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Battle shields from Chimbu (Simbu): a new acquisition

18 July 2012 – 11.59am

Shield; Papua New Guinea; FE012615; Purchased 2011; Te Papa Tongarewa

These battle shields from Chimbu (Simbu) in the Papua New Guinea Highlands were collected by a New Zealand couple who spent nearly a decade teaching in the country until their return to New Zealand in 2009. The shields are significant for their cultural value and use in warfare among the Chimbu. They also have a strong visual presence.

Shield; Papua New Guinea; FE012616; Purchased 2011; Te Papa Tongarewa

In terms of their provenance they contribute to one of our tasks of documenting the important work of New Zealanders in the Pacific through material culture they collect. The museum has a small number of shields from Papua New Guinea. They date from the late 1800s and early 1900s with a few from the 1970s. These shields will be the only examples we have from Chimbu (Simbu). There is only one other artefact attributed to Chimbu in the collection, a ceramic whistle.

These well documented shields will be useful to researchers of warfare, art and culture in Papua New Guinea.

By Safua Akeli | Posted in News, Pacific | Also tagged battle shield, culture, Papua New Guinea, warfare | Comments (0)

Caring for our photographic negatives

18 June 2012 – 10.04am

We have an enormous collection of photographic negatives and transparencies on glass and film, going back to the 1870s. They include all sorts of images from studio portraits to holiday snaps, landscapes, photographs of sports teams, and artists’ negatives and transparencies.

Moa bone and skin, New Zealand. Burton Brothers, Maker unknown. Te Papa

Moa bone and skin, about 1880, by the Burton Brothers, New Zealand, collodion glass negative. Te Papa (C.014977)

Many negatives are chemically unstable and, if left in an uncontrolled environment, will deteriorate to the point where you can no longer ‘read’ the image they carry.

Keeping the works cold

A very cold environment helps to preserve them – so we keep our negatives in two walk-in cold storage vaults. One vault is kept stable at 2 degrees Celsius and 35% relative humidity. This vault is used to store negatives and transparencies on a film base. The second vault is kept at 13 degrees Celsius and 35% relative humidity, and is used to store negatives on glass plates.

Cellulose acetate film was used for negatives from the 1920s. It tends to break down to acetic acid, causing the film to shrink. This makes the binder layer form channels and spots, and the image becomes difficult to read.

Within the cool stores, the negatives are stored in lockable drawers for earthquake protection.

Making more space

Steve McStay and Paul Simpson slide an empty drawer into the plan chest unit.

The existing drawers in our cool store have been filled, so we’ve begun a project to create more storage space. We’ve just finished installing the first group of new drawers, in the film vault.

We decided to move the existing cabinets as well as add new ones. In the new layout, the drawers go up to near ceiling height, except where we need to leave space for the cooling or air filtration plant.

The drawers are heavy as they’re made of steel and are constructed to take a lot of weight. We enlisted the help of our building-management team to get them into the store.

New drawers for slides and colour prints

One of the biggest new cabinets is an oversize drawer unit to hold mounted 35mm slides. Our next job is to transfer thousands of slides from a range of cupboards, drawers, and boxes into the new drawers.

We also want to store our collection of older colour prints in 2-degree storage because they can fade at room temperature. We’ve included a big set of plan drawers for those.

The new slide drawers, with one of the many boxes of slides waiting to be transferred to their new home.

Next steps

Our next step is to install new drawers and cupboards in the 13-degree vault, where we store glass negatives.

Along the way, we’ll do some small but important projects, like making special card folders (called sink mats) for glass plates that came to us broken. We’ll also be photographing over 1,500 glass plate negatives made by Berry & Co, a Wellington photography studio that operated in the 1910s and 1920s, and adding the images to Collections Online. See more about Berry & Co WWI soldiers in our collection.

By Anita Hogan | Posted in Art, Conservation, Museums, Photography | Also tagged collections, conservation, museum storage, negatives, photography | Comments (7)

I will need words: collecting great quotes by NZ artists

30 May 2012 – 1.28pm

Recently Te Papa’s art educator Helen Lloyd and I have been working together to compile a list of some of the best quotes by well-known New Zealand artists. Quotes about art and art making. We’re interested in quotes which really get to the heart of why artists make work. Helen, being the educator, is particularly interested in quotes which could inspire children aged 5-8 years old.

