Giovanni Intra

Intra was born in Auckland in 1968 and grew up in Tūrangi, a small town in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, and Auckland where he attended Dilworth School, a boys' boarding school.{{cite web|last1=Smith|first1=Roberta|title=Giovanni Intra, 34, a Founder of an Influential Art Gallery, Dies|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/30/obituaries/30INTR.html|website=New York Times|accessdate=16 July 2016|date=30 December 2002}} He studied at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in sculpture in 1990 and a Master of Fine Art in 1993.{{cite web|last1=Leonard|first1=Robert|title=Archives Become Him: The Giovanni Intra Archive|url=http://robertleonard.org/archives-become-him-the-giovanni-intra-archive/|website=Robert Leonard|accessdate=16 July 2016|date=2008}} Curator Robert Leonard has described him as a 'precocious student': he established a reputation as a conceptual painter while still in his teens.{{cite web|last1=Bradley|first1=Will|title=Giovanni Intra 1968-2002|url=https://www.frieze.com/article/giovanni-intra|website=Frieze|accessdate=16 July 2016|date=3 March 2003}}

Intra was fascinated by Surrealist photography, such as the work of Jacques-André Boiffard, who was also a medical photographer.{{cite web|last1=Gifford|first1=Adam|title=Summing up a young artist's short life|url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10557041|website=New Zealand Herald|accessdate=16 July 2016|date=14 February 2009}} In his art work he investigated medicine, which he saw to have replaced religion as a source of hope for modern day society, and the frailties of the human body.{{cite web|title=Passion project|url=http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/317295/passion-project|website=Otago Daily News|accessdate=16 July 2016|date=29 September 2014}} His early work integrated ideas about culture text and body from non-Western sources; some of which were derived from his travels in India c. 1988. His use of text, voice and typography presages his later engagement with theory and criticism.

Intra became part of a collective of artists that established the influential Auckland artist-run space Teststrip in 1992.{{cite web|title=Teststrip: Nostalgia for the Avant-garde|url=http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/exhibition/teststrip-nostalgia-for-the-avant-garde|website=Auckland Art Gallery|accessdate=16 July 2016}}

In 1996 Intra was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and travelled to Los Angeles to study at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He completed a master's degree in Critical Studies in 2001. His thesis was based on Daniel Paul Schreber's 1903 book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903), and used texts by artists including Salvador Dalí and Robert Smithson to "suggest ways that art writing might be reinvented."

After leaving art school Intra was included in a number of public art gallery exhibitions. He was one of eight artists in the exhibition Shadows of Style{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84745448 |title=Shadow of style : eight new artists |date=1992 |publisher=Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth District Council |others=Gregory Burke, Robert Leonard, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Wellington City Art Gallery |isbn=0-908818-22-X |location=New Plymouth, N.Z. |oclc=84745448}} curated by Greg Burke and Robert Leonard at the City Gallery Wellington.{{Cite web |date=1992 |title=Shadows of Style |url=https://citygallery.org.nz/exhibitions/shadow-of-style-eight-new-artists/ |access-date=4 September 2022}} Three of the four Intra works from the exhibition: Nature Morte{{Cite web |title=Nature Morte |url=https://govettbrewster.com/collection/92-4 |access-date=4 September 2022 |website=Govett-Brewster Art Gallery}}, 365 Days {{Cite web |title=365 Days |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/960435 |access-date=4 September 2022 |website=Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa}} and Studded Suit{{Cite web |title=Studded Suit |url=https://chartwell.org.nz/seeing/collection/untitled-studded-suit/ |access-date=4 September 2022 |website=Govett-Brewster Art Gallery}} are now in public collections. Other public gallery exhibitions include Hospitals (1995) at Manawatu Art Gallery / Te Manawa in Palmerston North and Nine Lives Auckland Art Gallery (2003) where art curator and writer Robert Leonard described Intra’s work as, "courting a peculiar beauty; scruffy, disdainful, yet marvelous."{{Cite journal |last=Leonard |first=Robert |date=2003 |title=Nine Lives |journal=Nine Lives: The 2003 Chartwell Exhibition |pages=31 |via=}} In 2024 the Dunedin Public Art Gallery mounted the exhibition Giovanni Intra: Side effects, 'examines the inner workings of Giovanni Intra (1968-2002) as he traversed the social impacts of modern medical theory upon society.'{{Cite web |date=16 March 2024 |title=Giovanni Intra: Side Effects |url=https://dunedin.art.museum/exhibitions/present/giovanni-intra/ |access-date=1 April 2024}}

