Film Screening: The Garden (1991)

City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi is proud to present a screening of The Garden, 1991, (95mins). This event is one of three screenings of Derek Jarman’s feature length films, others include Caravaggio and Sebastaine. Each film is selected and introduced by key members of Aotearoa’s art community who hold Jarman close.

This screening will be held at City Gallery Wellington’s Adam Auditorium in Te Ngākau Civic Square. Doors to the foyer will open from 6.30pm, with a cash bar and refreshments on arrival. Doors to the auditorium will open at 6.45pm and the screening will commence at 7.00pm with pre-recorded introduction by author and writer Samuel Te Kani (Ngāpuhi).

Buy tickets now > https://bit.ly/4eHGH8X

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The Garden—Derek Jarman’s Tree of Life

– Samuel Te Kani

Like most fever dreams, in Derek Jarman’s The Garden (1990) you’ll glimpse the strangely familiar, which might be due in part to those Jungian synchronicities of a collective image system (ocean?); but is also a result of the film having been a quiet but diffuse influence for several decades. Take Jarman’s Judas, here a suicidal biker—his deranged tongue lolling and stained from an American flavour of credit and ribald consumerism. He lurches in his noose while a suited exponent of purchasing power sermonizes on the sublime satiation available to everyone, if only they’d buy more. It might seem like a stretch to link Lady Gaga’s Judas to Jarman’s, but then also not. Where else had he appeared as a biker? And being a self-described lover of the gays with tenuous avantgarde leanings, it’s easy to see the song (and video) are in fact Jarman cues...

Read more from Samuel Te Kani here > https://bit.ly/4dJCgcs

Samuel Te Kani

Samuel Te Kani is a Tamaki Makaurau based writer of art criticism and speculative fiction. His debut short story collection Please, Call Me Jesus (2021) is available through Dead Bird Publishing. He is also halfway through Jane Campion's Netflix funded director's intensive A Wave in the Ocean (2023 - 2024).

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Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days is presented in partnership with The Dowse Art Museum. It has been co-developed by Gus Fisher Gallery and City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. It is co-curated by Lisa Beauchamp, Curator of Contemporary Art at Gus Fisher Gallery, Aaron Lister, Senior Curator (Toi) at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and Michael Lett.

This exhibition was made possible with the lead support of Tony Kerridge and Micheal Do, with additional support of the City Gallery Wellington Foundation, the Delphinium Days Exhibition Circle, and those who wish to remain anonymous. The Wellington Public Programme is brought to you by The British Council New Zealand and the Pacific. With thanks to Howard Sooley, Gordon Rainsford, Denis Doran, the Keith Collins Will Trust and Amanda Wilkinson, London. Films courtesy of LUMA Foundation and James MacKay.

Supported by British Council.