Here’s an example:

“I only need black and white to say what I have to say. It is a matter of light and dark.” – Colin McCahon (told to his son William McCahon)

Colin McCahon, ‘Scared’, 1976, acrylic on paper. Purchased 2008, Te Papa. Reproduced courtesy of the Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust.

Can you help us?
Send us your favourite quotes New Zealand artists by commenting below. The best quote will get a free copy of either Art at Te Papa, or New Zealand Art: From Cook to Contemporary or the soon to be released 2013 Te Papa Diary, all published by Te Papa Press.

Sarah Farrar
Curator of Contemporary Art

By Sarah Farrar | Posted in Art, Collections Online, Education, Kids | Also tagged art educator, artists, Colin McCahon, Education, helen lloyd, New Zealand art, Quotes | Comments (12)

Get stuck on art, or, stick it to the man!

1 May 2012 – 5.10pm

Here at Te Papa we passionately believe in the power of art to enrich, empower and challenge our lives and we are committed to bringing art to the widest possible audience.

Te Papa's school holiday programme visit the 'Collecting Contemporary' exhibition with Crystal Sciascia, April 2012. Photo: Te Papa

Recently, a small group of us have teamed up to develop and trial a new project called Stick it to the man in conjunction with one of our current art exhibitions. Collecting Contemporary is an exhibition of contemporary New Zealand art works from Te Papa’s collection. It includes work in a wide range of media from video to jewellery, painting to furniture design, photography to sculpture and more.

If you come to visit the Collecting Contemporary exhibition up on Level 5 over the next few weeks, come and take a look. Feel free to pick up a clipboard and respond to four quirky questions which prompt you to make a connection between the art work and your own life. It will make you look at that art work in a whole other way!

Some of our visitors 'sticking it to the man' (aka Te Papa's boss Mike Houlihan). Photo: Te Papa

Would this activity drive you crazy? Do you love it? Would you like to see us do more of this sort of thing? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.

Want to participate? Come along and visit the exhibition on Level 5 at Te Papa. It’s free and open seven days, 10am-6pm, with late night Thursdays till 9pm.

Want to see an online version of this activity? Let us know and we’ll see what can be arranged…

We’ll report back in a few weeks time with an update of how the project is going.

- Edy MacDonald, Lucinda Blackley and Sarah Farrar

By Lucinda Blackley | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Exhibitions, Kids, Museums, News, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Materials and process: Karl Fritsch

30 April 2012 – 9.35am

Karl Fritsch, April 2012. Photo: Justine Olsen, Te Papa.

German jeweller Karl Fritsch, whose jewellery and objects are on display in Collecting Contemporary now lives in Wellington. The building of this workshop has been a key ingredient in the development of some of his work in the show.

Ring, below, was made in 2010 soon after settling into Wellington and about the time that the construction of his studio occurred. You can see the associations: working from a cast silver shank and building the decoration using nails, screws and bolts.

'Ring', 2010, New Zealand. Fritsch, Karl. Purchased 2011. Te Papa

Through viewing his work in the exhibition, you can see that materials are his starting point in the making process. Silver, gold, bronze and now ceramics are amongst some of those materials that are cleverly worked, achieving delightful and original outcomes. It’s a highly intuitive process that can include casting, reshaping of found objects and manipulation of materials resulting in the questioning of conventional thinking in jewellery.

I wanted to enlarge my understanding of Karl’s practice so last week I visited his studio. When you step through the door, objects and materials reveal many stages of making jewellery and objects. For Karl, casting can be the first stage in the construction: it’s known as the lost wax process. This traditional method allows for highly accurate reproduction from the original wax form. You can see this stage in this photo below. Different coloured waxes allow soft or hard modelling to occur.

Inside Karl Fritsch's workshop, April 2012. Photo: Justine Olsen, Te Papa.

In this image you can see the way Karl considers his ideas. The blue and yellow wax modelled ring, in the foreground is particularly interesting. Karl shapes the claws in a similar way to the sprus, (used during the casting method to provide a means for the casting molten material to flow away from the model and air to escape). Traditionally, sprus are removed but Karl has added this highly functional device into a new form of decoration: it’s a way of turning the making process that traditionally is hidden on its head. You can see this idea used again by Karl in Gingerbronze , below, from the installation Gesamtkunsthandwerk when Karl collaborated with Francis Upritchard and Matino Gamper. The work can be seen in Collecting Contemporary.

