Pointers to nothing particular

By T.J. McNAMARA

There is pressure on an artist to present a show a year. This is an economic pressure: an artist must live and needs to sell. There are also more subtle pressures: to produce a change, to do something new, to show career development.

This pressure to be seen to be going somewhere has produced a new style of work by John Reynolds but, paradoxically, his show at the Sue Crockford Gallery until November 9 is entitled We Are Going Nowhere. This pessimistic title is exactly suited to the five works in the show which are all strong signs that point decisively, decoratively, elegantly, boldly, firmly to - nowhere.

The three main paintings are tall plates of aluminium with the lovely, silvery, brushed surface that can be achieved on this metal. Reaching from top to bottom is an upright, painted chevron that goes to the edge. It points decisively to the right. Strikingly, these works give a firm direction but with a post-modern distrust of objectives and challenges, they give no indication what they are pointing at. They are an orange, black and silver version of a sign about the nature of signs and nothing else.

The theme of signs is continued in a sculpture on the floor. This is a real signpost beautifully made of aluminium, complete with chamfered top and five fingers. It is a cross that has fallen. It is called The Deposition which usually refers to Christ being taken down from the cross but here it is the cross and the crossroads themselves that are dead and lost. There are no destinations on the signs - a change from such signs drawn by Reynolds in the past which referred to autobiographical journeys.

Like the big aluminium plates, this work hovers on the edge of being simplistic in meaning but manages to be an impressive thing in itself. Art as object.

The most extreme work in the show is called I See By What Blinds Me, a square plate of aluminium with a grid scribed on it. The work comes to life only by virtue of the lights and windows reflected on the surface. There is a hint of symbolic purpose but it is abstracted out of existence.

The show is a tribute to Reynolds' restless seeking for new areas of expression but the search will need yet another direction because these pieces are an end point. In this manner there is nowhere further to go.

The work of Peter James Smith at the Judith Anderson Gallery until November 8 does plenty of voyaging and even includes some long-distance swimming.

One of the best works in the show is about the legendary Hine Poupou's swim from Kapiti Island to D'Urville Island. The swim is inscribed on a map of the Marlborough Sounds and a fine panorama of the approach to D'Urville Island. The whole composition emerges from a big field of black.

These areas of black are a consistent mannerism of the artist and in keeping with the title of the show, Always Through the Dark: Notes on the Continuing Presence of History.

This theme of the link between the present reality and the past works best when Smith evokes history through diagrams and scientific data. A work such as Crossing combines a superb sunset in the deep south with the silhouette of Cook's Endeavour moving with shortened sail amid ice; and a diagram that shows the track of the boat as it made the first known crossing of the Antarctic Circle at 60 degrees south. The track with its loops and changes of direction is a simple but effective symbol for the way an exploring ship proceeds, propelled by the wind.

These tracking symbols, mathematical equations and notes from historic records have been part of the artist's work for some years and have been allied to his very effective painting of landscapes. His painting of the Sutherland Falls in this show is a piece of dramatic virtuosity.

Yet there is pressure for Smith to move on, to push his theme in other directions. Some of the paintings move away from landscape to botanical works or even a ship in a bottle.

The best of them, Notes for Joseph Banks, features a deliciously painted spray of kowhai flower but works like Flax Snail of Plant Life lack the intensity of the kowhai painting, while a picture of Captain Scott's hut falls into simple illustration.

Nevertheless, the best of the work is magical in its evocation of places and the past.

A sign can be one person's poetry and another person's problem. The work of Justine Kurland at Artspace until November 16 is basically splendid landscape photography of west coast beaches.

Within this setting she has persuaded schoolgirls to improvise drama along the lines of The Lord of the Flies but more benevolent. The show has an undeniable charm and technical brilliance but it is hard to take seriously.