Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections
The long and distinguished practice of Aotearoa New Zealand artist Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui) is celebrated in this selection of significant sculptures and relief works from 1965 to 2013.
Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Japan
Quietly powerful and immersive video works revealing the politics behind our view of landscape.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
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
Interview
Gold, Chalk and Rabbit-Skin Glue
Bulletin talks to Anne-Sophie Ninino, a French-trained conservator based in Ōtautahi Christchurch with international experience in museum conservation and a specialisation in gilding, frame and heritage restoration.
My Favourite
Ron Mueck: chicken / man
When I was growing up on our rural property in the South Wairarapa, my Dad was engaged in a constant war with his chickens. They would crap on the back deck, the side deck, and occasionally walk into the house and crap on the kitchen floor. He spent countless hours hosing down their muck and complaining about their every move, but still loved them enough to run a regular “name my chooks” competition on his Facebook page for a time.
Commentary
Foreigners Everywhere
Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere is the title and theme of the International Exhibition curated by Adriano Pedrosa for the sixtieth Venice Biennale. As a necessary condition of such projects, the theme works as a signal, provocation and rationale for the amassing of globally disparate works of art and sets the tone of this highly politicised event. Foreigners Everywhere is a particularly intriguing premise for drawing the work of eight Māori artists into the urgent political concerns currently playing out at the Biennale. While much is being made of this unprecedented situation – and rightly so – the celebrations at home have yet to turn to a critical examination of how the work of these artists operates in that context.
Collection
Robyn Kahukiwa Girl in a Bush Shirt
This work was displayed with this label to mark the death of the artist in April 2025.
It is with great sorrow that we acknowledge the passing of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s preeminent artists, Robyn Kahukiwa. For over five decades Kahukiwa was uncompromising in her commitment to articulating the realities of life for Māori, including the relentless impacts of colonisation, and the strength, resilience and resistance maintained in response. Her books, drawings, prints and paintings were underpinned by a deep love for her whakapapa, as she sought to uplift her people, particularly wāhine Māori, through her work.
Kahukiwa was born in Australia and moved to Aotearoa aged nineteen. Her early work was informed by her experiences teaching art at Mana College in Porirua in the 1970s and early 1980s, and focused on cultural dislocation and the struggles of young, urban Māori. 'Girl with a Bush Shirt' is one of several works produced during this time that capture a sense of estrangement or inner conflict.
In 1983 one of Kahukiwa’s best-known series of works, 'Wahine Toa', toured the country. The exhibition and the accompanying publication honoured the women of Māori myth whose stories had so often been minimised or erased. The mana of Māori women and children continued to be a central theme within Kahukiwa’s work.
Kahukiwa’s posters and book illustrations were how many New Zealanders experienced her work for the first time and were particularly meaningful for Māori in their thoughtful representations of Māori life and culture. Her children’s books such as Taniwha are still read in schools and homes around Aotearoa.
Kahukiwa has left behind an extraordinary legacy for her mokopuna and all New Zealanders and we are honoured to be kaitiaki for several of her works.
Collection
Janine Randerson Waiho, Retreat
Performer: Tru Paraha (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Te Tarawa, Ngāti Kahu o Torongare) Sound composition: Jason Johnston Made with support from Kāi Tahu Glacier Guides and Susan Wallace, Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio
In Kāi Tahu cosmology, Kā Roimata-a-Hinehukatere is formed from the frozen tears of Hinehukatere, an agile mountaineer who tragically lost her love. It was renamed Franz Josef Glacier in 1865, thereby losing this meaning. In the work Waiho, Retreat, Janine Randerson follows the glacial water melting from Kā Roimata-a-Hinehukatere, tracking the dramatic retreat of the glacier in recent years as a measure of climate change and a warming world. Live sound recordings of the glacial ice cracking and the Waiho river flowing alert us to the persistent movement of water, a gentle yet powerful force. Performer Tru Paraha appears and disappears in this shifting cryosphere, a reminder that human actions are accelerating the glacier’s retreat through greenhouse gas emissions.