'Gingerbronze. From Gesamtkunsthandwerk'. 2011, New Zealand. Gamper, Martino, Upritchard, Francis, Fritsch, Karl. Purchased 2011, Te Papa.

For more information on the lost wax casting method, visit this website that shows larger sculpture created through this process.

For more visits to jeweller’s workshops, check out Collecting Contemporary and the artists interviews.

Justine Olsen

Curator of Decorative Art (Contemporary)

By Te Papa | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Collections Online, Exhibitions | Also tagged Collections Online, Jewellery | Comments (0)

Talking about art

5 April 2012 – 2.34pm

How does jewellery addess issues of identity? What’s the connection between a cruise ship and an ice skating rink? How does photography expose events from the past? You can find the answers to these and other questions in the video interviews with artists whose work features in Collecting Contemporary . Here’s a glimpse of the artists we’ve filmed:

Over the past year, Collecting Contemporary has shown the work of 41 contemporary New Zealand artists in a fantastic range of media including painting, furniture design, jewellery, photography, sculpture, video and ceramics. When opportunities arose, the exhibition team filmed interviews with some of those artists, including Jim Allen, Martin Poppelwell, Sriwhana Spong, Paratene Matchitt, Ann Shelton, and Shigeyuki Kihara.

Warwick Freeman in his studio. Photo by Michael Hall copyright Te Papa

Filming in the artist’s studio is truly stepping inside the world of the artist. The colourful clutter of the jeweler’s work bench is in stark contrast to the minimalist space of the abstract painter. Artists Warwick Freeman, John Parker, Maddie Leach, Simon Morris and Lisa Walker invited us to film them at work and shared some wonderful insights into the creative process. All the artist interviews can be viewed in the exhibition and online.

By Prue Donald | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Collections Online | Also tagged Artist Interviews, artists, Collecting Contemporary | Comments (2)

Into the Night: Jason Greig’s monoprints

23 March 2012 – 10.18am

When we were developing the Collecting Contemporary exhibition, I unconsciously developed a secret soundtrack – a mix-tape, if you like – of music that came to mind as I thought about the various works in the show. It was Jason Greig who, quite unknowingly, got me started on this track.

In addition to being a wonderfully talented contemporary printmaker, Jason is also a musician and is part of the rock metal band Into the Void, along with fellow New Zealand artist Ronnie van Hout.

Greig’s works contain a bewildering amalgam of literary, musical, and historical references and these are often alluded to in his titles. One work that appears in Collecting Contemporary is a terrific monoprint that he has called Seven years of labour for the instruments of time, 2003.

Jason Greig, ‘Seven years of labour for the instruments of time’, 2003. Te Papa.

The title of this work is taken from a song by the Blue Öyster Cult, a 1980s prog rock band. The rock opera is called ‘Imaginos’ and it was released in 1988.

For the eagle-eyed among you, yes, this work featured in Jason’s survey exhibition The Devil Made Me Do It, some years back at the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Download the original brochure from that exhibition (PDF, 4.29MB)

Thinking about other works by Greig in Te Papa’s collection, other songs come to mind. Take The Phaedra Chain III, 2010, for example.

Jason Greig, ‘The Phaedra Chain III’, 2010. Te Papa. (N.B. This work is not currently on public display.)

While Greig might be referring to the character of Phaedra in Greek mythology, he could as likely be referring to the subject of Lee Hazlewood’s ‘Some Velvet Morning’, originally released in 1968. Personally, the work makes me think of This Mortal Coil’s ‘Song to the Siren’ from 1983.

On the floating, shapeless oceans
I did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving into your eyes.

And you sang ‘Sail to me, sail to me;
Let me enfold you.’

Here I am, here I am waiting to hold you.
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you here when I was full sail?

Now my foolish boat is leaning, broken love lost on your rocks.
For you sang, ‘Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow.’
Oh my heart, oh my heart shies from the sorrow.
I’m as puzzled as a newborn child.
I’m as riddled as the tide.
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Or shall I lie with death my bride?

Hear me sing: ‘Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you.’
‘Here I am. Here I am, waiting to hold you.’