• Untitled (Studded Suit ) 1990 [https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/13444/untitled-studded-suit view]  
• Nature Morte 1990 [https://govettbrewster.com/collection/92-4 view] 
• An Excellent Fetish 2 1991 [https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/15966/an-excellent-fetish-2 view] 
• 365 Days 1991 [https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/960435 view]  
• Clinic of Phantasms 1992 [https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/638307 view] 
• The Laughing Wall 1992 [https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/2004-53a-l/giovanni-intra/the-laughing-wall view]  
• Needle in Glove 1993 [https://govettbrewster.com/collection/2015-4 view] 
• Untitled 1995 [https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/14438/untitled view]  

Intra began writing about art for a magazine named Stamp while at art school in Auckland. At the time of his death Intra was West Coast editor for Art and Text, and helped edit the magazine Semiotext; his writing was published in Tema Celeste, Artforum, Bookforum and Flash Art. In September 2022 a collection of Intra's writings edited by Robert Leonard with a foreword by Chris Kraus and Mark von Schlegell and introduction by Andrew Berardini is published by Semiotext(e){{Cite book |last=INTRA |first=GIOVANNI |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1259585446 |title=CLINIC OF PHANTASMS : writings 1994-2002. |date=2022 |publisher=SEMIOTEXT(E) |isbn=1-63590-165-0 |location=[S.l.] |oclc=1259585446}}

In 1998 Intra and fellow art student Steve Hanson, who Intra worked with in the library at the Art Center, decided to start an artist-run gallery. They found a location in Los Angeles' Chinatown district and named the gallery China Art Objects, after a sign left by a previous tenant. The gallery opened in January 1999 and was the beginning of the transformation of Chung King Road as a contemporary art scene.{{cite web|last1=Muchnic|first1=Suzanne|title=Giovanni Intra, 34; Chinatown Artist|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-dec-21-me-intra21-story.html|website=Los Angeles Times|access-date=16 July 2016|date=21 December 2002}} China Art Objects became an influential dealer gallery, an early supporter of a number of Los Angeles artists.

Intra died in Manhattan in December 2002, on a visit for the opening of an exhibition by one of China Art Objects' artists. In an obituary for Frieze Will Bradley wrote that Intra would be remembered "for his achievements as an artist, writer and co-founder of China Art Objects Galleries in Los Angeles, and equally for his enthusiasm, intelligence, integrity, warmth and all-around obvious decency".

In 2007 Intra's mother donated his archives to the Auckland Art Gallery. An exhibition based on the archive, Beginning in the Archive: Giovanni Intra 1968-2002, curated by Kate Brettkelly Chalmers, was staged at the Auckland gallery Artspace in 2008.{{cite web|title=Beginning in the Archive: Giovanni Intra 1968-2002 |url=http://www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/beginninginthearchivegiovanniintra19891996.asp |website=Artspace |accessdate=16 July 2016 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160125105034/http://artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/beginninginthearchivegiovanniintra19891996.asp |archivedate=25 January 2016 |df=dmy }}

Works by Intra are held in many public art collections in New Zealand and Australia, including:

• [http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artist/4943/giovanni-intra Auckland Art Gallery]
• [https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/2004-53a-l Christchurch Art Gallery]
• [http://collection.dunedin.art.museum/search.do?view=label&keyword=intra&db=object Dunedin Public Art Gallery]
• [http://govettbrewster.com/collection/?people=228 Govett-Brewster Art Gallery]
• [http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/960435 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa]
• [http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/14801/ National Gallery of Victoria]

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Category:1968 births

Category:2002 deaths

Category:Artists from Auckland

Category:Drug-related deaths in New York City

Category:Elam Art School alumni

Category:New Zealand contemporary artists