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E Whakaaturia ana Ināianei
On display
Learning From Venice: Book Launch and Discussion
Learning from Venice Workshop. Photo: Angela Bishop
Talk
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
Join Christina Barton, Luke Shaw and Lachlan Taylor in conversation with the Gallery’s newly appointed curator Simon Gennard, as they discuss the value of arts writing and publishing in bringing Aotearoa New Zealand art into conversation with the wider world.
In May 2026 eight early-career artists, writers and curators including Shaw and Taylor spent five intense days at the Venice Biennale guided by Barton and Hanahiva Rose. Since then, the group has worked together to produce Questions for Venice, a publication that reflects on their workshop experience and doubles as a vital resource on New Zealand’s history of engagement with the Biennale.
This event is presented in partnership with The Chartwell Trust, Ilam School of Fine Art, Te Kura Kōwaiwai University of Canterbury and the Office for Contemporary Art Aotearoa.
Christina Barton is a respected art historian, writer, curator, editor and educator based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington.
Luke Shaw is an artist and musician based in Ōtautahi Christchurch. He is a current doctoral candidate at Ilam School of Fine Arts, where he also lectures in Graphic Design.
Lachlan Taylor is an art historian and writer, currently completing a PhD in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Related reading: Talk, Venice Biennale, Publishing
Notes
Taharaki Skyside in Venice
We’re incredibly proud of the role Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū has played as delivery partner for Aotearoa New Zealand’s participation in the 61st Biennale di Venezia. From the moment the Gallery’s selection of Fiona Pardington as artist was confirmed by Creative New Zealand, Taharaki Skyside has required a huge effort and commitment from right across the Gallery team. It was amazing to see that expertise, care and professionalism represented in Venice when the exhibition opened last month.
Notes
Heck yeah, that happened!
Our very own Art-tastic by our very own Sarah Pepperle won TWO awards at last night's New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults at Te Papa!!!
Notes
This is ART-TASTIC!!
Our ART-TASTIC art activity book for kids has been nominated for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults! Ka rawe, nice one us! #NZCYA
Notes
Christchurch Art Gallery scoops major Australasian design awards
Congrats to our publishing team of David Simpson and Sarah Pepperle for a night of bests at the Museums Australasia Publication Design Awards at a gala event in Alice Springs last night. The Gallery won best magazine (Bulletin), best book (Us v Them: Tony de Lautour), best children's book (ART-TASTIC) and best in show (Us v Them)!
Notes
Bishopdale School Rulez
These Year 6 students at Bishopdale Primary School have knocked it out of the park with their AMAZING glitter artworks from our new ART-TASTIC activity book.
Director's Foreword
Director’s Foreword
In late 2024, the Gallery received the great honour of being chosen by Creative New Zealand as their delivery partner for the national pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. That was the first step in a long process, and as I write this I am preparing to attend the opening of Fiona Pardington’s spectacular exhibition Taharaki Skyside. Our decision to propose Fiona for this occasion was based in our deep respect for her body of practice, and our belief that her current works – profoundly moving photographic portraits of taxidermied native manu in museum collections – were a perfect fit for this moment on the global stage.
Article
An invitation to participate
You might be well aware of fanzines as a form of analogue self-publishing in and around your own arts community. Or they might be somewhat peripheral to the particularity of your engagement with the arts.
For the uninitiated, the word fanzine is often shortened to zine, and is pronounced 'zeen', as in 'magazine'. This abbreviation doesn't merely signal a growing ubiquity, or an economy of syllables for those (like myself) who say or write the word a lot, it also speaks to the shift away from fandom to a growing eclecticism – bringing the lie to anyone attempting to describe zines as a genre.
Article
Tomorrow, Book, Caxton Press, Landfall
In the decades before and after the Second World War, Christchurch experienced a remarkable artistic efflorescence that encompassed the visual arts, literature, music, theatre and the publishing of books and journals. And the phenomenon was noticed beyond these islands. For instance, in his 1955 autobiography, English publisher and editor of Penguin New Writing and London Magazine, John Lehmann, wrote (with a measure of exaggeration, perhaps) that of all the world’s cities only Christchurch at that time acted ‘as a focus of creative literature of more than local significance’.
Article
The book as alternative economy and alternative space
In Printed Matter's 1981 mail-order catalogue, artist Edit deAk enthusiastically described the 'many hands at work in the process of making and marketing the book'. Turning the spotlight on individuals and groups involved in the production, distribution and sale of books by artists, deAk likened independent art publishing to activities 'like filmmaking or rock 'n' roll music.' While such comparisons with filmmaking have been relatively scarce over the past few decades, artists, publishers, designers and critics have continued to draw parallels between art publishing and independent music.
Article
Going online
I’ve never actually seen the Mona Lisa, and it’s a fair bet that most people reading this article haven’t either. Yet, according to Wikipedia, the painting is ‘the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world’. So how to account for the fame of an artwork we haven’t seen? And what have reproductions of Da Vinci’s sixteenth-century portrait got to teach us about time-based art and the online environment in 2015?