The other work by Jason Greig in Collecting Contemporary is Gideon, 2010.

Jason Greig, ‘Gideon’, 2010. Te Papa.

This work brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890 and, in some ways, also Major-General Horatio Gordon Robley’s contentious collecting of Māori moko mokai. For some reason, however, I have yet to settle on my internal soundtrack selection for this work. Pondering whether Julee Cruise’s ‘Into the Night’ from 1989 might fit the bill…

~
Sarah Farrar
Curator of Contemporary Art

By Sarah Farrar | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Collections Online, Exhibitions | Also tagged collections, contemporary art, music, New Zealand, printmaking | Comments (2)

Creating small worlds: Jim Allen at Te Papa

2 March 2012 – 2.50pm

One of the highlights of the updated Collecting Contemporary exhibition is the inclusion of three important works by contemporary New Zealand artist Jim Allen (born 1922).

Artist Jim Allen with his work 'Tribute to Hone Tuwhare', 1969. Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa

The three works – Small worlds, Tribute to Hone Tuwhare, and Space plane, environment no. 1 – were originally made for an exhibition at the Barry Lett Gallery, Auckland, in June 1969. This gallery was a hotbed of activity at the time: host to experimental art projects, poetry readings, and much besides.

Jim Allen’s 1969 exhibition Small Worlds: 5 Environmental Structures transformed the entire space into an immersive installation. While there were discrete works in the show, the overall intention was to creating a total, multi-sensory experience. Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to walk through the works – to look, touch, listen, and read.

Archival photo showing the 1969 'Small Worlds: 5 Environmental Structures' exhibition at Barry Lett Gallery, Auckland. Photo courtesy of Jim Allen.

At the end of the 1969 exhibition, the works were dismantled and the various parts were destroyed. The exhibition has since come to assume an almost legendary status in the history of contemporary art practice in New Zealand. However, it escaped wider public recognition until Jim Allen made the decision to reconstruct the works in 2010.

The reconstructed works were shown in the exhibition Small Worlds at the commercial gallery Michael Lett (no relation to Barry), and in the Points of Contact exhibition organised by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth and the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington. In 2011, Te Papa acquired the full suite of works for its collection. Collecting Contemporary is our first opportunity to put the works on public display.

Collecting Contemporary exhibition

On show now: The three works on display in the 'Collecting Contemporary' exhibition at Te Papa, March 2012. Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa.

I could write many blogs about Jim Allen’s works (and, indeed, perhaps I will), but for now, I want to draw your attention to this video interview that Te Papa made with the artist, in which he discusses his original intention for the work.

Also worth checking out is a separate video in which Jim reads aloud the poem ‘Thine own hands have fashioned’ by New Zealand poet Hone Tuwhare (1922–2008). This poem features in Jim’s work Tribute to Hone Tuwhare. I’d like to thank the estate of Hone Tuwhare for permission to use the poem in this video.

See Jim Allen read ‘Thine own hands have fashioned’ by Hone Tuwhare

Sarah Farrar
Curator Contemporary Art

By Sarah Farrar | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Collections Online | Also tagged contemporary art, exhibition, New Zealand | Comments (1)

An eye for the unexpected: Don Driver (1930-2011)

9 December 2011 – 10.13am

The Art team here at Te Papa are saddened by the news that contemporary New Zealand artist Don Driver passed away yesterday morning in New Plymouth. Although Don had been ill for some time, this sort of news always catches you off guard.

Artist Don Driver in his studio, New Plymouth, March 2004. Photo: Jim and Mary Barr, reproduced with permission.

Te Papa has a considerable number of works by Don Driver in the collection, including the terrific Lawn cuttings (1976), the large-scale installation Ritual (1982), and the banner work Blue and green Pacific (1978), among others. See all works by Don Driver in Te Papa’s collection

As Curator of Contemporary Art at Te Papa since November 2010, I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time looking and thinking about Don Driver’s work. As I have been getting more familiar with his works in Te Papa’s collection, I have been – in turns – stunned, delighted and perplexed by Don’s singular vision and his approach towards art making.

I had been intending to make a trip to New Plymouth to visit Don and his wife Joyce a couple of months ago. For various reasons, the trip was postponed and I am sad to have lost the opportunity to personally meet this incredible artist.

