Art Bites were always a popular offering at the Gallery, so we've brought them back. And like most things in post-quake Christchurch, they're the same but different.

For those of you who got to see the De-Building exhibition way back in 2011, for the few weeks it was on display before the earthquakes, you may remember a wonderful piece by Pierre Huyghe, in which concentric rings revealed various layers of paint below the walls surface, a kind of archaelogical exploration of the gallery's exhibition history.

Here's a little collection of works in our collection with links to the Emerald Isle

Game, as they say, on.

What is important is that artists lend their voice to expressions of freedom in their own unique way. Sometimes an artist's complex reading of a situation, which then can be put in a simple pure image, can help a movement become more popular. Art is an expressive medium, and if it is used to portray the values of a retrogressive regime, the art will be stilted and lifeless. That is why fascistic regimes always kill the poets and writers, and ban contemporary artists from showing. Just by the making of it, real art becomes the voice of freedom.