Exhibitions
Events
On display
Julie King Memorial Lecture: Lissa Mitchell
Through Shaded Glass – women and photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1970 (Te Papa Press)
Lissa Mitchell; Photo taken by Yoan Jolly
Friends
Past event
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free [Bookings Not Required]
Through Shaded Glass
As one of Aotearoa’s most knowledgeable and experienced photographic historians, Lissa Mitchell turned her attention to the early women photographers in this country in a new publication Through Shaded Glass – Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1970 (Te Papa Press). Her research for the book represents a significant milestone in foregrounding the involvement and photographic work of over 190 women makers of photography in Aotearoa prior to 1960. She spent years locating names, photographs and researching lives while exploring photographic practise where women have made strong contributions but have been sidelined or overlooked in this country’s photographic histories to date. These include collaborative working practises, photographers and the Second World War in New Zealand, non-binary practises, and the involvement of Māori women in making early photography here.
In this engaging lecture, Lissa will talk about many of the women and give visibility to examples of their work.
Lissa Mitchell is curator of historical photography at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She has held previous roles in photographic collection management and preventive photographic conservation at The New Zealand Film Archive (now part of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision) and the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. She has a degree in art history from Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka and has written about photography for several books: An Alternative History of Photography (Prestel, 2022), New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018), and websites such as: The Public Domain Review (UK) and New Zealand on Screen Iwi Whitiāhua. She is a recipient of a Historical Photographic Research Award from the Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund (USA) and a History Award from the New Zealand History Research Trust Fund.
Lecture presented by the Friends of the Art Gallery courtesy of the Estate of the late Julie King. Art historian Julie King was Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Canterbury and an Honorary Life Member and Patron of the Friends.
Related reading: Friends
Exhibition
Flowers into Landscape: Margaret Stoddart 1865-1934
8 February 1998
An exhibition organised by and held at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, curated by Julie King.
Commentary
Do You See?
With the death of Julie King late in 2018, art and art history in Aotearoa New Zealand lost one of its great champions and major scholars. Julie was born in Yorkshire and grew up and was educated in Alnwick, Northumberland; she moved to Christchurch in 1975 to take up a role lecturing in the newly formed art history department at the University of Canterbury. She retired three decades later, having pioneered the teaching of New Zealand art in Canterbury.
Article
Exquisite Treasure Revealed
Canterbury Museum holds two albums compiled by Diamond Harbour artist Margaret Stoddart. The older of the two, containing images featured in this Bulletin, and itself currently exhibited in the Gallery, covers the period 1886–96. The album is handsomely bound in maroon, and stamped M.O.S. in gold. It contains a sort of travelogue by way of black and white photographs set amongst decorative painting, mostly of native flora, with some locality and date information.
Event
Coffee + Art
Join the Friends for coffee and great conversation at The Thirsty Peacock, then enjoy a 30-minute Art Bite at 12pm. Bookings are not required.
Event
Midwinter Dinner with Friends
Join the Friends and toast midwinter with convivial company, fine food and excellent wine at Visions on Campus. This fun-filled and art-focused night is a wonderful opportunity to support local artists and the Gallery.
Notes
How to Book Friends Tickets
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Commentary
Mediating Reality
In the late 1980s, a significant shift for photography in Aotearoa New Zealand was identified in two art publications. The essays and images in these books showed how artists were utilising new strategies, breaking away from the prevailing documentary photography tradition that was, and still is, widespread in Aotearoa. Six Women Photographers (1986) was edited by artists Merylyn Tweedie and Rhondda Bosworth for Photoforum; and Imposing Narratives: Beyond the Documentary in Recent New Zealand Photography (1989) was the catalogue for an exhibition curated by Gregory Burke for City Gallery Wellington. The artists included in both publications questioned in various ways the assumptions and rules of image making, manipulating the media and making a political move from the standpoint of taking a photograph, to making one. No longer was a photograph considered a truthful representation of reality. Instead, photography was seen as a product of, and a participant in, current social and cultural values.
Collection
Julia Morison Dulia
In the early 1990s, Julia Morison used gold and shit in many works, exploring the idealised and base elements of human experience. She drew on the Jewish Sefiroth as a model for thinking about the relationship between the physical and the metaphysical. “Personally, I need to put some kind of order on experience for sake of sanity and negotiation,” she said. “The Sefirothic structure, or Tree of Knowledge, is really a metaphorical file and folder system for all; a conceptual paradigm for understanding everything. Putting that at the core of my practice gives me the freedom to admit everything and anything, micro and macro, metaphysical and corporeal, as legitimate content. It also gives me an interface to compose works.”
The title of this work, Dulia, is a Catholic term for worship given to saints and angels. Here Morison has pressed gold and excrement on to handmade paper balls, which are threaded together like the beads of a catholic rosary—an invitation to meditate on the relationship of the sacred and the profane, on a monumental scale.
Notes
Underworld 2 by Tony de Lautour
This article first appeared as 'Painting offers a multiverse of symbols' in The Press on 21 June 2017.
Notes
Walk the Beat
Volunteer guide Rod McKay talks about his life, being an art tourist, and guiding Gallery tours.
Notes
The Art Whisperer
Christchurch Art Gallery volunteer guide Bella Boyd talks about her love of guiding, her favourite works in the Gallery collection and interpreting art with poetry.