Apr 9, 2025 Metro Arts
Every once in a while when I’m scrolling through Instagram and watch one of those videos where that quite charming man asks people on the New York subway (or the Tube in London or the Metro in Paris or whatever): What’s your take? The residual pleasure of these videos is thinking about all the things that you’d answer if it were you there sitting with him in place of Cate Blanchett or Steve Coogan or that other charming guy who reviews celebrity homes — what would be your take?
Well, I am here to tell you mine: narrative, fictionalised film is, with few exceptions, a terrible format for celebrity biography. My proof? A Complete Unknown, the movie where Timothée Chalamet plays (in many senses of the word) Bob Dylan, directed by James Mangold, the guy who has previously made biographical movies about Johnny Cash and Ferraris.
Now, I was quite entertained by Timmy’s press tour for the movie (including his homemade music video for Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna”) so maybe had set my expectations too high, but I can’t believe how bad they got this thing wrong. Sure, it’s all well and good that he learnt to play guitar for the movie, sung the songs live on set, and didn’t touch a phone for the three months of filming, but if anything all that did the film a disservice. I imagine while they were making it all they thought about was how good his performance was going to be that they thought about little else. Especially dialogue and story. Somehow they made the life of one of the most fascinating people of 60s pop culture (to me anyway) into a movie where your mind starts to wander, doing the maths of how many minutes it’s going to take for it to cover the years you know are left in the story.
All of which left me wondering — are there any good celebrity biopics? I remember liking Basquiat at the time, and Coal Miner’s Daughter too (not at the time, but still many years ago), but would these hold up now? I’m currently thinking that the whole premise is flawed — that there’s something about a famous person’s life (one where the audience often knows the bare facts already) that doesn’t translate to fictionalisation. That’s my take. But, I’m willing to consider exceptions.
—Henry
What’s On
Jennifer Reid (UK) and Pumice
Audio Foundation
WEDNESDAY 16TH APRIL
Given the state of things, weapons-grade folk guitar might be due a comeback, so why not get a solid 50+ years ahead of the curve with bardic inspiration via the power loom. There’s never been a better time to acquaint yourself with a rousing dose of working class Yorkshire solidarity. Jennifer Reid, who you might be familiar with if you watched The Gallows Pole, performs acapella revivals of 19th Century Lancashire dialect work songs and Manchester broadside ballads. Having recently performed with Sheffield’s elasticated discomongers Pulp and the Salfordian crypt-keeper himself, John Cooper Clarke, the opportunity to hear her at work in the more intimate scale of the Audio Foundation feels like a golden opportunity. It’s easy to forget that sometimes all you need to ameliorate a soured spirit is a room to be in and a voice to listen to.
Plus, you’ll get the all too rare chance to see Pumice, an utterly confounding songwriter with a unique ability to almost completely obscure a pop song behind compositional jank. Which is all meant in the most loving and appreciative way possible.
ROMANTIC BRAHMS by the Auckland Philharmonia
Auckland Town Hall
THURSDAY 10 APRIL
&
Pinnacle: Respighi & Rachmaninov by the NZSO,
Auckland Town Hall
SATURDAY 12 APRIL
The NZSO and the Auckland Philharmonia both have huge piano concertos (concerti) on this week. First, on Thursday, the Auckland Phil hosts Inon Barnatan (whose appearance is privately funded by our Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson) to play Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 paired with Franck’s positively lovely D minor Symphony under the guidance of guest conductor Elena Schwarz. Pulling quite the trump card (are we still allowed to say that?) over the Auckland Phil on one of those rare weeks when both major orchestras have concerts on at the town hall, the NZSO hosts Daniil Trifonov, probably in the top 5 most celebrated pianists in the world right now, to play the barnstorming Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3. Those who already have tickets are in for a rollercoaster ride of pianistic fireworks — those that don’t are out of luck as the concert has been sold out for some time. Despite decades of conjecture (or longer), classical music is obviously still not dead.
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express
ASB Waterfront Theatre
TUESDAY 22 APRIL — SATURDAY 10 MAY
When Ken Ludwig first adopted this 1934 Agatha Christie parlour mystery for the stage in 2017, it was the first new play featuring detective Hercule Poirot for more than 75 years — probably the clearest marker that the recent revival of interest in these nearly century-old parlour mysteries was already in full swing by then. Hopefully there’s enough interest left in the now fairly-well-retrodden genre to make this a hit for ATC.
