THE GUY NGAN ESTATE COLLECTION Monday, 7 October 2019 - 6:00 PM start

Guy Ngan

Lot Details

'Nineteen Seventy Six', acrylic and lacquered wood, artist's label underneath. Illustrated: New Vision Gallery exhibition preview invitation 18 July 1976. Exhibited: New Vision Gallery 'An Exhibition of Works by Guy Ngan 19-30 July 1976. Artspace -Aotearoa 'Guy Ngan: Either Possible or Necessary' 7 June – 17 August 2019. 1976 It was Kees and Tine Hos, founders of the New Vision Gallery, who enticed Guy Ngan to mount one of his few solo shows at their prestigious New Vision Gallery in His Majesty’s Arcade, Auckland in 1976. Although an enthusiastic and prolific maker Ngan had turned down a number of offers to show in galleries. Convinced by the Kees and Tina the time was right Ngan designed his own preview invitation and catalogue, the cover of which was dominated by 'Nineteen Seventy Six'. Conceived and made after NASA’s Apollo moon shots and before the first manned space station Skylab had crashed back through earth’s atmosphere ‘Nineteen Seventy Six’ hints at an environmental-themed science fiction film set with open-ended possibilities. The hemispheric domed architecture of 'Nineteen Seventy Six' was an extension of themes explored in ‘Procreation No.2’ (lot 74), however whereas there Ngan had introduced a pair of minute figures on the planetary discs of the painting and photographed his ‘Habitation’ series bronzes populated with miniature figures, here he left the towers and scaffolding, under the violet dome of ‘Nineteen Seventy Six’, devoid of people. The sculpture seems to hint, not at an empty biosphere, but rather the prospect of existence on other planets or worlds. Ross Millar