“Dusk 2009.7.21; Dusk 2009.7.22; Dusk 2009.7.23; Star Drawing 2009.7.20 (Scorpius 24); Star Drawing 2009.7.21 (Centaurus 72); Star Drawing 2009.7.22 (S/E/N/W)” in Dark Sky

The DARK SKY exhibition explored how photography has been deployed to capture the skies. Delving into the intersections between science, art and commerce, the exhibition brought together a range of images and artworks from 1874 to the present. These ranged from pocket-sized Real-Photo Postcards, to digital prints sent from space, to large-scale contemporary images and multipart installations, made by artists, astronomers, professional photographers, and unmanned spacecraft. Timed to coincide with the second and last Transit of Venus that took place this century (6 June 2012), the exhibition provided an occasion to think through our fascination for the celestial realm and examine its technological and visual consequences. DARK SKY was conceived by Geoffrey Batchen, leading photographic historian and theorist and Professor of Art History, and curated with Christina Barton, contemporary art historian and Director of the Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington. Pooling their skills and knowledge they produced a striking line-up of historical and contemporary items, ranging from photographs by Hermann Krone—a professional photographer on the German expedition to the Auckland Islands, who documented the Transit of Venus in 1874—to contemporary German artist, Wolfgang Tillmans, who presented a body of work based, in part, on his life-long passion for astronomy and which includes a series of photographs he took of the Transit in 2004. The exhibition also included substantial groupings of images by David Stephenson (Australia), Trevor Paglen (USA) and Eric Lee-Johnson (New Zealand) and single works by Colin McCahon (NZ), Ann Shelton (NZ) and Thomas Ruff (Germany).