The novel, influenced by the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932, and Christie’s most enduring, has been reprinted over and over again and adapted into multiple films, TV series and specials, radio plays, board games and comic books. So there are not a lot of people around who don’t know whodidit, but the romanticism of the setting and the loopy characters and plotting are seemingly enough to keep them coming back. Cameron Rhodes plays Poirot and the great Rima Te Wiata is the awful American, Helen Hubbard.
On Display
Josephine Cachemaille: New Psychic Life
Sanderson Contemporary
NOW – SUNDAY 27TH APRIL
Step into the evocative world of New Psychic Life, a solo exhibition by Josephine Cachemaille, running from 1 to 27 April 2025 at Sanderson. In this new body of work, Cachemaille explores the depths of interior landscapes—both bodily and psychic—through a constellation of symbolic objects. Figures emerge from an intuitive process of self-directed meditation, loosely inspired by Jungian active imagination. Each form, whether grounded in clay, fabric, or hand-dyed silk, embodies fragments of subconscious energy, inviting viewers to navigate their own psychic terrain.
At the heart of the exhibition are enigmatic, sculptural beings—Worrier, The Sage, and Hubris. These figures resist easy interpretation, their symbolism remaining oblique yet compelling. Worrier, a finely detailed vessel, contains poured anxieties, while The Sage, with its strained, arched form, speaks to inner endurance. Hubris, swathed in silk dyed from the Immortelle plant grown by Cachemaille, stands as a monument to human folly. Each piece operates as a site of contemplation, bringing physical form to invisible forces.
Cachemaille’s material experimentation drives the exhibition, with clay fired in a wood-burning Anagama kiln, resulting in unpredictable, almost metallic finishes. In Immortelle, delicate wood-fired buttons press against taut calico, creating a tangible interplay between texture and tension. Through this sensory engagement, viewers are invited to trace material connections, following gazes between figures, objects, and space itself.
Navigating New Psychic Life is like moving through an emotional and material cosmos—Cachemaille extends an invitation to join her in this meditative journey, to witness and reflect.
View New Psychic Life at Sanderson Contemporary now.
PROMPTS
by Michael Parekōwhai and Lubaina Himid
Artspace Aotearoa
NOW — THURSDAY 17 APRIL
This excellent exhibition ends soon (17 April, we believe) so get it while you can. Here’s what Samuel Te Kani said about it in our current issue:
Michael Parekōwhai seems to be everywhere at the moment. Here his historic work The Indefinite Article (first exhibited in 1990) accompanies a series of tagged newspaper articles by British artist Lubaina Himid. In Parekōwhai’s spatially imposing sculpture, he spells out ‘I AM HE’ — he being the literal indefinite article in te reo, perhaps here signalling not only Parekōwhai’s position as a male artist but also the cultural ambiguity of his since-confirmed status as a contemporary Māori artist. If the work’s edge has been lost, it’s important to note that at the time, Māori art was confined to traditional forms, and any deviation was considered somewhat taboo, if not downright traitorous. In fact, George Hubbard, the curator attached to the work’s first outing in the group show Choice! (also at Artspace), was essentially exiled for daring to push back against public notions of what Māori art could and should be. To see The Indefinite Article here again is a circular moment of great cultural significance. Especially since the similarly ‘indefinite’ articles of the Treaty of Waitangi are currently under threat thanks to a complete lack of leadership and an uncomfortable (and ineloquent) drift to the right.
Then we have Lubaina Himid’s series of tagged Guardian pages, all highlighting the racial biases in an allegedly liberal publication. Far from the daunting formalism of Himid’s larger practice, these are charmingly scrappy pieces. It’s sort of akin to seeing van Gogh’s sketch book, or what Picasso might’ve been like as a tabloid cartoonist. Which isn’t to say the artist’s earnest intention to indict mundane racism is lost. If anything, her humour accents the violence of ‘colour blind’ reporting, making it clearer with a few perfectly executed gags. For example, a surplus of sports reporting on black bodies gives the impression of neo-slavery even before Himid adds painted balls and chains, and gives colonial-style ruffles to their white masters. Hilarious!
Elsewhere
Great book contains great pictures
Being, Seeing, Making, Thinking: 50 Years of The Chartwell Project is a deep, refreshing plunge into the pool of energy The Chartwell Trust has been filling, and topping up, for half a century. Plus there’s well over 100 pictures in it.
*
We must protect our manly nephews
Cartoons Hate Her dons the character of a right-wing masculine dipstick and reveals the greatest threat to America. Princess movies.
*
An Excess of Excess
Alex Sujong Laughlin thinks it might be time to close down the White Lotus.
