Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections
The long and distinguished practice of Aotearoa New Zealand artist Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui) is celebrated in this selection of significant sculptures and relief works from 1965 to 2013.
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan
Quietly powerful and immersive video works revealing the politics behind our view of landscape.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
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Late night Wednesday until 9pm
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Free entry, free wifi
Collection
Bing Dawe Freezing Works Series: Designs for a Dinner Set
Bing Dawe serves up the brutal reality of the abattoir in this series of woodcut prints. Dawe worked for many years at the Islington Freezing Works in Ōtautahi Christchurch, and became disturbed by his growing indifference to the slaughter of animals caused by the repetitive nature of his job on the assembly line. He commented at the time, “It made me think about […] the need to almost anaesthetise the brain, the difference between the frenetic confines of the abattoir and the hygienic packages we pick up at the supermarket.” These confronting designs for an imagined dinner set draw our attention to the disconnect between what we eat and where it comes from.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Director's Foreword
Director’s Foreword
The start of a new year is always a good time to think about the last twelve months and ensure good plans are in place for the coming year. Our exhibitions are scheduled and developed a number of years ahead of opening, so it’s always exciting to see them finally come to fruition – and appear in print in each new edition of Bulletin.
Commentary
Clocking Off
For most people, migration is a semi-abstract concept. It’s the fall guy for social issues, the topic of choice for political pundits. For me, it was something I romanticised. Although both of my parents were born in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland I always thought of myself as the child of migrants, as all four of my grandparents were born outside of Aotearoa New Zealand and immigrated here for various reasons at various times. However, it wasn’t until I became a migrant worker myself, after accepting a job in the United States and navigating immigration firsthand, that I realised how difficult moving countries was.
My Favourite
Tony Fomison: No!
Dad was always the arty one.
We didn’t think of it as art, growing up. We just thought of it as him having strong opinions about what looked and sounded good. Music, especially. After school finished each day, he’d crank up the stereo and our home would hum with blues and rock from the 1960s and early 1970s. Cream and the original Fleetwood Mac were forever fighting the drone of the kitchen extractor fan.
Commentary
Disruptive Landscapes
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan includes moving-image works that examine our relationships to the land, whether historical, mythological or contemporary. They reveal how landscapes at once reflect our imagination and endorse national identity and societal structures. Landscapes are the aestheticised and mediated form of our natural surroundings, encoded with politics, cultural memories and belief systems; through distinct framing and composition they assert certain politics and mindsets, such as the notion of an untouched, unoccupied land, or the ideal ecosystem for a site.
Commentary
Morris Dancing in the Modelling Room
Arriving in Ōtautahi Christchurch must have been like arriving on another planet for Francis Shurrock. It was 1924, and he had travelled half-way around the world from England to take up a position as modelling and art craft master at the Canterbury College School of Art. Indeed, one of his pupils there, Juliet Peter, later described him as an “alien”, for the fresh approach to teaching that made him stand out from other teachers at the school. Nevertheless, Shurrock made Ōtautahi his home and never returned to England.
Commentary
Japan circa 1970, Landscape and Chile
In 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco formally ended the war between the Allied Powers and Japan. The United States and Japan also signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security (known in Japan as Anpo), in which Japan agreed to host United States military bases. Nine years later a revised version of this treaty further formalising the arrangement between the two nations was negotiated by Japanese prime minister Kishi Nobusuke (the grandfather of future prime minister Abe Shinzo) and President Eisenhower.