2001 - Jacqueline Fraser
New Zealand at Venice logo 2001. Design: Neil Pardington and George Clark, Eyework Design.
Core Team Members
Commissioner: Dame Jenny Gibbs
Curator: Gregory Burke
Project Manager: Elizabeth Caldwell
Exhibition Attendants
D’Arcy Dalzell, Jane Macknight, Kendrah Morgan.
Project Publication Bi Polar
Editor: Content, Gregory Burke; Artist Information, Belinda Jones; Text, John Hannaforn
Contributing Writers: Greg Burke, Ewen McDonald, Anna Miles
Designer: Neil Pardington, George Clarke, Eyework Design
Publisher: Creative New Zealand
Jacqueline Fraser’s exhibition A Demure Portrait of the Artist Strip Searched was part of New Zealand’s first national exhibition at the 49th Venice Art Biennale. It was one of two individual installations shown under the title Bi-Polar at the Museo di Sant’ Apollonia.
Site-specific, A Demure Portrait of the Artist Strip Searched included drops of Italian damask fabric, veils and canopies. They formed a maze through which visitors could explore the sculptural and text-based installations.
Eleven portraits were set within the space, depicting the artist and an adolescent boy in progressive stages of a narrative. While the characters were formed out of luxurious fabrics and dressed in the high style of leading fashion designers, such as Comme des Garcons, Prada and Moschino, they alluded to issues of sickness and health as well as social and psychological disorder.
A Demure Portrait of the Artist Strip Searched was the first in a trilogy of installations that continued throughout 2001 at the Yokohama Triennale, Japan and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
More on the artist
Jacqueline Fraser was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1956 and has exhibited internationally in a career that spans more than three decades.
In 2001 Fraser had a solo exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and was short listed for the Artes Mundi in the United Kingdom in 2004. Fraser’s work has been presented in major European and international art museums, including the Superstars, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2005) and Bowery Artist Tribute, New Museum, New York (2014). Fraser has exhibited in numerous biennales in Asia, Europe, and South America. Recently she presented at Umwelt Mode, Basel, Switzerland (2017).
Fraser's work is held in private and public collections in New Zealand, Australia, New York, Italy, France, Turkey, Germany, and the United Kingdom. She currently lives and works between Auckland and New York.
