AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.- The Auckland Art Gallery presents today "Ronnie Van Hout: I’ve Abandoned Me," on view through February 19, 2004. I’ve Abandoned Me explores van Hout’s career-long reckoning with the self-portrait genre.  Many of van Hout’s works consist of dummies, doppelgangers and body doubles. This idea of art as a kind of thwarted self-portraiture - alluded to in the show’s title - is central to I’ve Abandoned Me. With scepticism, humour and a fresh perspective van Hout engages with one of the central themes of recent art - ’the construction of identity’.A Dunedin Public Art Gallery Touring exhibition.
 
Ronnie Van Hout’s reputation as one of New Zealand’s "liveliest and most irreverent artists" has recently been consolidated and affirmed by the impressive survey show I’ve Abandoned Me, organised by the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and currently touring the major galleries of NZ and Australia. Unfortunately, Christchurch has missed out on this major mid-career exhibition, but local audiences will be lucky enough to sample the latest of Ronnie van Hout’s works at the Physics Room.