Paul Cullen: Building Structures ++

Marcus Moore, Allan Smith, Paul Cullen Archive

Paul Cullen’s art is about the constructing and testing of relations between materials, objects and processes. With a career spanning over forty years, Cullen is one of New Zealand’s most respected sculptors and installation artists. Given the precarious condition of our planet today, Cullen’s attention to fragile and whimsical connections between things gives his work a particular poignancy. Building Structures ++ is a selective survey of the artist’s deeply intriguing body of work, from early exhibitions such as Of Possibilities and Probabilities (1975) and Building Structures (1979), to the garage physics of installations Gravity (Model for a Hypothetical Space) (1999) and Fainting Couch (2012). The significance of Cullen’s practice is examined through new essays by Marcus Moore and Allan Smith, with a foreword by Christina Barton. Over 100 images documenting two thematic exhibitions of Cullen’s work presented at ST PAUL Street Gallery, Auckland, in 2018 and Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2020 are accompanied by previously unseen examples of drawings, models and maquettes from the artist’s archive. An informative and detailed publication providing rare insights into the extent of Cullen’s experimental installation making, this book is a valuable resource for those seeking to understand the importance of Cullen’s contribution to the visual arts in Aotearoa New Zealand.

ISBN: 978-0-473-54830-8
88 pages, over 100 colour images, softcover
Published by split/fountain, 2021
Authors: Marcus Moore, Allan Smith, Paul Cullen Archive