Riffing off the snarling strains of Smells like Teen Spirit – Nirvana’s anthem for outcasts – Grant Lingard’s 1993 exhibition Smells like team spirit provocatively undercut the ritualised male bonding of rugby with references to homosexuality. “How easy it is”, he once wrote, “to be left without a sense of self, to simply assimilate a culture (that is, rugby culture) that does not acknowledge or make room for me, although attracts me for reasons different yet equally strong.” In Mummy’s Boy, a crumpled pair of rugby boots are made not from leather but from Sunlight soap – a symbol of New Zealand domesticity. After his mother’s death, Grant, aged thirteen, took over her household tasks, and references to cleaning and care recur throughout his art.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )