Bill Hammond Bone Yard Open Home, Cave Painting 4, Convocation of Eagles 2008. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and McLeavey Gallery
Bill Hammond Waiting for Buller. Bar 1995. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1996
Bill Hammond The Fall of Icarus 1995. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1996
This exhibition is now closed
A selection of work by Aotearoa New Zealand's favourite painter/drummer
From his early frenetic interior views where crazed rock singers scream for attention, to his famous paintings of elegant bird-humans staring silently into the distance, this curatorial collaboration between artist Bill Hammond and curator Peter Vangioni provides a welcome opportunity to view works by one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s favourite painters. Hammond is also a musician – a drummer – and musical references are littered throughout the drawings, prints and paintings in the exhibition. Highlights include the massive Cave Painting 4, the first time this major painting has been exhibited in Christchurch, as well as old favourites like The Fall of Icarus, which hasn’t been on display since before the earthquakes, and rarely seen paintings from the artist’s own collection
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Date:
3 August 2019 – 19 January 2020 -
Curator:
Peter Vangioni -
Exhibition number:
1084
Collection works in this exhibition
From the Store
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The long-awaited exhibition is a spectacular survey of more than two decades of work by one of New Zealand's leading contemporary painters.
Commentary
The Edge of the Sea
A vision of New Zealand’s past from 1995:
Europeans first imagined New Zealand as “a garden and a pasture in which the best elements of British society might grow into an ideal nation”... When the smoke of the colonists’ fires cleared at the end of the 19th century, New Zealand had become a different country. Māori had lost their most precious life-support system. Only in the hilliest places did the forest still come down to the sea. Huge slices of the ancient ecosystem were missing, evicted and extinguished. Our histories, however, have had neither the sense of place nor ecological consciousness to explain what has happened.
Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword
Spring is traditionally seen as a time of change, and these last few months have been no exception; since the last issue of the magazine was published in September we’ve made some significant changes at the Gallery.
Commentary
Caveat Collectors
Extinction has claimed nearly fifty per cent of Aotearoa New Zealand’s bird species over the past 650 years. The persistent myth has it that European settlement in the nineteenth century swept away a pristine past. And most obviously, because we know their names and can catalogue (literally) their infamy, that story includes the professional bird collectors as the cause of those extinctions.
Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword
Welcome to the winter edition of Bulletin. It’s impossible to talk about the last few months in Christchurch now without acknowledging the terrible events of 15 March. The mosque shootings were a horrific act that changed this city, and indeed our country, forever. Such brutality and hate is something we could never have imagined. But what also eventuated was an outpouring of love, unity, compassion, courage and incredible leadership. That is something that our city needs to hold on to and never forget. Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery has always been a place for people to gather, regardless of race, gender or religion—we welcome all, and our doors are open. But I know we all can, and must, do so much more.
Commentary
Doctor Jazz Stomp and the Webb Lane Sound
“Bill Hammond is long, lithe and tired, and was born several years ago. Is currently pursuing a Fine Arts course and trying hard to catch up. He is deeply interested in the aesthetic implications of sleep, sports the Rat-Chewed Look in coiffures for ’68, and dreams about blind mice in bikinis. He has never been known to sing outside the confines of his bedroom. Shows a marked but languid preference for the subtle textural nuances and dynamic shadings of washboard, cowbell, woodblocks, claves, cymbal, spoons, thimbles, tambourine, and the palms of the hands in percussive contact.”
Notes
RIP Bill
All of us at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū were very saddened to hear of the death of Bill Hammond over the weekend. Bill’s contribution to the art of Aotearoa New Zealand was original and unforgettable and he occupied a special, beloved place within the arts communities of Christchurch and Lyttelton.
Notes
Playing the Drums at the Gallery
Over forty works by Lyttelton-based artist Bill Hammond, some of which have never been seen in public before, will be on display at the Gallery from this weekend.