8 July ’47

Imagine, New Zealand has not one but at least two artists devoted to UFOs. Ronnie van Hout, of course, has been a longtime believer in the Alien presence and has made many works around the theme but Peter Stichbury is also on the case. His exhibition currently at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno continues his exploration of the abducted and the craft that come all that way to do the deed.

Van Hout and Stichbury are of course joined by a long list of other artists with the same fascination with what is out there. A quick search found Austrian artist Valie Export’s 1970s film Invisible Adversaries. Succinctly described by Amy Taubin ‘as if Godard were reincarnated as a woman and decided to make a feminist version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ it’s become that most sought-after thing: a cult classic (you can watch it here on ubu.com). Then there’s Keith Haring’s long-time obsession with UFOs, an Australian collective called Greatest Hits (Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer & Simon McGlinn) who exhibited an alien ice sculpture, Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO environment and Subodh Gupta’s pots and pans delivery.

And just in case you think the current Presidential election is spacey and getting spacier, this declaration from Jimmy Carter during his (successful) Presidential campaign puts it all in perspective, ‘If I become President, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and  the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one.’

Images: top to bottom left to right, Peter Stichbury, Ronnie van Hout, Keith Haring, Greatest Hits, Subodh Gupta, Mariko Mori and a still from Valie Export’s film