Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
New exhibition now open.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
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
Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword
Welcome to B.207, the autumn edition of Bulletin. Like the rest of the country, the Gallery has been operating under the Government’s Red traffic light setting since late January. It has to be said that art galleries are, in general, pretty good places in which to practice social distancing. However, while we remain open and welcoming visitors, the recent surge in the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is affecting our ability to schedule our programme. Our team are working hard to continue bringing you a range of exhibitions, events and activities, but as we are all finding throughout so many areas of our lives right now, planning (in the short, medium and even long term) remains tricky. It’s an evolving situation and, reflecting this uncertainty, I encourage you to keep an eye on our social media channels and website for updates.
Commentary
Bury the Lede
From the side of a hill the woman and child – ectomorphic – hunting for cockles, look like wading birds. Siblings climb on top of each other and hold handstands like circus-adjacent cheerleaders in tie-dyed active-wear. Two write code and scale limestone boulders, competing with each other almost good-naturedly without mats. Weeds and things scrounged – pipi, lemons, parsley, small mushrooms, seaweed and bracken fronds – are eaten with brown rice. Later there are bruised peaches, grapefruit and hard pears with a whiff of quince kept in a bowl for the colours and smells – green, orange, gold, purple, brown, grey, black.
Commentary
Alicia Frankovich’s Atlas of Anti-Taxonomies
Orange peel, ant’s eye, hibiscus flower, rhubarb, bacteria, a space blob, a virus, an x-ray of a human skull – human, non-human, inhuman, entangled and disordered. In the Atlas of Anti-Taxonomies, artist Alicia Frankovich groups these things by difference rather than sameness, showing them to have dynamic relationships and visual rhythms. Consisting of over 100 images that the artist has gathered, constructed and found, Frankovich’s carefully selected and arranged collections of phenomena, beings and objects glow from lightboxes hung throughout the gallery space. Their collated, overlapping and montaged images are wild and vibrant. Their placement on the large screens feels momentary, as though this is just one iteration of many possible permutations, disrupting any typical or static taxonomical order. In making this work, Frankovich has drawn on the extensive body of research around posthuman ecologies, decolonising nature and queer theory, underscoring this beautiful exhibition with complex ideas of domination and control.
Interview
Hard and Slippery – HAHAHA (Wait, is that the title?)
Kommi: This is a courteous introductory message to the two of ya’ll and regarding the collab comms between Turumeke and I, and the editing of it by Kirsty, along with additional notes/commentary as like a third voice freaky irirangi concept (but in written/electronic messaging/note adding stuff form),* all towards the art concept workings and discussions in conversations leading to the finished arts ’n’ stuff resulting in a publication of our ponderings and explorations within te ao buzzy buzzy art stuff that we gonna do. I hope my whakamārama there was nice ’n’ clear.
Tui/Turumeke this is Kirsty. Kirsty, this is Tui/Turumeke.
Turumeke: Kia ora! Great articulation Kom!
Kirsty: Wait? Have we started? Was that a test? Hahaha
Kommi: I do not know.
Commentary
The Arts and Crafts Movement at the End of the World
It is interesting to ponder how makers involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement might respond if they were able to see their works on display in galleries today. While exhibitions on a range of scales were central to the Arts and Crafts, and played a key role in how its ideas and objects reached new audiences and took root across the world, today’s retrospective explorations of the Movement are to some extent testament to the fact that it never revolutionised art and life to the extent that its protagonists had initially hoped.
My Favourite
Robert Herdman-Smith's Framed Presentation to Hugh Duncanson Buchanan
I’m often drawn to art that’s attached to a specific time and place, and so it was that I came across Robert Herdman-Smith’s beautiful piece – commissioned in honour of the departure from Little River of a wealthy landowner (Hugh Duncanson Buchanan) in 1908. Behind the intricately carved wooden frame, the tiny perfect lettering embellished with paintings and art nouveau-ish decorations, is a story that I’d like to know more about.
Collection
Gertrude Ball Untitled
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland watercolourist Gertrude Ball moved to London to further her art training in 1920. She struggled to make a living as an artist, although she regularly exhibited with the Royal Academy of Arts. She became a member of the Society of Graphic Art and the Society of Women Artists, but described her journey as an artist as “a long uphill row to hoe”. She was friends with the Auckland printmaker Hilda Wiseman, who may have encouraged her to take up the woodcut. Around 1936 she began working on a major publication to be titled British Castles: A Book of Woodcuts, Written and Illustrated by Gertrude Ball. Although ultimately unpublished, it involved the creation of thirty woodcuts. Returning to Aotearoa after World War II she travelled to Central Otago with fellow artist Mabel Still, making several woodcuts of the region.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Gertrude Ball Untitled
The old bridge across the Clutha at Alexandra, in use from 1882 to 1958.
Collection
Ana Iti Trapped in a kiss
In' Trapped' in a kiss, Ana Iti looks at the ways Ralph Hotere (Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa) used text in his artworks, and at the histories of publishing in Aotearoa. First, Ana breathes onto a glass window at Limeworks (1987–94), the former printmaking studio in Ōtautahi where Hotere made many of his prints. Writing the word ‘hue’, meaning colour in English or gourd in te reo Māori, in the condensation, she pays tribute to Hine-pū-te-hue, the atua of musical instruments made from hue and plays on the use of breath for wind instruments. Next, Ana makes a small letterpress print of the word ‘one’ on an Albion printing press from 1866, a press similar to those used for printing early biblical texts in Māori, and by Māori for publishing newspapers and distributing political information during a time when they were fighting to keep their land. Hineahuone was the first person to breathe life; she was made from one, the clay of Kurawaka. Drawing these two scenes together, the artist considers our relationship to the breath of life and the importance of language, and asks who is the author of our histories and futures.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)