Untitled Subtraction, Auckland Art Gallery, 1975

Billy Apple returned to New Zealand in May 1975 from his home in New York. It was only a year after he had gone back to New York from London following his solo exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries. Ostensibly, the trip to New Zealand was a return – the first since 1959 – to visit family, yet within days he was connecting with the local art scene. Apple was running an independent gallery space, called Apple, in New York at 131 West 23rd Street which was attracting attention. However, New York was hitting hard times and news of the expansion of an experimental art scene in Auckland reached the artist.

Apple’s visit, discussed somewhat negatively in the 40 plus news items, was supported by the growing artist network, the new exhibition officer at the Auckland City Art Gallery (ACAG), John Maynard, and critic Wystan Curnow. Two works in the ACAG’s Edmiston Gallery completed in July that year – 8 x 8 Subtraction and its pair Untitled Abstraction – were extensions of similar abstractions made just months earlier in New York. They were careful engagements with the architectural space of the Gallery in a mode of drawing our attention to that space through light or even barely visible alterations: a subtraction on the one hand of wax covering the floor tiles; and on the other, an addition of paint. Saved for posterity in the documentary photographs, they were the first of a remarkable series of works staged at New Zealand art institutions during the decade.

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