Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan
Quietly powerful and immersive video works revealing the politics behind our view of landscape.
John Vea: Ini Mini Mani Mou
Powerful new work examining the complexities of the immigration process in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dear Shurrie
The art, influence and friendships of sculptor and teacher Francis Shurrock
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Exhibition
George D. Valentine. A Nineteenth Century photographer in New Zealand
An absorbing journey through the works of a nineteenth-century photographer.
Exhibition
Blue Planet
Looking at the ways artists have used the colour blue, Blue Planet celebrates imaginative art making and thinking. Shaped with younger audiences in mind.
Exhibition
White on White
New for children and families, White on White is the thought-provoking replacement to I See Red. Includes new works by contemporary artists, and works from the permanent collection by Ando Hiroshige, Eileen Mayo, Jude Rae and Peter Robinson.
Exhibition
Ben Cauchi: Dead Time
Ben Cauchi deftly manipulates light sources, studio effects and darkroom techniques to create a mysterious, illusory zone. Known for his use of mid-nineteenth-century photographic processes, Dead Time reveals the results of a recently completed residency as Frances Hodgkins Fellow in Dunedin.
Catalogue and iPod Audio Tour available.
Artist Profile
Neil Pardington: The Vault
Like a location scout with a projected narrative in mind, Neil Pardington has taken his large-format camera to museum storage spaces throughout New Zealand.
The Vault is the intensive and unexpectedly intense series of images that results-a compelling photographic record of where (and how) the nation's unseen treasures sit.
Notes
Belgian Refugees by Frances Hodgkins
This article first appeared in The Press on 28 February 2007
Belgian Refugees is one of the first oil paintings that Frances Hodgkins ever exhibited, although at the time she was already well accustomed to showing her watercolours. Working in oils and tempera on canvas, she used an experimental technique in this work that gained much from her experience with watercolour. Believed to have been first shown as Unshatterable, in October 1916 at the International Society's Autumn Exhibition in London, the choice of title would suggest a greater sense of resilience than is actually conveyed by this family group. Here only the baby is oblivious to trouble, while his nursing mother seems devoid of expression, and the older children tense with anxiety or fear. Behind the group, a gap in the swirling grey suggests the fact of a missing father, and this steam and smoke speaks of displacement, the atmospheric backdrop of a train station or the symbolic clouds of war. Within the wall of monochrome, intense colour is reserved for mother and child, who also remind of one of Hodgkins' favourite early choices of subject matter in watercolour.
Notes
Tomoe Gozen pulling the ear of Nagase Hangan in the presence of Tezuka Tarô Mitsumori, Kiso Yoshina
This article first appeared in The Press on 1 November 2006
Standing beneath a leafy bough, and immaculately attired in swathes of red and blue, a petite Japanese woman looks down, bends - and does a surprising thing. Beneath her, and apparently at her mercy, is a traditional samurai warrior, a large and muscular man. The woman, however, pinches the lobe of his ear and inflicts excruciating pain. It is a curious scene. As an ‘ukiyo-e' woodblock print, it is the central panel of a triptych by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861).
Notes
St Brendan and the Sea Monsters by Robert Gibbings
This article first appeared in The Press on 14 December 2005
At just 14 cm tall, the exquisite St Brendan and the Sea Monsters by Irish-born Robert Gibbings (1889-1958) is one of the smallest works in Christchurch Art Gallery's collection, but carries with it some of the largest tales. A rhythmic composition of swirling sea serpents, stingrays and sharks, this finely-crafted woodcut print tells the story of 6th century Irish explorer-monk St. Brendan, or Brendan the Navigator, whose recorded travels were an important part of medieval European folklore, and which continue to fascinate.
Notes
Large Kitchen Composition by Michael Smither
This article first appeared in The Press on 8 June 2005
In 1965, when Large Kitchen Composition was painted, Michael Smither was a young, emerging artist on the verge of broader success. Since completing studies at Elam Art School in 1960, he had held a number of solo shows in Auckland, New Plymouth and Wellington, returning to his hometown of New Plymouth in 1962, and marrying in 1963 (the future writer) Elizabeth. He was also a new father.