Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
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Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
Dynamic and progressive paintings and woodcuts from one of Aotearoa’s New Zealand foremost modernist artists.
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.
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Collection
Vivian Lynn Playground Series
Much of Vivian Lynn’s art was driven by her desire to challenge and disrupt the established order. Here, she has used the analogy of a children’s playground to critique the repressive society she saw around her in 1970s Aotearoa New Zealand. The figures playing here are not young and the games they play are not carefree. Instead they are grotesque automatons, imprisoned within a system of conformity. It’s an unexpectedly dystopian vision, in which people follow the roles assigned to them without question or agency; mere cogs in an endlessly spinning wheel with no possibility of escape.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)
Collection
Grant Lingard Swan Song
The term ‘swan song’ originated with the ancient Greeks and their belief that a dying swan sang beautifully. It has come to describe a final act before leaving. Grant Lingard conceived this sculpture while dying from HIV/AIDS. It was assembled three months after his death according to his written instructions by his partner Peter Lanini and a group of Grant’s art school friends for the Swan song exhibition at Sydney’s First Draft Gallery in 1996.
The towels, sheets and pillowcases arranged over these drying racks are more than one person or family would typically use, their number suggesting the regular changes required by a long illness. As elegant as ever, the minimal white procession is funereal, but it also documents private acts of loving care for all to see.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
Collection
Glen Hayward Red Form
Works of art aren’t as well behaved as they used to be. Once upon a time, they stayed where they were put, hanging obediently off picture rails or perching politely on pedestals. Since the arrival of the Duchampian readymade, however, many require a second glance to distinguish them from the world around them, as everyday objects are pressed into service in new, perspective-tilting contexts. There’s another kind of work too, the type Glen Hayward is known for: the readymade’s stealthier cousin. Meticulously, even obsessively, crafted to resemble objects you wouldn’t give another glance, these unobtrusive double agents aim to blend in, adding a subversive frisson to the gallery experience.
(Unseen: The Changing Collection, 18 December 2015 – 19 June 2016)
Collection
Glen Hayward Typo
Works of art aren’t as well behaved as they used to be. Once upon a time, they stayed where they were put, hanging obediently off picture rails or perching politely on pedestals. Since the arrival of the Duchampian readymade, however, many require a second glance to distinguish them from the world around them, as everyday objects are pressed into service in new, perspective-tilting contexts. There’s another kind of work too, the type Glen Hayward is known for: the readymade’s stealthier cousin. Meticulously, even obsessively, crafted to resemble objects you wouldn’t give another glance, these unobtrusive double agents aim to blend in, adding a subversive frisson to the gallery experience.
(Unseen: The Changing Collection, 18 December 2015 – 19 June 2016)
Collection
Andrew Drummond Rotated Sample 3
Andrew Drummond is a Christchurch-based artist who works across different media, best known for his large-scale kinetic sculptures and installations. A major survey of his work was held at Christchurch Art Gallery in 2010.
Drummond takes a transformative approach to materials, and has sometimes incorporated meticulously hand-polished pieces of coal into his sculptural work. His photograph of this elemental material in its jewel-like, modified state utilises double exposure, and is from a series exploring the subtle, varying effects of rotation, reflection and light. (Above ground, 2015)
Collection
Pip Culbert Pup Tent
In this deconstructed tent, Pip Culbert has removed everything except the seams. What’s left is like a line drawing, or a plan of a tent at one-to-one scale. Culbert’s work claims space, yet sits lightly on the wall – much as a tent sits lightly on the land while providing a temporary home for its inhabitants. Culbert was a British artist who often exhibited in Aotearoa New Zealand, regularly travelling to visit friends around the country. Her ‘ghost tent’ evokes a sense of movement through, and temporary encampment within, the local landscape.
(Te Wheke, 2020)