Meri Kirihimete!
Warmest holiday wishes from the Gallery team. We’re closing at 5pm on Christmas Eve and will be taking Christmas Day off but we’ll see you on Boxing Day from 10am.
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
Exhibition
Hye Rim Lee: Swan Lake
An immersive, dreamlike digital reinterpretation of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet.
Exhibition
Season's Greetings
A selection of Christmas cards created by distinguished local artists.
Exhibition
Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections
The Gallery acknowledges with deep sadness the passing of Matua Fred Graham on 9 May 2025. Moe mai rā e te Rangatira.
Director's Foreword
Director’s Foreword
As I write this it’s a cold and gloomy Ōtautahi Christchurch day and the Gallery is abuzz with a wide range of visitors, family groups and children, taking part in our school holiday workshops and programmes, and filling our spaces with activity, excitement and laughter. It’s a lovely warm place to be on a grey day. Hopefully by the time this Bulletin arrives in your hand there’s a sense that spring is arriving, trees are greening up and the days are longer once again. By then we will have recently opened our major new collection focused exhibition to replace Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection.
My Favourite
Kushana Bush: Glukupikron
My sister owns a gorgeous Kushana Bush work that I have coveted for some time. I think I had been subconsciously mind-banking her works since seeing it. Then, when I was overseas last year and feeling a little homesick, I listened to an RNZ National podcast of Charlotte Wilson interviewing the artist (Art, Life, Music: Kushana Bush). Kushana’s choice of music to accompany the interview was bliss: carefully chosen pieces by Bach, Satie, Britten, Bayaka pygmies and Jack Body.
Commentary
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Our expansive new collection exhibition explores the fundamental role whenua plays in the visual language and identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Acknowledging Māori as takata whenua, the first peoples to call this land home, themes of kaitiakitaka, colonisation, environmentalism, land use, migration, identity and belonging are considered through collection works, new acquisitions and exciting commissions. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, moving image, printmaking and weaving by historical and contemporary artists are brought together to reveal how land has been a material and subject for art in Aotearoa for hundreds of years. Here, the Gallery’s curators each take a closer look at a key work from the exhibition that tells us something about our complex relationship with the whenua.
Commentary
Turn Around and I’m Gone Again
The public lives of artworks can be occasional and itinerant—they emerge from the cosy sameness of storage into fresh locations and contexts. Many make their first public appearances alongside siblings from their maker’s studio, but later find themselves in very different company. While some resolutely maintain their identity no matter how or where they are shown, others open up to additional associations and meanings. Fittingly for a show about the power of alternative identities, several of the works in Dummies & Doppelgängers have evolved over time, shapeshifting into new lives or likenesses.