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
Notes
Ascension in Venice
I've long admired the work of Anish Kapoor, an Indian-born British artist, who shows all over the world. I first saw a work of his in a touring show of modern British art around 1984 at Queensland Art Gallery where I was working at the time (I think it went to the former National Art Gallery in Wellington as well - those were the days). Fine powder in primary colours covered abstracted shapes and fanned out slightly on the surface of the floor; it was quite wonderful.
Notes
Subsidence
The whole of New Zealand gets that sinking feeling, in this recent addition to the collection (it's the sketchbook for this), by Tony de Lautour.
Notes
Freeville school misses...
Ron Mueck, Joanna Langford's Up from the plainlands, Andrew Drummond's Counter Rotating and Earthing Device, and Max Gimblett.
Notes
e-poetry
This term the Gallery is running Ringmaster: Stories from Christchurch Art Gallery, a writing competition for 8 to 18 year olds.
Collection
Douglas MacDiarmid Hills from Annat
After a stint at the Wigram Air Force Base in Christchurch with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II, Douglas MacDiarmid found the need to get away to the country for a well-earned sketching holiday. It was here that Hills from Annat was completed. He said of this time:
'I had been able to lay my hands on the last covered wagon in the South Island, also to hire a fine white mare. Off we drove in a flourish then for a month, Blanche, Buddy, me. We were headed for the rolling country where the Canterbury Plains are not yet hills finishing as Alps. At no more than a clip-clop pace it is possible to approach with peaceful observation, meditation merging as no motor vehicle will allow.'
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Notes
More crucial, not less
'I think in periods of crisis and directionlessness the arts are more crucial, not less.'
Notes
Sutton high-fives McCahon
Nothing made it into a W.A. Sutton painting by accident, and the white line that rises diagonally through the sky in Plantation Series II is no exception.
Notes
Hopeful green stuff
'The smallest sprout shows there really is no death' declared Walt Whitman in his 1855 lyrical rampage Song of Myself.
Article
Gazumped
One of the exhibitions brought to a halt by the 22 February earthquake was De-Building, which critic Warren Feeney had described only days earlier as 'Christchurch Art Gallery's finest group show since it opened in 2003'. Seven months on, the show's curator, Justin Paton, reflects on random destruction, strange echoes, critical distance, and the 'gazumping of art by life'.