Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist
A rare opportunity to view the work of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most adventurous and experimental modernist artists.
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
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
Collection
Glen Hayward Yertle
Glen Hayward’s towering Yertle had its origins in a collection of twenty-eight abandoned paint tins he spied in a back-of-house Christchurch Art Gallery storeroom, containing the residue of wall colours from past exhibitions. Meticulously recreating these tins out of wood, Hayward then painted his carved replicas, faithfully reproducing every smear and drip of forgotten paint.
Stacked up like its namesake, Dr Seuss’s vainglorious turtle king, Hayward's Yertle is a feat of painstaking fearlessness. (Above ground, 2015)
Notes
Getting Older - Flying Nun
November sees the 30th anniversary of my favourite record label, Flying Nun Records.
Notes
Trick AND Treat
Hist and hark! Draw near and tremble,
for 'tis this night that ghosts assemble!
Collection
Ann Shelton Wintering, after a Van der Velden study, Otira Gorge
A small watercolour study of a mountain stream at Otira Gorge by van der Velden provided the inspiration for Ann Shelton’s Wintering, after a Van der Velden study, Otira Gorge. However, her response to the original study in the Hocken Library’s collection, which can be viewed in the next gallery, is monumental in scale and invites comparison with van der Velden’s large paintings of the same motif. Shelton elevates the mana and significance of the small study. In travelling to the Otira region to make her response to van der Velden’s work, Shelton follows in the footsteps of the many colonial photographers who worked in the region. Her contemporary view, with the cascading torrent of the Otira River, densely forested mountain slopes and threatening storm clouds, highlights the beauty of the Otira Gorge – a landscape that has changed little since it was photographed in the mid nineteenth century. (Van der Velden: Otira, February 2011)
Notes
Art and Ethics
Recently I read an art history thesis, which covers two instances of moral panic and subsequent legal action taken against galleries for showing photographic art depicting naked children, one in the US in 1984 (Robert Mapplethorpe) and one in Australia in 2008 (Bill Henson).
