David CROSS

ARTS LAB PROVOCATEUR 2013

David Cross is an artist, writer, curator and Associate Professor in Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. He is the Director of the Litmus Research Initiative, a centre devoted to the examination and commissioning of temporary public art. He has published extensively in this area as well as convening conferences and commissioning new work in the field. With Claire Doherty he co-directed the internationally acclaimed One Day Sculpture series of twenty temporary commissions by national and international artists across New Zealand in 2008–9. He co-curated projects with Ivan and Heather Morison (UK), Lara Almarcegui (Spain), and Michael Parekowhai (New Zealand) in a series featuring Roman Ondak, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravinija and Bik van Der Pol. The book of the series. co-edited with Doherty, was published by Kerber Verlag in Germany in November 2009. He has developed numerous projects with Litmus including Dane Mitchell (NZ), David Clegg (NZ) and Toby Huddleston (UK). In 2011 he devised Iteration:Again a series of 13 public art projects across Tasmania featuring Paul O’Neill, Ruben Santiago and Maddie Leach. The book of the project has just been published by Punctum Books in New York.

His artwork has been exhibited in New Zealand, Australia and Eastern Europe and he has performed in international live art festivals in Poland, Croatia and Czech Republic. His work featured in Perspecta 99 in Sydney and he has shown at Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. His work Bounce (2006) was featured in a solo exhibition at Wellington City Art Gallery and also in the survey exhibition of contemporary New Zealand performance art, ‘Mostly Harmless’, at Govett Brewster Art Gallery curated by Charlotte Huddleston.

He represented New Zealand in the 2011 Prague Quadrennial and his work Hold was included in Live Works, Performance Space Sydney and at Art House as part of the 2012 Melbourne International Festival. His writing has been published in numerous journals and magazines including Art and Text, World Art, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Photofile and Column. He is currently an artists representative advisor for Creative New Zealand, the national cultural funding organisation.