Bill Culbert: Making Light Work

by Ian Wedde

Celebrating one of New Zealand’s most distinguished artists, this substantial monograph reviews the artistic accomplishments of Bill Culbert. Exploring the predilections and passions that have fueled Culbert’s art over the past 50 years, this account presents an in-depth exploration of his preoccupation with light—stemming from his days as a student in London in the late 1950s. Demonstrating how he has deployed his concepts through numerous mediums, this survey illustrates the domestic-scaled works, dazzling large-scale museum installations, and public spaces such as the Champs Elysées in Paris and the Millennium Dome in London. Suggesting that energy, travel, congeniality, and conviviality are also key to understanding Culbert’s work, this study depicts the diversity of his pieces, from wall-mounted light sculptures made of white fluorescent tubes and colored plastic containers to his installations of objects from the dump near his home. From his studies in Auckland and London to his life-changing visits to Philadelphia and France, this chronicle explores every facet of Culbert’s career, providing a thoughtful and compelling overview of an art aficionado.

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

New Zealand poet, fiction writer, critic, and art curator.

Ian Wedde is the author of eight novels, fifteen collections of poetry, two collections of essays, and a number of anthologies and art monographs. His most recent novel is The Reed Warbler (2020), and The Little Ache – a German notebook, written while he was in Berlin to research The Reed Warbler, was published in July 2021. His memoir, The Grass Catcher: A Digression About Home, was published in 2014, and his Selected Poems in 2017. Decentred: Selected Essays 2004–2020 will be published in late 2022.

Ian is the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and grants. Among the most recent are the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship at Menton in France (2005), a Fulbright New Zealand Travel Award to the USA (2006), an Arts Foundation Laureate Award (2006), a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland (2007), an ONZM (2010), and the Landfall Essay Prize (2010). In 2011–13 Wedde was New Zealand’s poet laureate. He was awarded the Creative New Zealand Writers’ Residency in Berlin 2013–14, and in 2014 the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement (poetry). He lives in Auckland.