Latest news with #ChristchurchArtGalleryTePunaoWaiwhetū
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30-06-2025
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Peter Robinson: Charcoal Drawing & Hye Rim Lee: Swan Lake At Christchurch Art Gallery
Saturday 2 August to 23 November Two very different exhibitions will open alongside each other at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū this August. Each has been developed by an internationally recognised contemporary artist and will offer visitors an immersive and unforgettable experience. Peter Robinson: Charcoal Drawing Don't let the title fool you – leading Aotearoa artist Peter Robinson (Kāi Tahu) is always thinking outside the square, and well beyond the limits of a sheet of paper. His upcoming exhibition Peter Robinson: Charcoal Drawing invites viewers to become part of what Lead Curator Felicity Milburn describes as 'a three-dimensional drawing in space.' 'This epically-scaled installation plays with the idea of walking through a drawing and feeling how it transforms around you as you see it from different heights and angles. 'Peter explored this way of working at Whangārei Art Museum in 2024, and this new iteration responds directly to the tall, square setting of our Sutton Gallery space,' says Milburn. Multiple six-metre-long, powder-coated aluminium beams will be bent into shape by Robinson and a small team at the Gallery during the days leading up to the opening of the exhibition. 'It's a very hands-on process where careful planning meets a playful responsiveness to space, resulting in a viewing experience that feels both precise and unpredictable,' says Milburn. 'Peter works with shapes that are deliberately open-ended. They carry echoes of koru, niho and other forms familiar from customary Māori artmaking, while also encouraging a host of other readings, such as a monumental finger curled in invitation,' Milburn explains. 'The scale is shifting and uncertain, and by choosing a surface treatment that resembles burnt or weathered wood, he transforms a sterile, industrial material into something much more organic and full of possibility.' Felicity Milburn will lead a conversation with Peter Robinson about his work in the exhibition space at 1pm on opening day, Saturday 2 August. Hye Rim Lee: Swan Lake For leading intermedia artist Hye Rim Lee (Korea, New Zealand), an upbringing immersed in music, theatre and dance instilled a love of creativity and storytelling says Curator Ken Hall. 'That passion led Lee into an international career in digital artistry. Like her late father, Jin Soon Lee, who was a prominent theatre director in South Korea, she brings stories, characters and imaginative worlds to life – only her stage is a screen. Hye Rim Lee Swan Lake (still) 2025. 3D animation. 3D generalist: Steven Stringer. Courtesy of the artist 'Lee works closely with a team of animators and sound engineers to create large-scale projected 3D animation shaped through a process of careful refinement,' says Hall. 'She brings a strong directorial vision to the animation, shaping each element from concept to final presentation.' Lee's latest major work, Swan Lake, draws inspiration from Tchaikovsky's iconic ballet and includes choreography by the acclaimed dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Lee's fascination with swans began during the 2020 Level 4 lockdown when she often encountered the graceful birds at Western Springs, near her Grey Lynn studio. Another deeply personal thread running through Lee's work is the impact of loss – her parents in the 1980s, and her sister in 2008. 'Elements of grief and darkness give way to hope and healing, echoing Lee's own journey of transformation and spiritual depth,' says Hall. 'There's an ethereal, emotive quality to Lee's Swan Lake. The two swans share a tenderness that feels almost human. While reflecting the emotional depth of the original ballet, Lee's Swan Lake reimagines the narrative in a striking way.' At 11am on opening day, Saturday 2 August, hear from Hye Rim Lee in conversation with Ken Hall in the Gallery's Philip Carter Family Auditorium. Peter Robinson: Charcoal Drawing and Hye Rim Lee: Swan Lake open on Saturday 2 August and close on 23 November 2025.
