What’s On
Talk: Māori Moving Image – Curators and Artists
Join curators Melanie Oliver and Bridget Reweti in conversation with artists Janet Lilo and Jeremy Leatinu’u (and probably more).
Talk: Laurence Aberhart on Bill Hammond
Debunk some myths and make some new ones with Laurence Aberhart.
Workshop: Bumper-sticker Time
Come make your own bumper-sticker with fresh-as multi-talented artist Janet Lilo (Tainui, Ngāpuhi, Samoa, Niue).
Guided tours
11am and 2pm daily
Open 7 days
Free entry, free wifi
Late night
Wednesday until 9pm
Notes
Heck yeah, that happened!
Our very own Art-tastic by our very own Sarah Pepperle won TWO awards at last night's New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults at Te Papa!!!
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.”
Commentary
Power and Possibility
Jonathan Jones, art critic for the Guardian newspaper, described it as “a spectacle that displays the power and mystery of our planet”. Made more than forty years ago, Walter De Maria’s 1977 sculpture The Lightning Field remains one of the world’s most ambitious manifestations of light-based art.
My Favourite
Juliet Peter's Harvesting, Rydal Downs
I grew up in a house in Glandovey Road, Fendalton—twenty-two bedrooms! Back then, my options were to be a nurse or a school teacher, but all my life, I’d wanted to be a farmer. My father encouraged that practical side of me. He was a keen fly fisherman and called me “sonny”. I had my hair cut at the barbers; I wore long pants in winter—I thought I was a boy.
Commentary
The Time Problem
Time is a problem in the contemporary world. There is simply not enough of it. Our to-do lists are too long; the time available to do what needs to be done is too short; the demands on our attention are increasingly brutal. Digital technologies track the minutiae of how we spend our days, but the sheer speed at which things seem to be happening makes it difficult to keep up.
Supporter
Andre Hofenk, ANZ Private
Foundation Partner
Christchurch Art Gallery is the heart of the city.
Artist Profile
White Camellias Revisited
Just over a quarter of a century ago the Robert McDougall Art Gallery hosted an exhibition to celebrate a century of women’s art making in Canterbury. It was the Gallery’s contribution to the country-wide centenary celebrations of women’s suffrage. Co-curated by Lara Strongman and myself, White Camellias: A Century of Artmaking by Women in Canterbury, as its title suggests, was a springboard for both korero and further study of women’s art history.
Artist Profile
Studio Visit
I was in London last October and keen to visit Ron Mueck, but he wasn’t there: he’d gone down to Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight, where he has a studio. I spent my childhood in England, but I’d never been to the Isle of Wight. It’s in the English Channel; a Victorian retreat beloved by Tennyson, who wrote ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ here. It was also the home of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, who made portraits of many of Tennyson’s guests. (When Tennyson took the American poet Longfellow to Cameron’s house for a portrait, he reportedly warned: “You’ll have to do whatever she tells you. I’ll come back soon and see what’s left of you.”)
Notes
Christchurch Art Gallery scoops major Australasian design awards
Congrats to our publishing team of David Simpson and Sarah Pepperle for a night of bests at the Museums Australasia Publication Design Awards at a gala event in Alice Springs last night. The Gallery won best magazine (Bulletin), best book (Us v Them: Tony de Lautour), best children's book (ART-TASTIC) and best in show (Us v Them)!