Latest news with #MillyMitchell-Anyon
Scoop
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Flaming Star: A Queered Reckoning Of ‘The West' Opens At Dowse Art Museum
Press Release – The Dowse Art Museum Working across mediums including video, sculpture, photography, painting, and jewellery, the artists critically engage with themes of heteronormativity, indigenous rights, and queer identity. Flaming Star, opening 12 July and running until 9 November at The Dowse Art Museum, is a provocative and irreverent exploration of queerness, desire, and the myth of the colonial frontier. Featuring eight boundary-pushing artists from Aotearoa, this group exhibition rides deep into the heart of cowboy iconography—only to dismantle it, bedazzle it, and lay it bare in all its sultry contradiction. Curated by Milly Mitchell-Anyon, Flaming Star reimagines the Wild West as a site of queer possibility and critique. From mechanical bull riders in slow motion to spaghetti western dreamscapes and rhinestoned relics of masculine fantasy, the exhibition unpacks how 'The West' as both fantasy and aesthetic has shaped—and continues to haunt—our ideas of identity, gender, and cultural power. 'Cowboys are hot right now. From Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, a sudden surge in the popularity of line-dancing, to a cowboy themed range of Hello Kitty pajamas – being a cowboy is in, but it's a problematic and escapist fantasy. Flaming Star looks at the work of eight contemporary artists and how they've subverted, appropriated and disrupted this myth of the cowboy and 'west' in their work' according to Mitchell-Anyon. Working across mediums including video, sculpture, photography, painting, and jewellery, the artists critically engage with themes of heteronormativity, indigenous rights, and queer identity. The result is a richly layered exhibition that subverts traditional cowboy imagery and repositions it within contemporary conversations around sexuality, sovereignty, and survival. ' Flaming Star is our sultriest saloon yet—equal parts desire and disruption,' says curator Milly Mitchell-Anyon. ' These artists are undoing the cowboy myth with humour, grief, tenderness, and horny yearning. They're flipping the saddle and re-writing the script—making space for queer, indigenous, and decolonial voices that have always been there, but rarely centred. ' The artists featured include: Chris Ulutupu presents a haunting and absurd 20-minute art-house soap opera where queer ghosts, failing marriages, and Pacific identity intersect in a haunted mansion in Lower Hutt. Ulutupu's work, Sisifo is part of his West Series, critiquing heteronormativity and the slow creep of Western influence on Pacific cultures. Sandy Gibbs re-presents a two-channel video installation, Sometimes a kiss… is not just a kiss (2006), featuring slow-motion bull riders, split-screen montages of mediatised masculinity, and a fountain that rhythmically ejaculates water—all set against a backdrop of powder pink satin curtains. The work confronts gender norms and the eroticised masculinity of cowboy culture with satirical flourish. Melanie Tangaere Baldwin (Ngāti Porou) presents a commissioned photographic work styled as a soft-core glamour shoot, embodying her childhood (and adulthood) obsession with Patsy Cline, called I Fall 2 Pieces (2025). Inspired by road trips with her grandparents and her early 2000s country band, the work is a tender exploration of family and identity through the emo melancholy of country music. Ming Ranginui (Te Ati Haunui-a-Pāpārangi)– presents three sculptural saddles crafted from silk, sheepskin, rhinestones and embroidery using Māori weaving techniques. These drag-inspired works critique the appropriation of Māori culture by Pākehā women and blur the boundaries of cultural identity, challenging traditional materials and representations of cowboy mythos. Keri-Mei Zagrobelna (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Te Āti Awa). Wellington-based jeweller Zagrobelna reclaims the cowboy bolo tie in her pukana series. These wearable sculptures critique the appropriation of Native American imagery and honour indigenous resistance against colonial violence. Bec Agnew. Presents her surreal stop-motion animation made entirely from spaghetti, Infinite West (2022), for the first time in Aotearoa. Mixing Egyptian queens, activewear fashion, and cowboy tropes, Agnew's work is an absurd, feminist epic that mocks and mourns the spaghetti western genre. Michael Haggie Whanganui-based painter and former art teacher Michael Haggie revisits the cowboy crushes of his youth. His intimate graphite drawings and newly commissioned oil paintings trace the artist's queer fantasies, filled with longing, camp, and tenderness. Arapeta Hākura (Whanaunga, Ruanui, Mahuta, Koata, Te Wehi, Kahu, Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri, Ngāpuhi, Porou). Presents a bold installation of ceramic horse penises—a response to Auckland Museum's collection of taxidermy horses, whose penises were removed. Accompanied by a commissioned photograph of Hākura as a cowboy, this work critiques historical erasure of collections and reclaims queer erotic power through Māori pūrākau, or storytelling. 'The concept of the 'cowboy' confronts and queers the traditional, white, cisgender, heterosexual cowboy – the bastion of masculinity,' says Mitchell-Anyon. 'It brings visibility to indigenous and queer people who subvert the cowboy narrative by making it their own. Flaming Star is a love letter and a reckoning—and a reckoning can be hot, messy, and is deeply necessary. Especially right now.' 'The Dowse Art Museum has never been afraid of pushing the boundaries when it comes to exhibition making. Former Director, James Mack, has an adage we live by which is 'the public will forgive you anything as long as you're not boring.' Flaming Star will be on display at The Dowse Art Museum in Galleries 1-5 from 12 July to 9 November 2025.
