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
Seeing all my favourite artworks again...
'Seeing them is like visiting old friends' - John from Cashmere.
Notes
Gordon Crook 1921 – 2011
If, when we're open, an artist represented in our collection dies, we generally arrange for a work of theirs to be hung at the top of the stairs on the side of the entrance to the Burdon Family Gallery, with a label that notes their contribution and recent passing. I like this simple convention and the respect it shows for an arts practitioner whose contribution to New Zealand art we've thought well enough of to acquire.
Notes
‘Oceania’ x 2 in Wellington
I was pleased to see both components of Oceania in Wellington on the opening weekend. A great idea for City Gallery and Te Papa to mount connected exhibitions, effectively two distinct components of one show, and to market these together. It's an effective and rewarding combo for all those international visitors coming to the city over the next month or two.
Notes
Touch
For obvious reasons, we in Christchurch have spent lots of time lately looking down rather than up and out. Life in the post-quake city is governed by what the earth is up to, and you've got to watch your step.
Notes
Gazumped
'Art today longs to be topical, outward-looking, connected, responsive to site and situation. And it spends a lot of time fretting that it isn't. But an event like the earthquake short-circuits this logic horribly.'
Collection
Peter Peryer Cass
Rita Angus’s painting ‘Cass’ has become one of New Zealand’s most iconic paintings. Here, Peter Peryer brings the subject firmly into the present with a contemporary photograph of the small railway shed at Cass. Like other contemporary artists who have visited Cass, Peryer does not set out to create a photographic documentary record of an unknown landscape, rather he consciously visits a landscape that has been made famous by art. Interestingly the Cass railway shed was painted white during the 1980s. In the late 1990s it was repainted its original red in a deliberate reference to Angus’s famous painting – a clear case of life imitating art. (Brought to light, November 2009)
Notes
Venice Biennale
It's taken me a while to write about Venice, but the show's still on and the first week of the 2011 Biennale in this memorable and surprising city still fresh in my mind. I was New Zealand's commissioner again and it was a proud moment for us all as visitors poured in – and stayed to listen to the continuous concert – during the Vernissage (the opening few days, in 2011 from 30 May-3 June) of the longest-standing and most prestigious international art exhibition.