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31-05-2025
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20 September 2025 To 15 February 2026
Whāia te Taniwha, a new major exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, explores the enduring presence of taniwha in Aotearoa. Opening 20 September, this exhibition of work by Māori artists offers a window into the rich narratives of taniwha that tāngata whenua have held for generations. Co-curator Chloe Cull says that while many people in Aotearoa are familiar with the idea of taniwha, post-colonial, Western representations of taniwha have often been one-dimensional or inaccurate. 'This exhibition celebrates the diversity of taniwha. They are shapeshifters, oceanic guides, leaders, adversaries, guardians and tricksters who have left their marks on the Aotearoa landscape. ' Whāia te Taniwha also responds to the impact of colonisation on Māori knowledge systems by celebrating the deep and varied presence of taniwha within te ao Māori,' says Cull. The exhibition includes new major commissions from renowned Aotearoa artists such as Lisa Reihana and Maungarongo Te Kawa. Ngāi Tahu artists will also be well represented in the exhibition, with new work being developed by Jennifer Rendall, Fran Spencer, Kommi Tamati-Elliffe, Turumeke Harrington, Piri Cowie and Madison Kelly. These new works will be shown alongside existing works on loan to the Gallery. 'With the bulk of the exhibition comprising new commissions and loans, it'll be the first opportunity to see many of these works in Christchurch,' says Cull. The exhibition was inspired by Taniwha: A cultural history – a Marsden Fund supported research project by exhibition co-curators Dr Kirsty Dunn and Dr Madi Williams. Dunn explains that the inability to categorise or define taniwha are part of their enduring power. 'Many of the artists consider how ancestral knowledge within taniwha narratives provide potential pathways through contemporary challenges; these pathways are powerful, sometimes playful, sometimes confronting, and sometimes they reveal themselves in unexpected ways. Audiences might have some of their expectations challenged in this exhibition.' For those who enjoy interactive experiences, there will be a few things on offer – including an augmented reality sculpture and a video game that invites players to search for items that can uplift the wellbeing of a taniwha. Williams adds, 'Just as taniwha take many shapes and forms, the exhibition includes a multitude of disciplines – from painting and sculpture to textiles, video poetry and photography. 'Visitors will be invited to consider who, rather than what, taniwha are – and how taniwha stories can help us understand and navigate the world around us.' Whāia te Taniwha opens Saturday 20 September 2025 and closes on 15 February 2026.
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29-05-2025
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Fiona Pardington Reveals Exhibition Concept Going To Venice Biennale
Aotearoa New Zealand artist, Dr Fiona Pardington (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Ngāti Kahungunu, Clan Cameron of Erracht), announces her 2026 Venice Biennale exhibition: Taharaki Skyside. Her major new work for Venice builds on the content of her 2024 series Te taha o te rangi, 'the edge of the heavens' which consists of photographs of Aotearoa New Zealand birds preserved as taxidermy specimens in museum collections. Applying the precision, care and responsiveness to historical and cultural resonances she has previously brought to taonga, Pardington's remarkable avian portraits engage with the tradition of memento mori. By resurrecting their dignity, charisma and wildness, Pardington also brings these long-dead birds vividly to life. Taharaki Skyside makes direct connection with the realm where birds act as messengers between the mortal and spiritual worlds, she says. 'Birds can symbolize familial love, romantic attachment, ecological warnings, they can be intimations of mortality, and in my work they can also represent individual people in my life. The ideas I am conjuring remind us of the integral significance of manu within te ao Māori – as sources of food and materials, and intermediaries between human and divine worlds,' says Pardington. 'Taxidermy occupies a unique space between love, death, and fetish. When photographing in museum collections, I have observed the artifice of the birds' presentation, the way they have been posed, the care with which they have been assembled, and, sometimes, their worn condition. By using strategic lighting and angles I am trying to draw out their charisma – to free them from the constraints of being mere objects,' she says. Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is Creative New Zealand's delivery partner for 2026, and Pardington's Venice project is curated by Chloe Cull and Felicity Milburn. Throughout her practice, Pardington has drawn acclaim for images that invite us to see and feel the world in a new way, says Milburn. 'Her works for Taharaki Skyside carry vital relevance in a global context. Her images underscore the far-reaching and devastating losses – ecological and cultural – that have occurred as the result of human impact and colonisation.' 'She opens up moments of extraordinary resonance and recognition that transcend time and place, life and death,' Milburn says. Taharaki Skyside opens at La Biennale di Venezia on 9 May 2026. Bio notes: Artist Dr Fiona Pardington is responsible for some of the most memorable images in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand artmaking. For more than three decades, she has crafted a highly respected practice nationally and internationally, operating largely within the tradition of the photographic still life. Pardington often works with museum collections, highlighting the vital cultural and spiritual significance of taonga and natural history specimens for Māori. Pardington has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Moët et Chandon Fellowship (1991–2), the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship (1996–7) and the Ngāi Tahu residency at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka (2006). In 2011 Pardington became a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate, and in 2016 was named a Knight (Chevalier) in the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres) by the French Prime Minister, the first New Zealand visual artist ever to receive this honour. In 2017, Pardington was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to photography. Pardington's works have been extensively collected by all of Aotearoa New Zealand's major public galleries, as well as the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, US), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Victoria.
