IN PURSUIT
OF VENUS [INFECTED] 2015-17
Lisa Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–17, is a filmic reimagining of the French panoramic scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. Designed by artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet and produced between 1804-05 by French wallpaper manufacturer Joseph Dufour, Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique reflected a widespread fascination in Europe with the Pacific voyages undertaken in the 18th Century by mostly British and French explorers. In promoting the wallpaper when it was first produced, the manufacturer Joseph Dufour explained that the peaceful, idyllic scenes were intended “to reveal the natural bonds of taste and enjoyment that exist between all men.”
in Pursuit of Venus [infected] is shown here alongside a full-scale facsimile of Les Sauvage de la Mer Pacificque, whose exotic themes drew upon popular engraved illustrations of the time that were derived from original drawings notably by Scottish artists Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, employed by Joseph Banks aboard the HMB Endeavour on Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific c1768-70. These Empire building exploits brought profound and unwelcome change to the Indigenous peoples across the Pacific. After being confronted by the content of the ‘Dufour wallpaper’, Reihana felt strongly compelled to make a work that redressed the widespread historical inaccuracies and cultural misrepresentation throughout Dufour’s wallpaper. Reihana set about creating a work that replaced the absurd neo-classical figures from Charvet’s wallpaper design, with contemporary filmed vignettes of First Nations Pacific people to represent their cultural practices as authentically as possible with what James Cook and Joseph Banks would have
encountered. Working collaboratively with specific groups of First Nations people from across the Pacific, and non-indigenous actors portraying the encounters of the British explorers, Reihana created over 70 separately filmed narratives that are seamlessly inserted throughout the vast, gently flowing panoramic video that mirrors Charvet’s Pacific vistas. These unfold within a looping visual and sonic world where time is cyclical and the temporal and spatial dimensionality can be linked to Tā-Vā – the Pacific theory of time and space. In an act of cultural reclamation, the artist re-casts this original European fabrication, to suggest a far more complex story, seen specifically through the eyes of the First Nations people of the Pacific.
Of Māori and British descent, Lisa Reihana is at the forefront of experimentation and since the 1990s has significantly influenced the development of contemporary art and contemporary Māori art in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reihana represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 201517. Since premiering at the Auckland Art Gallery in May 2015 it has become a seminal work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history canon. In 2014 Reihana was Awarded an Arts Laureate Award by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the Te Tohu Toi Ke Te Waka Toi Maori Arts Innovation Award from Creative New Zealand in 2015 and in 2018 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Reihana lives and works in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Above Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, 1804–1805. Jean-Gabriel Charvet (artist) Joseph Dufour et Cie, Mâcon, France (manufacturer & publisher), courtesy Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.
