The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1957, Peter Roche graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1979. He began his career as a performance artist and between 1979 and 1984 he staged twenty-five performances (each unique) in collaboration with Linda Buis. This important body of work has been registered on 35mm black-and-white nega- tive film. For the past eight years Roche has produced kinetic sculpture for installations such as that at Artworks, Auckland in 1985 and Dome installation no. 10 at the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui in 1988.With the latter, the installation characteristically involved the use of magnetic current, sound, and painted steel. Peter Roche's solo exhibitions include 'Transmutations', 331f3 Gallery, Wellington, 1989 and 'Trophies & Emblems' which was shown at three New Zealand venues, commencing with Artspace, Auckland, during late 1990. His participation in group exhi- bitions includes the 'ANZART' events (1981, 1983 and 1985); 'Auckland/Halifax Exchange' between Eye Level Gallery, Nova Scotia and Artspace, Auckland, 1986-87; 'In the Forest of Dream', Moet & Chandan Art Foundation Touring Exhibition, 1990 ; and 'Surface Tension- Ten Artists in the '90s', Auckland City Art Gallery, 1992. NEW ZEALAND PETER ROCHE Left to right Landcrab, Flagstaff and Fortress face 1992 Mixed media incorpor- ating electromechanical components Collection : The artist In his re-siting of abstraction Peter Roche's kinetic wall sculpture and the free-standing structures which came before them are 'less involved with materiality and acquisitive potential, than with performance- what they do registers ahead of what they are ("art" for example)', according to lan Wedde in his review of 'Trophies & Emblems' in Art New Zealand (no.60, 1991 ).The reaction of dadaists Duchamp, Picabia and Tinguely against a polite aesthetic role for art in a repressive and reactionary culture at the beginning of the century paved the way for Roche's hybrid forms. The lacquered surfaces of his recent wall reliefs are interrupted by bizarre mech- anical extrusions. Using elemental forms and rectilinear structures which have an emblematic presence, Roche alludes to the systems and technologies structuring human consciousness in the 1990s. In the case of Fortress face and Land crab he has employed architectural plans as a basis for the work wh ich in turn evoke biological or anthropo- morphic life. Together with Flagstaff, these pieces were first exhibited in the show 'Surface Tension', 1992. Less obvious as commentaries on the horrors of a military reality than his 'Trophies' and 'Emblems' of late 1990, they nevertheless recall insignia representative of fascist ideology and a 94 mechanised geometric schema which conveys the global scale and intent of technological colonisation. Anne Kirker