Subject Now Adam Art Gallery Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand July 26-October 5, 2008 The Subject Now, a group exhibition featuring nine international artists, displayed works that evince glimmer, sheen, and unity of much contemporary video and photographic practice. This acted in distinct contrast to numerous registers of turbulence and uncase barely concealed beneath these ever-so-polished surfaces. It is a testament to estimable curatorial skill of Christina Barton, a well-known scholar of post-object (i.e., conceptual tendencies in New Zealand art), that tenuous argument upon which exhibition rested did not yield under pressure of this formally and thematically diverse selection of works. Barton cites art historian Pamela M. Lee, who recently commented, the subject has returned full force, and continued, One's political subjectivity no longer seems a function of agency (or performativity) so much as an act of conscription. Another way of putting it: we are being forced to choose sides. Proceeding from this point of departure, Barton in her accompanying essay writes of political and social climate of current period, from so-called war on terror to perils of everyday existence, ultimately advocating for more experiential practices that purportedly destabilise any too-fixed playing out of subject positions. Fortunately much of work on view generally escaped one-dimensional portrayals of identity and issues, and instead concentrated upon individual responses to contemporary triggers of anxiety, including such phenomena as media hype, political conflicts, ongoing war, and threats of terrorism and urban violence. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Czech artist Marketa Othova's sequence of thirty-one black-and-white photographs records a cafe scene in Venice in which pop superstar Bjork is seated at an outdoor table along with other customers. images recall skillful tourist snapshots or perhaps a private detective's evidence, given their offhand, surreptitious feel, rather than work of paparazzi. One is also reminded of another subtext, that singer is also known for her own violent outbursts when she feels her privacy has been invaded, most recent having occurred, coincidentally, in a New Zealand airport. Willie Doherty's Passage (2006) depicts two figures walking toward on another at night. Doherty's work, beyond its evident allusion to troubles in Northern Ireland, was one of strongest pieces on view, largely due to its ambiguity. Two figures cross paths a few times, only to meet in a gaze, but not otherwise. darkness in which Doherty's video unfolds is markedly different in appearance to dual-screen video Training Ground (2006) by Aernout Mik. Here a crew of police enacts a terrorist drill, detaining suspects, and cordoning off an ostensibly dangerous criminal scene. …