Background

Wystan Curnow was born on February 13, 1939, in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is a son of Allen Curnow, a journalist, academic and poet, and Betty Curnow, an artist.

Education

In 1951, the Curnow's family moved from Christchurch to Auckland's North Shore, where Wystan attended Takapuna Grammar School.

In 1962, Wystan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Auckland University College (present-day the University of Auckland). The following year, in 1963, he graduated with first-class honors from the same university, obtaining a Master of Arts degree. In 1971, Curnow got a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where Morse Peckham was his mentor. At the University of Pennsylvania, Curnow studied the 19th-century American literature and literary theory.

Career

Beginning in 1967 until 1969, Wystan held a post of a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Rochester in New York. In 1970, he moved to Auckland and the same year, he was appointed a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Auckland, where his father worked as well. Later, he was promoted to the post of a Professor of English at the university. In 2009, Curnow retired from the university and was appointed an Honorary Research Fellow there.

In the 1970's, Wystan began working as a curator and arts administrator in the visual arts sector in New Zealand and around the world. Since that time, he has been working to enhance the authority of New Zealand artists abroad. In 1979, he served as a curator, administrator and collaborator of Billy Apple on his 1979 exhibition tour of nine galleries in New Zealand. Throughout his career, he has curated many other exhibitions, including "I will need words: Colin McCahon's Word and Number Paintings" (1984), "Sex & Sign" (1987) and "Putting the Land on the Map: Art and Cartography since 1840" (1989), among others. Curnow also acted as the New Zealand Commissioner for the Fourth Biennale of Sydney.

Also, since the 1970's, Wystan has been writing consistently on New Zealand post-object art and abstract painting. Most of his writings concern the works of such artists, as Colin McCahon, Max Gimblett, Lawrence Weiner, Len Lye, Billy Apple and Imants Tillers. He also wrote about the work of such artists, as Peter Roche, Linda Buis, Andrew Drummond, David Mealing, Roger Peters and Bruce Barber.

Moreover, in 1973, Wystan co-edited the most significant record of post-object art in the 1970's, entitled "New Art: Some Recent New Zealand Sculpture and Post-object Art". In 1976, he also edited the anthology "Essays on New Zealand Literature".

During the early 1980's, Curnow lived in San Francisco, where he went to poetry readings at places like Intersection. At the same time, Curnow also co-edited the literary magazine "Splash" and contributed to numerous art and literary publications, including "And", the first to apply post-structuralist ideas to New Zealand culture and writing. At that time, Curnow also founded Artspace, the first such publicly funded contemporary space for the exhibition of art in New Zealand, of which he was director from 1985 till 1990.

In addition, it was in the 1980's, that Curnow was particularly interested in small print run, so-called "little magazines", where he published both poetry and art criticism. In the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's, Curnow contributed his writings to different periodicals, that included Artforum, Studio International, Art Asia Pacific, Art New Zealand, Midwest, New Zealand Listener and many others. It's also worth noting, that throughout his career, Curnow has written poetry and published it in various publications.

In 1998, Wystan collaborated with Christina Barton, Robert Leonard and John Hurrell, curating the critical overview and retrospective exhibition of post-objects art in New Zealand. Later, in 2005, together with Susan Davis, Wystan established the art project space JAR.

Despite the fact, that Wystan has been living and working in Auckland since 1970, he spent significant period of time overseas, especially in the United States. In 2009, he was a Distinguished International Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 2010, he acted as a writer-in-residence in the Seresin Landfall Residency in Tuscany, Italy. He also has held writer’s residences in Buffalo, New York, Avize, Champagne, Giaoli and Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.

During his career, Wystan often collaborated with artist Jim Allen and worked to provide infrastructure and critical consideration to expatriate New Zealand artists Billy Apple and Len Lye overseas.

Currently, Wystan co-edits the journal "Reading Room", published by the E. H. McCormick Research Library at the Auckland Art Gallery, and co-directs JAR, New Zealand’s first solar powered art gallery in Kingsland, Auckland. Also, Wystan is a Trustee of the Len Lye Foundation.

Achievements

• Wystan Curnow is a widely regarded poet, critic, curator and editor, who is particularly noted for his writings on the work of New Zealand artists, including Len Lye, Billy Apple and Colin McCahon, among others. Wystan has published six collections of poetry, authored and edited many books of art and literary criticism. He has curated over 30 exhibitions around New Zealand and internationally. In addition, Wystan was instrumental in establishing Artspace in Auckland and is a Trustee of the Len Lye Foundation.
  
  Moving freely between literature and the arts, theory and practice, Wystan’s keen observations in the form of long essays, reviews and reports have provided essential, in-depth commentary on New Zealand contemporary art since 1970. His collection of art writings, "The Critic’s Part" (2014), was awarded the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand's gold medal for best collection in 2015.
  
  During his career, Curnow received many other awards. In 1990, he was short-listed for the New Zealand Book Award. In 2005, Curnow was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to art and literature. His other awards include the Fulbright-Hays Travel Award, Katherine Mansfield Fiction Award, Claude McCarthy Fellowship, Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement and many others.

Works

More photos

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  • New Art: Some Recent New Zealand Sculpture and Post-Object Art

    (This work, edited by Wystan Curnow and Jim Allen, present...)

    1976
  • The Critic's Part: Wystan Curnow Art Writings 1971–2013

    (This edited collection brings together a selection of Wys...)

    2014
  • Imants Tillers and the "Book of Power"

    (Imants Tillers is recognised as one of Australia's most i...)

    1998
  • Figures of Motion: Len Lye, Selected Writings

    (Wystan Curnow co-edited this work with Roger Horrocks.)

    1984
  • Essays on New Zealand Literature

    (Wystan Curnow is the editor of this work.)

    1973
  • Pleasures and Dangers: Artists of the '90s

    (Edited by Wystan Curnow and Trish Clark.)

    1991
  • Cancer Daybook 1989

Views

Wystan's writing and interests have been significantly influenced by his time in the United States in the 1960's and his exposure to American modernist painting and conceptual art, as well as the writing of the American Language poets (an avant-garde group in the United States poetry, that emerged in the late 1960's and early 1970's).

In many of his writings, Curnow has sought to collapse the distinction between his art criticism and poetry, and sometimes these forms are indistinguishable from each other. An example of this is his essay in "New Art: Some Recent New Zealand Sculpture and Post-object Art" - "Mt Eden Crater Performance" (1976) - which describes in stream-of-consciousness a performance piece by artist Bruce Barber.

Personality

Wystan was named after the modernist poet Wystan Hugh Auden.

Connections

Wystan married Susan (Matthews) Curnow, a homemaker, on April 1, 1962. Their marriage produced four children - Nathaniel, Benjamin, Barnaby and Toby.

Father:

Allen Curnow

Mother:

Betty Curnow

child:

Nathaniel Curnow

child:

Benjamin Curnow

child:

Barnaby Curnow

child:

Toby Curnow

Wife:

Susan (Matthews) Curnow