Billy Apple: The New Brand Artist

The Artist has To Live Like Everybody Else
Billy Apple
Auckland Art Gallery
Until June 21

Hundreds of people a day are walking over and around one of Auckland’s great public artworks without realising it.

It is part of the exhibition “The Artist has To Live Like Everybody Else” featuring the work of Billy Apple and is one of the best example of the artist’s work and you don’t even have to go into the Auckland Art Gallery to see. It.

For the duration of his exhibition the artist has been allocated a parking space on the forecourt of the Auckland Art Gallery. How do you get Auckland Transport and a host of bureaucrats to agree to something like that? It’s all part of the mystery, magic and manipulation of the artist who doesn’t get to live like everybody else.

Billy Apple has been a bit of a problem to many people. They can’t find the art and they can’t see the artist but this new show of his art will help give a better idea about the artist and his art.

For those unfamiliar with his work it will be both an exposure to one of the country’s most inventive artists as well as an exploration of just what art and particularly contemporary art, or at least conceptual art attempts to achieve.

The work of most artists can be seen as drawing on their life experiences in terms of the landscapes they inhabit, the people they meet, the political and social ideas that they encounter often reflecting on historical and contemporary art. Billy Apple also produces art about his life, his changing environments and interests but he depicts these in a novel form whereby the ideas that inspire him are not works completed in the traditional sense of a painting or an object.

He is more interested in what is it about an artwork which makes it such a singular entity. He also investigates why there is such a thing as the art market and why the objects which exist and are traded in that market are different.  

Although Apple was born in New Zealand as Barry Bates, he re-created himself as Billy Apple in Billy Apple in London in 1962 when he graduated from the Royal College of Art.

He did this at a time when a new generation of artists were beginning to produce new types of art that drew on popular, relevant themes and source material along with an interest in the world of consumer products.

The combination of conceptual art and name change to Billy Apple meant he was able to break down the arbitrary division between art and life.

Some of the first works in the exhibition show early on that his approach to what was important about art was not the actual painting but the idea of it, its critical reception, its documentation and reputation.

This can be seen in “Young Contemporaries” of 1961 which was originally titled “Label painting (with space for cynical remarks)”. Rather than being an art work it was a record of an artwork.

Since then he has used use his life activities as content for his art so that work and art are interwoven. The art is partly a diary of his life as well as a means of elevating his activities to a point where they are marketable and he becomes a brand.

His work is a critique or discussion and analysis of the art market where often the artist’s name rather than the artwork is the most important aspect. Just as a van Gogh or Picasso sells for millions of dollars because of the brand, so too a Billy Apple is sold for the name and the artworks place in the art market.

Rather than produce paintings he will produce a work such as “SOLD,” which is more like an invoice for the sale of the artwork and acknowledges that someone has purchased it.

His series of small works all entitled “The Artist has To Live Like Everybody Else” essentially leave out the notion that there is an artwork. Rather than producing a piece of art which he will then sell and be paid for so that he can make purchases and pay bills, Apple requests the buyer to pay the bill directly. The artwork becomes a record of a collaborative transaction.

There is his series of “From The Collection” which is a cynical and clever take on corporate and important collections which are often concerned with amassing major names rather than great works of art.

Apple’s commitment to testing the boundary between art and life continue to this day. In 2007, Billy Apple registered his name as a trademark. He is now involved in various projects that explore the legal concept of intellectual property by bringing his art brand into the marketplace. As he says, ‘In 1964 we took the supermarket into the art gallery, now we’re taking the art gallery into the supermarket.’

As well as his artworks the exhibition includes cars from his personal collection including a Lola T212, positioning these vehicles in much the same way as his art. Apple chooses to state that these cars are works of art and are integrated into the way in which he uses them to make artworks about racing and the design of racing circuits.

Events at the Auckland Art Gallery

Saturday 21 March 2pm

Blandine Massiet du Biest hosts a tour in French, of the Billy Apple retrospective as part of French Language Weekend

Sunday 22 March 12pm

Blandine Massiet du Biest hosts a tour in French, of the Billy Apple retrospective as part of French Language Weekend

Sunday 22 March 3pm (70 mins)

A screening of the documentary Being Billy Apple

Easter Sunday 5 April 1pm to 3pm

Craig Miller of Millers Coffee brews the specially roasted Billy Apple coffee blend

Saturday 11 April 11am to 12.30pm

A walking tour with Stephen Cleland Coordinating curator of the Billy Apple retrospective of Billy Apple commissions in Shortland St, finishing with some apple pie at Giles Luncheonette.

Sunday 26 April 1pm

Artist and scientist, Dr Craig Hilton joins Professor Rod Dunbar from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland for an illustrated talk on the Immortalisation Project that is part of the Billy Apple exhibition.

Sunday 10 May 3pm

What is a brand? Derek Lockwood from Saatchi & Saatchi heads a panel discussion on the creation and manipulation of a brand.

Sunday 24 May 3pm

Petrol heads. Graeme Crosby, Brian Lawrence, Ken Smith with Billy Apple

Marketing manager for the MotorSport NZ, Brian Lawrence chairs a panel discussion with former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Graeme Crosby and three-time winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix Kenny Smith MBE with artist / collector Billy Apple.

Sunday 14 June 3pm

Panel discussion – The nature, impact and relevance of Billy Apple’s work

Contemporary Art curator Natasha Conland heads a panel discussion with invited guest presenters.

Sunday 21 June 3pm – last day

Christina Barton hosts a tour through the exhibition.