December 2017
The AAANZ Best Large Exhibition Catalogue Prize honours originality and intellectual rigour, as well as excellence in the quality of the catalogue design, layout and reproduction of high-quality images. This prize is awarded annually and exhibition catalogues (from monographic surveys to broad thematic publications) issued by major Australian and New Zealand art museums, and those published by art institutions across the South Pacific are eligible. Judges citation: “And our winner – in a good year for its publisher Auckland Art Gallery and its curator Zara Stanhope, is Ann Shelton: Dark Matter. Sometimes “creatively” laid- out catalogues that understand themselves as not merely accompanying the show but as works of art in their own right lose their reader and end up not saying much about the work. But that is absolutely not the case here. Although the catalogue is studded with in-your-face full-page reproductions whose exact relation to the show is at first a little unclear, the catalogue remains entirely true to Shelton’s aesthetic. There are brilliant essays by Abigail Solomon-Godeau (of course) and New York-based German and Comparative Literature Professor Ulrich Baer. The production values of this hard-backed, cardboard-boxed and authoritatively thick catalogue are out of this world. A worthy winner! Congratulations to all those who entered. Extraordinary care, attention and resources are poured into art publishing in Australasia and we want to recognise and commend this here.” Judges: Jaynie Anderson and Rex Butler