Exhibitions
Events
On display
Introduction to Fred Graham
Installation view, Fred Graham, Toi Whaakata / Reflections, Te Uru, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Te Uru. Photo: Samuel Hartnett
Talk
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
Join contemporary sculptor Brett Graham and lead curator Felicity Milburn for an introduction to this new exhibition of significant sculptures by esteemed artist
Fred Graham.
Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections brings together a focused selection of works by esteemed Māori sculptor Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui, 1928 – 2025). Reflecting on Graham’s art practice of over seventy years, this exhibition includes significant works made between 1965 and 2013, with an emphasis on the artist’s small-scale freestanding sculptures and relief works.
Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura, Tainui, b. 1967) is a sculptor who creates large scale artworks and installations that explore indigenous histories, politics and philosophies. Graham lives and works in Waiuku on the southern shore of Manukau Harbour (Auckland, New Zealand), though has been a constant traveller through his career, undertaking residences through Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific), North America and Europe.
Exhibition developed and toured by Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery.
Related reading: Sculpture
Exhibition
Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections
31 May – 5 October 2025
The Gallery acknowledges with deep sadness the passing of Matua Fred Graham on 9 May 2025. Moe mai rā e te Rangatira.
Notes
Face Five
Christchurch-born and internationally renowned artist Ronnie van Hout has had a huge hand in our latest outdoor installation. Quasi, a five-metre-tall sculpture of the artist's hand and facial features, was unveiled this morning on the Gallery's rooftop, next to Gloucester Street.
Interview
Not Quite Human
Lara Strongman: The title of your new work for the Gallery is Quasi. Why did you call it that?
Ronnie van Hout: Initially it was a working title. Because the work would be outside the Gallery, on the roof, I was thinking of Quasimodo, from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I was coming out of a show and research around the idea of the freak, the outsider and things that are rejected—thinking about how even things that are rejected have a relationship to whatever they’ve been rejected by. And I called it Quasi, because it’s a human form that’s not quite human as well. The idea of something that resembles a human but is not quite human.
Exhibition
Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs
Exquisitely imagined, startlingly strange works by an internationally acclaimed New Zealand artist.
Exhibition
Yona Lee: Fountain in Transit
A lively, restorative under-stairs sculpture for Te Puna o Waiwhetū.