Julian Dashper

b. 1960 Auckland, New Zealand / d. 2009 Auckland, New Zealand

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Julian Dashper, Untitled (2002), 2001-2002, Cut cedar stretcher, 36 x 36 x 1.25 inches / 91.5 x 91.5 x 3.2 cm, #JD14

Julian Dashper, Untitled (C.V.) 1979-2019, 2019, Printed text document on white paper, 28 pages, A4 paper size, overall dimensions variable, #JD29

Julian Dashper, Untitled (C.V.) 1979-2019 (detail), 2019, Printed text document on white paper, 28 pages, A4 paper size, overall dimensions variable, #JD29

Julian Dashper, Untitled (2005), 2005, Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 inches / 91.5 x 91.5 cm, #JD19

Julian Dashper, Untitled (1999), 1999, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches / 61 x 61 cm, Edition of 3, #JD12

Julian Dashper, Untitled, undated, White paint on drum kit head with cut-out circular hole, 22 7/8 inches in diameter, hole 11 3/4 inches, #JD28

Julian Dashper, Untitled (O), 1992, Photogram, black frame, 8 5/8 x 8 5/8 inches, Edition of 20, #JD09

Julian Dashper, Untitled, 2006, Two circular canvases screwed together, 12 x 12 x 1 inches, Edition 1/3, #JD18

Julian Dashper, Untitled (English White Chain), 1992, White plastic chain, 43.5 inches long / 110 cm long, Edition of 10 (unnumbered), #JD08

Julian Dashper, Untitled (English White Chain) (detail), 1992, White plastic chain, 43.5 inches long / 110 cm long, Edition of 10 (unnumbered), #JD08

Julian Dashper, Untitled (Cheese Chain), 1993, Yellow plastic chain, 44.5 inches long, #JD10

Julian Dashper, Untitled (2006), 2006, Two square canvases screwed together, linen, tacks, wooden stretchers, 11 x 11 x 1.75 inches, Edition 1 of 3, #JD21

Julian Dashper, Untitled, 2006, Three square stetched canvases screwed together, 4 x 4 x 2.25 inches, #JD20

Biography
Julian Dashper was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on February 29, 1960 (leap year day) and died in Auckland on July 30, 2009. During his brief but influential career, he mounted more than 140 solo exhibitions of his work worldwide, including in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States.

His major New Zealand exhibitions include Julian Dashper’s Greatest Hits, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (1992); The Big Bang Theory, Artspace (1994); and The Twist, Waikato Museum of Art and History (1998). In 2005-2006, a mid-career survey of Dashper’s work, Midwestern Unlike You and Me, curated by Christopher Cook and David Raskin, traveled throughout the United States, including to the Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas.

In 2010 here at the gallery, we mounted the well-received, posthumous solo exhibition Julian Dashper (1960-2009): It Is Life, which marked the one-year anniversary of the artist’s passing and featured a single artwork entitled Future Call, as well as written tributes to him by more than 70 artists and others internationally. Dashper’s work was also presented in our survey exhibitions MINUS SPACE at MoMA/PS1, NYC (2008-2009) and MINUS SPACE en Oaxaca: Panorama de 31 artistas internacionales in Oaxaca, Mexico (2012), as well as the group exhibitions Neither Here nor There but Anywhere and Everywhere (2012) and On Paper (2016), among other projects.

In 2001, Dashper was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and was an artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. His work is included in public collections internationally, including the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery; Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland; Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin; Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington; Robert McDougall Gallery, Christchurch; Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui; Suter Gallery, Nelson (all New Zealand); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany.

Overview
Julian Dashper is one of the most renowned reductive artists of his generation and was one of the gallery’s earliest international collaborators, starting around the time of our inception in 2003. Working across a wide array of media for nearly three decades, Dashper produced conceptually and aesthetically rigorous paintings, works on paper, installations, albums, performances, and ephemera. Much of his work concerns the connection between abstract art and popular culture. One recurring theme is the reading of international Modernism in New Zealand art, and how in New Zealand, great Modernist works are known largely through reproduction. Another topic of investigation is the art historical canon – the rarified list of artists regarded by culture in general as great.

A 25-year retrospective of Dashper’s work, entitled Midwestern Unlike You and Me, curated by Christopher Cook and David Raskin, traveled throughout the United States in 2005-2006, making stops at the Sioux City Art Center, Iowa; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Nebraska; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Kansas. In the catalog accompanying the exhibition, Dashper published his text Untitled (on the 4th July) 2005, in which he writes 99 distinct aphorisms, including several prescient statements that have only grown more poignant since his passing:

“5. A white wall. With a picture on it. A round picture. I think that it is a picture. Maybe it is not?

“6. Let me call it an object. This object was not made by me. But it was made by an artist. Let us call it an artwork. It seems more personable than calling it an object.

19. I used to like to watch paint dry. It helped me understand the painting, or at least that is what I used to tell people watching me watch it dry. After finishing a painting I would go and wash up and come back to the studio and stand quietly in front of it. It seemed important at the time. That was in the early 1980s.

21. I was forced to become a minimalist. Or that is what I still like to tell people. Coming from where I come from, I had no choice. Or that is what I like to say. Shipping things long distances affects the way that I make them in the first place. In 1990 that problem first became a subject in my work. By 2000, that subject had disappeared and become a method instead. A method that I did not think about any more. Much like getting dressed. It was just something that you do. Which clothes you choose is another story. It is all about how you get “into the zone,” after all. I am also fond of telling people that I consider minimalism to be a verb of sorts. Not a noun. Not really an adjective either. More of a verb. A doing word, as I learnt in my astronaut’s costume back in the early 1960s. A word that expresses the idea of an action. The idea of minimalism.

54. I do not make art to illustrate a theory, to be shown in bienniales or airports (which seems to be the same sort of thing to me these days), or potentially to sell. I just thought I would say that, even though it should be a given by the time that you read this. I make it for myself. An audience of one. A table set for myself. Guests welcome to pop in. Please ring first.

57. Personally I am convinced that the last great thing that we do not understand is time. Call it the fourth dimension if you will.

59. Put it this way. I do not understand time. And I also do not understand why I seem not to have enough of it at present.

61. As I have written before, it is somewhat difficult as an artist to write about my work because the reader often assumes that is the sole truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Whilst I know what my work is about, I also believe that a wider truth comes to all artwork in time. And that wider or extended truth is something that is generated by the culture and context surrounding the work in general. Remember that culture is not always a dirty word.”