Scoop
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Flaming Star: A Queered Reckoning Of ‘The West' Opens At Dowse Art Museum
Flaming Star, opening 12 July and running until 9 November at The Dowse Art Museum, is a provocative and irreverent exploration of queerness, desire, and the myth of the colonial frontier. Featuring eight boundary-pushing artists from Aotearoa, this group exhibition rides deep into the heart of cowboy iconography—only to dismantle it, bedazzle it, and lay it bare in all its sultry contradiction. Curated by Milly Mitchell-Anyon, Flaming Star reimagines the Wild West as a site of queer possibility and critique. From mechanical bull riders in slow motion to spaghetti western dreamscapes and rhinestoned relics of masculine fantasy, the exhibition unpacks how "The West" as both fantasy and aesthetic has shaped—and continues to haunt—our ideas of identity, gender, and cultural power. 'Cowboys are hot right now. From Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, a sudden surge in the popularity of line-dancing, to a cowboy themed range of Hello Kitty pajamas – being a cowboy is in, but it's a problematic and escapist fantasy. Flaming Star looks at the work of eight contemporary artists and how they've subverted, appropriated and disrupted this myth of the cowboy and 'west' in their work' according to Mitchell-Anyon. Working across mediums including video, sculpture, photography, painting, and jewellery, the artists critically engage with themes of heteronormativity, indigenous rights, and queer identity. The result is a richly layered exhibition that subverts traditional cowboy imagery and repositions it within contemporary conversations around sexuality, sovereignty, and survival. ' Flaming Star is our sultriest saloon yet—equal parts desire and disruption,' says curator Milly Mitchell-Anyon. ' These artists are undoing the cowboy myth with humour, grief, tenderness, and horny yearning. They're flipping the saddle and re-writing the script—making space for queer, indigenous, and decolonial voices that have always been there, but rarely centred. ' The artists featured include: Chris Ulutupu presents a haunting and absurd 20-minute art-house soap opera where queer ghosts, failing marriages, and Pacific identity intersect in a haunted mansion in Lower Hutt. Ulutupu's work, Sisifo is part of his West Series, critiquing heteronormativity and the slow creep of Western influence on Pacific cultures. Sandy Gibbs re-presents a two-channel video installation, Sometimes a kiss… is not just a kiss (2006), featuring slow-motion bull riders, split-screen montages of mediatised masculinity, and a fountain that rhythmically ejaculates water—all set against a backdrop of powder pink satin curtains. The work confronts gender norms and the eroticised masculinity of cowboy culture with satirical flourish. Melanie Tangaere Baldwin (Ngāti Porou) presents a commissioned photographic work styled as a soft-core glamour shoot, embodying her childhood (and adulthood) obsession with Patsy Cline, called I Fall 2 Pieces (2025). Inspired by road trips with her grandparents and her early 2000s country band, the work is a tender exploration of family and identity through the emo melancholy of country music. Ming Ranginui (Te Ati Haunui-a-Pāpārangi)– presents three sculptural saddles crafted from silk, sheepskin, rhinestones and embroidery using Māori weaving techniques. These drag-inspired works critique the appropriation of Māori culture by Pākehā women and blur the boundaries of cultural identity, challenging traditional materials and representations of cowboy mythos. Keri-Mei Zagrobelna (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Te Āti Awa). Wellington-based jeweller Zagrobelna reclaims the cowboy bolo tie in her pukana series. These wearable sculptures critique the appropriation of Native American imagery and honour indigenous resistance against colonial violence. Bec Agnew. Presents her surreal stop-motion animation made entirely from spaghetti, Infinite West (2022), for the first time in Aotearoa. Mixing Egyptian queens, activewear fashion, and cowboy tropes, Agnew's work is an absurd, feminist epic that mocks and mourns the spaghetti western genre. Michael Haggie Whanganui-based painter and former art teacher Michael Haggie revisits the cowboy crushes of his youth. His intimate graphite drawings and newly commissioned oil paintings trace the artist's queer fantasies, filled with longing, camp, and tenderness. Arapeta Hākura (Whanaunga, Ruanui, Mahuta, Koata, Te Wehi, Kahu, Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri, Ngāpuhi, Porou). Presents a bold installation of ceramic horse penises—a response to Auckland Museum's collection of taxidermy horses, whose penises were removed. Accompanied by a commissioned photograph of Hākura as a cowboy, this work critiques historical erasure of collections and reclaims queer erotic power through Māori pūrākau, or storytelling. 'The concept of the 'cowboy' confronts and queers the traditional, white, cisgender, heterosexual cowboy – the bastion of masculinity,' says Mitchell-Anyon. 'It brings visibility to indigenous and queer people who subvert the cowboy narrative by making it their own. Flaming Star is a love letter and a reckoning—and a reckoning can be hot, messy, and is deeply necessary. Especially right now.' 'The Dowse Art Museum has never been afraid of pushing the boundaries when it comes to exhibition making. Former Director, James Mack, has an adage we live by which is 'the public will forgive you anything as long as you're not boring.' Flaming Star will be on display at The Dowse Art Museum in Galleries 1-5 from 12 July to 9 November 2025.
