Visit Sculptures in Auckland
Visit Sculptures in AucklandThe Performance, 1999Â Â Â Â Â
Outside Bruce Mason Centre, The Promenade, Takapuna, Auckland
Many Dibble sculptures have a strong sense of narrative, storytelling that is usually based on themes within New Zealand, the country in which the sculptor was born and spent his life. The works of the late 1990s particularly saw the development of lyrical assemblages of ideas that are particular to this homeland.
In The Performance 2 a hula dancer is dancing with her hands above her head. The form of the figure is more like a South Pacific carving than a realistic figure, as if it has been chiselled in relief from a wooden shape.
The dancer is being watched by an audience of three entranced penguins, such as could have come up from a nearby beach. Their form and posture give the sense of three men in tuxedos as might be attending the theatre.
This work was commissioned by the Bruce Mason Centre, to be placed outside the theatre, the story a perfect fit for this site. Funds for the sculpture in part came from The Readers’ Digest, and their name is modelled on one side of the long base where the penguins stand. The sculpture is based closely on a smaller work The Performance (1998), that was exhibited at Gow Langsford Gallery the year before.
The Voyager, 2002
Located in the entry forecourt of the Viaduct Point Apartments, corner Pakenham St & Custom St West, Auckland
Commissioned by Moller Architects The Voyager (2002) was the fourth sculpture Dibble made for the Viaduct Point Apartments, as the then new contemporary development on the Auckland waterfront. The brief for the sculpture was for it to ‘fit’ with the other apartment sculptures (which are not able to be seen from the street, unlike this one) but also to mark the site where the original trawlers unloaded their fish in Auckland.
This oddly positioned figure, tipped upside-down in its New Zealand setting on the opposite side of the world to Europe, with a waka balanced on his shortened limbs, portrays a whimsical interest in navigational travels and legends.
