After a successful season at the Venice Biennale, in Paris and Christchurch, Michael Parekowhai’s On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer will make its final stop at the national museum, Te Papa. Opening Saturday 25 August, a specially reconfigured installation will be shown in a single gallery space for four weeksRead more
I’ve been enjoying our scientists’ fieldwork posts. We have scientists’ photographs from several historic field trips in the photography collection. My favourites are in this photo album from the 1907 Expedition to the Subantarctic Islands. The Expedition was initiated by the Canterbury Philosophical Institute with support from the Government, andRead more
Every four years, an enormous event called the Festival of Pacific Arts is held in a different part of the Pacific. It is one of the most significant pan-Pacific gatherings where island nations from across Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia meet to share their arts – customary and contemporary – andRead more
by Matariki Williams Aside from the kākahu on display, Kahu Ora presents visitors with the opportunity to see three exemplars of New Zealand art close up. Two oil paintings by Charles Goldie and another from Gottfried Lindauer show kākahu in another medium and are juxtaposed by an impressive example of aRead more
Many of the kākahu on display in Te Papa’s Kahu Ora exhibition are contemporary works that serve as fantastic examples of the vitality of raranga as an art form. During preparation of the items for display, as we dressed them on mannequins and cloak forms, we had the special opportunity to workRead more
By Melissa Beseda On June 11th and June 12th, Te Papa hosted a Sāmoan Artist Exchange in celebration of Sāmoa’s 50 years of independence. Artists included weavers demonstrating ie toga (fine mat) techniques at the Weavers’ Studio area of our new exhibition Kahu Ora | Living Cloaks, tatau (tattoo) artists, masterRead more
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. Many negatives are chemically unstable and, if left in anRead more
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,Read more
When I first saw Gavin Hipkin’s The shaman (blue), currently on display in Collecting Contemporary on Level 5, it was as a digital image emailed by his dealer. I was struck by the ambiguity of the photograph. The stunning, pale blue background is almost featureless, and like the blue orRead more
Arnold Manaaki Wilson 1928–2012 Ngāi Tūhoe and Te Arawa iwi (tribes) Artist Ahakoa ruarua noa o kupu i takoto Anō te rite he whakatauākī te reka I puta ai āu mahi tohungatanga I runga i te tatangi o te kī. Tirohia mai rā aku pewa I taurite tēnei ka tītokoRead more
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. Recently, a small group of us have teamed up to develop and trial a new project called Stick it toRead more
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 WellingtonRead more
It is with great sadness that we share the news that our respected colleague and dear friend William McAloon passed away on Sunday 8 April. William has been Curator Historical New Zealand Art at Te Papa since 2005. A key member of the art team, William was a superb curator,Read more
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: OverRead more
When I started writing this, it was midnight in Paris but back in NZ it was a bright cheerful 11 o’clock in the morning. I had spent 24 hours crossing from one hemisphere to the other, and was left struggling with a conflicting body clock, unfair currency conversions and aRead more
