collaboration with musicians, writers and scientists, among others, in its production.
Over 25 years et al. has amassed one of the most substantial exhibition records in New Zealand contemporary art. International exhibitions include non-existent in the everyday world?, KalimanRawlins, Melbourne in 2012; Hirschfield, Berlin in 2009; altruistic studies_vote more than once, Art Unlimited, Art 39 Basel, 2008; altruistic studies: no vote!, Interstitial Zones, Historical Facts, Archaeologies of the Present and Dialectics of Seeing, Argos Centre for Art & Media, Brussels in 2008.
Recent solo exhibitions include For The Common Good, West, Den Haag, Netherlands in 2015; simultaneous invalidations #3, Auckland Art Gallery in 2011; trans-cryption, Michael Lett, Auckland in 2011 and that’s obvious! that’s right! that’s true!, Christchurch Art Gallery in 2009.
In 2004 et al.’s restricted access was awarded the Walters Prize, New Zealand’s most prestigious visual arts award.
New Zealand at Venice logo. Design: Kelvin Soh.
et al., "the fundamental practice", installation view, 2005. Photo: Jennifer French.
et al., "the fundamental practice", installation view, 2005. Photo: Jennifer French.
et al., "the fundamental practice", installation view, 2005. Photo: Jennifer French.
et al., "the fundamental practice", installation view, 2005. Photo: Jennifer French.
et al., "the fundamental practice", exhibition catalogue, 2005. Design: The Wilderness. Photo: Jennifer French