Under the auspices of the Aotearoa Baroque Project, which he initiated in 2009, Richard Reddaway has completed a number of research activities, including most recently:
Ahora, vea aquí / Now, see here. Arquetopia / Museo de Arte Religioso Ex Convento Santa Monica / Pulqueria Maltanzin (2015)
“Ahora, vea aquí / Now, see here” resolved an art production residency at Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico, with an event at Pulqueria Maltanzin, a traditional social space where predominantly working-class youth socialise, eat, drink and listen to music. On one level, it used ideas informed by socially engaged practice and a set of sculptural objects made in response to Mexican folk traditions and the collection of the Museo de Arte Religioso Ex Convento Santa Monica to explore how a contemporary understanding of the baroque could engage with issues of class, post-colonialism and neo-liberal economics in modern Mexico. On another, a sometimes-marginalised group played the art; they wore it as masks and listened to the noises it made.
The neo-baroque and complexity (2016)
Published in Neo-Baroques From Latin America to the Hollywood Blockbuster, W. Moser, P. Krieger, & A. Ndalianis (Ed.), this essay, described as an artist “intervention”, contributed to the examination of the “return of the baroque as Neo-Baroque through interdisciplinary perspectives”. A close description using text and illustrations of sculpture and installation practice, both of his own and that of artists Jae Hoon Lee, Reweti Arapere and Catherine Bagnall, I describe how this contemporary art could elaborate an understanding of baroque proliferation and “after-Postmodern pluralism”. Published by Brill Rodopi as part of the series Postmodern Studies, “Neo Baroque From Latin America to the Hollywood Blockbuster” is the concluding publication of the Canadian-based Hispanic Baroque: Complexity in the First Atlantic Culture Project.
El Barroco de Aotearoa (2011)
Curated for MUCA Roma in Mexico City. The exhibition featured the work of six New Zealand artists: Catherine Bagnall, Simon Morris, Joanna Langford, Jae Hoon Lee, Terry Urbahn and Reweti Arapere. As curator, Richard Reddaway developed the project from its initial rationale through to its realisation, including gaining substantial support from Creative New Zealand and the embassies of Mexico and New Zealand. MUCA Roma is the leading museum venue for experimental art at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and this project was the first significant presentation of New Zealand artists to be seen there, and, indeed, in Mexico.