Don Driver, Yellow skin 90, 1984, mixed media assemblage. Purchased 1985 with New Zealand Lottery Board funds, Te Papa

In celebration of Don Driver’s remarkable work and to acknowledge his contribution to contemporary New Zealand art, Te Papa will install one of his classic assemblages, Yellow skin 90 (1984) next week within the Collecting Contemporary exhibition on Level 5. (Although Collecting Contemporary is Te Papa’s exhibition of recent acquisitions since 2006, we hope that you don’t mind us making this exception to the rule.)

There will be an opportunity to see Ritual early next year when Te Papa lends the work for the exhibition The Obstinate Object: Contemporary New Zealand Sculpture at City Gallery Wellington.

Our thoughts are with Don’s wife Joyce, their family, and friends.

Sarah Farrar
Curator of Contemporary Art

By Sarah Farrar | Posted in Art, Collecting Contemporary, Collections Online | Also tagged artists, Collecting Contemporary, Don Driver, obituary | Comments (2)

Len Castle, 1924-2011

11 October 2011 – 2.48pm

With the recent death of Len Castle, New Zealand has lost one of its greatest potters who developed a long and innovative approach to clay that can be bound up in the search for national identity.

Castle began working with clay from 1947 experimenting with commercial clays and Westmere beach sand. He was a natural, understanding both its composition and plasticity. Recognition from Auckland Society of Arts and Auckland Art Gallery came during this time. His forms reflected broad influences – a leaning towards modernism through Crown Lynn and Scandinavian design, otherwise Bernard Leach’s Anglo-Oriental vision where oriental glazes and English slip ware were both experimented.

Len Castle, 1976, Auckland. Rumsey, Steve. Purchased 1998. Te Papa

From the late 1960’s, Castle began to reach beyond the Anglo-Oriental and create new unglazed forms that reflected his fascination for the inner qualities of clay. He talked about the process of rolling, folding, stretching and compressing clay that brought strong textural qualities which, at the time, Castle maintained were interpreted wrongly by others to suggest an association with natural forms. Hanging Vases and Bottles for Grasses characterised these new pieces. They sat well in the contemporary domestic setting of the 1960’s and 70’s.

It was in Treasures of the Underworld, Expo 92 that Castle’s interest in New Zealand’s geomorphic forms actually took off. Castle was one of fourteen artists invited by James Mack through Museum of New Zealand, to create a body of work that reflected the earthly experiences in New Zealand. Castle responded with the twenty-one part series: the magma flows, the magma cools on its way to the ocean.

I was involved in researching the registration details of the Treasures works in 2008 and I was interested in the way he translated the volcanic crustiness and vibrant colours of lava in each individual work.

Bowl. From the group: The ocean. From the series: The magma flows, the magma cools on its way to the ocean, 1991, Auckland. Castle, Len. Commissioned 1991, in partnership with Expo NZ 1992 Ltd and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand. © Te Papa.

After 1992, Castle continued to investigate the natural world, including the foreshore that resulted in ceramics like Sea Secrets and Sea Fossils. More recently, his Sulphurous Bowl series continued his geothermal interests, one recent example of which was acquired through Castle by Te Papa last year. My visit to Castle on that occasion was based around the acquisition of eight pieces from the mid- 1960’s through to 2010 (see them on Collections Online shortly). Despite his health problems, Castle’s gentleness and keen commitment to capturing natural forms in his ceramics came through during conversation. We were privileged to have this opportunity.

Craft New Zealand - Len Castle, 1980 s, New Zealand. Brake, Brian. Gift of Mr Raymond Wai-Man Lau, 2001. Te Papa

Justine Olsen, Curator of Decorative Art and Design (Contemporary)

By Te Papa | Posted in Art | Also tagged clay, Len Castle, pottery, Sculpture | Comments (4)

Te Papa's Blog

Tag Archives: Art

Battle shields from Chimbu (Simbu): a new acquisition

Caring for our photographic negatives

I will need words: collecting great quotes by NZ artists

Get stuck on art, or, stick it to the man!

Materials and process: Karl Fritsch

Talking about art

Into the Night: Jason Greig’s monoprints

Creating small worlds: Jim Allen at Te Papa

An eye for the unexpected: Don Driver (1930-2011)

Len Castle, 1924-2011

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