What’s On
New exhibition opening soon
From Here on the Ground
The Design Store is having a revamp!
We'll be closed while we get a fresh new look. Visit us again from 14 May.
Exhibition closing soon
Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Free entry, free wifi
Séraphine Pick: assumed identities
The celebrated faces gracing two of the paintings in Séraphine Pick's Brooke Gifford Gallery exhibition late last year wore expressions that were hard to pin down. Defensive, evasive and devoid of their customary charisma, the only thing they clearly conveyed was their wish to be somewhere – anywhere – else.
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation
Over several years I have worked on a Scottish landscape called, immodestly, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, speculating with scientists and others on the fundamental laws and forces behind nature and what they might mean to us. Using growing nature to conjecture on what is basic to the universe is an old practice common to gardeners, but it raises some unlikely questions.
Brought to Light
Finally, it's finished! It is now four months since we closed the doors on the previous incarnation of Christchurch Art Gallery's collection exhibition, and the intervening period has been a very busy time for all our staff. When Christchurch Art Gallery opened in 2003, the plan, reiterated in the Paradigm Shift document of 2006, was to refresh the hang of the collection galleries after five years. Since then the display has of course not remained entirely static, and visitors will have noticed regular changes as new works entered the collection, light-sensitive works were changed and small focus exhibitions created. But Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection is something altogether more-a refreshment of our entire collection display (not just what, but why) and a re-evaluation of the physical space of the galleries themselves.
Ricky Swallow
Ricky Swallow is one of Australia's most renowned artists. As a sculptor he represented Australia at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and many of his carved wooden works are currently the subject of a survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. However, works on paper have always been a part of Swallow's art practice, and a new exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery brings together a broad range of these playful and atmospheric works. Here senior curator Justin Paton considers Swallow's early interest in evolution and science fiction, and delves into the artist's more recent studies of musicians 'on the edge of dissolution'.
The first ever Bulletin article
This is the first article in the first issue of Bulletin, dated January/February 1979
Robin Wade
Museum director Robin Wade is invited to Christchurch to consider the future of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.