Past Exhibitions

Rona Ngahuia Osborne
WAHINE
25 March - 12 April, 2008
From our first breath to our last, we are wrapped in cloth. When we are at our most vulnerable, alone
with our dreams, cloth embraces us. It takes on our emotions, memories, hopes and pain. Imbued with
the wairua of the past the blanket forms intimate associations.

Often these are feminine associations, that of Motherly love, childbirth or illness. Women are the keepers of knowledge, passed from mother to child. This work celebrates the women in my life who have taught me, inspired me, scolded me, loved me, and made me who I am.

Dedicated to the memory of Kate Harbutt – Weaver, teacher, mother, friend.
Whilst we mourn your loss, you live on in your teaching and the stories you have left behind.
Haere atu ra, Haere atu ra.

— Rona Ngahuia Osborne

From the NZ Herald Review 03/04/08:
Surfaces can be something to paint on or paint about. Rona Ngahuia Osborne, whose Wahine exhibition is at the Lane Gallery until April 12, uses special surfaces. Her work is appliqué collage and the surfaces on which she applies her images are recycled woollen blankets with pale faded stripes. She is aware that at birth, in sickness and in death we are often embraced by blankets.

She adds to the blankets cut-out, stylised, Maori-inspired motifs of hearts, tongues, mouths and appealing hands and, above all, tears. Areas of light and dark also play a part in the quiet drama of the work.
The effect is touching and the careful hand stitching that joins the images in these works makes them intimate. Not too long ago, hand stitching was thought to be particularly appropriate to women's art but here the handiwork is an integral part of the work.

A typical piece is the one that gives its name to the show, Wahine, with a stylised head flanked by tears of pain in red and tears of joy in white. There is a similar construction in Salve, a work of greeting and love where a red heart indicates emotions and a pale cross indicates faith. In this work, as elsewhere, the pale, worn surface of the blanket reflects experience but is intruded upon by a dark, melancholy corner.

All of this symbolism comes together at its best in Storytalker with a mouth stitched in red thread, a strong, dark arm with the traditional three fingers supporting the central part and a pale hand signalling against a dark background.

This unusual show has moments of considerable power firmly linked to the circumstances and style of this country.

For more information, please visit: www.lanegallery.co.nz

Pacific Circuit
O'kaioceanikart Gallery, Auckland City
7 March -  30 March, 2008
Pacific Circuit exhibition with Pacific-based artists from Papua New Guinea, Palau, Rarotonga, Solomon Islands and Fiji, curated by Nina Tonga and Craig Marlow.

The exhibition will be held in the O'kaioceanikart Gallery, which will also be home to the Designer Pacific Living Room exhibition in conjunction with St Kevin's Arcade PLR.

For more information contact Marilyn Kohlhase.
Phone: 09 3799 051 or Email: kohlhase@okaioceanikart.com

Flat White, Black Pearl
Te Karanga Gallery
1 March - 22 March, 2008
Flat White, Black Pearl is being shown in Auckland's Te Karanga Gallery as part of the month-long Celebrate Pasifika festival. Atypical of your usual expectation of Pacific culture in the visual arts, it will only feature works that are in black and white.

With almost 50 artists participating in the show, there are bound to be a few surprises about how the artists have chosen to express their ‘colour’ and cultural identity when confined to neutral tones.

Jim Vivieaere has curated the exhibition along with Leeane Clayton, herself an emerging artist and first-time curator.

While the curators concentrate on creating the physical and intellectual experience of the exhibition, the artists determine their own views on issues of race and identity as Pacific artists.

The exhibition invites people to take another look at the contrast of white and black, the personal expression of identity and wider issues of race and ethnicity.

For more information, please visit: www.colourmefiji.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/flat-white-black-pearl-1-22-march-te-karanga-gallery/

'Hand in Hand' group exhibition
Boomalli Urban Aboriginal Artist Co-Operative & Performance Space, Sydney, Australia
February - March, 2008
The first exhibition of its kind, the 'Hand in Hand' group exhibition is held in venues including Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative and Performance Space both venues based in Sydney with inclusion of artists ranging from Maori, Fiji, Niue, Samoa, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders all of whom are indigenous and 'queer' ie: Fa'a fafine, Takatapui, Sistagirl, Queenie, Third gender, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersexed community.

The exhibition takes place in February 2008 to coincide with the 30th celebration of the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival, which promises to be even bigger, better, and brighter then ever before! Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative's annual Sydney Mardi Gras exhibition is an opportunity for indigenous artists across the Pacific to participate in a celebration of International standing through an exhibition program that openly challenges dominant views on sexuality in the Indigenous community.' The exhibition is held in collaboration with the Performance Space at CarriageWorks and the Aids Council of NSW in Australia. The artwork featured includes paintings, print, sculpture, installations, photography, moving image, performance art, music and costume. This exhibition is supported by the Creative New Zealand Arts Council. Artists in 'Hand in Hand' group exhibition include: Gary Lee, Jeffery Samuels, Tracey Moffatt, Arone Raymond Meeks, r e a, Darrell Sibosado, Clinton Nain, Adrian Wills, Dianne Jones, Moana Nepia, Niwhai Tupaea, Sionelagi Falemaka, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Claudine Sartain, Salote Tawale, Jenny Fraser and Shigeyuki Kihara. Co curators Jenny Fraser and Shigeyuki Kihara

For more information, please contact Shigeyuki Kihara: duskygeisha@yahoo.co.nz or Jenny Fraser: dot_ayu@yahoo.com.au

Pasifika Styles: Maori and Pacific Art and Culture in the 21st Century
University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
6 May, 2006 - Feb 2008
An exhibition featuring historical collections and the latest in contemporary arts: painting, sculpture, body adornment, video art and installations.

For more information, please visit www.pasifikastyles.org.uk

World of Shadows – Art of the South Seas
Death Cult and Ancestral Portraits from New Ireland
Museen Dahlem, Ethnologisches Museum
Welt der Schatten - Kunst der Südsee
Totenkult und Ahnenbilder aus Neuirland
10 August - 11 November, 2007
The Ethnological Museum, together with the Saint Louis Art Museum in the United States and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, is the first to present this comprehensive show of art from New Ireland, compiled from collections in the USA, Europe and Australia.

The exhibition presents over 150 sculptures and paintings of outstanding artistic quality. Among them are the famous Uli figures with their sturdy breasts and large penisses. The Uli figure has become a favoured object among collectors of oceanic art, and a poet as famous as André Breton sang its praises in a Surrealist poem.

The publication of Emil Stephan’s decisive work on the art of the South Seas ("Südseekunst") in Berlin a hundred years ago coincided with Pablo Picasso’s creation of his famous painting of "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon" which is often regarded as the starting point of European modern artists’ engagement with extra-European art.

Commissioned by the Berlin Museums for Ethnology, Stephan returned to New Ireland in order to carry out new research on the carvings which are nowadays regarded as the most important artistic creations of the South Seas. As objects which received early European attention, they soon acquired a high status among collectors and can now be found in museums worldwide.
Presented by: Ethnological Museum.

For more information, visit: www.smb.museum/suedsee

Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art of the Papuan Gulf
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
On view until December, 2007
This exhibition presents some 60 powerful and graphically elaborate sculptures and 30 rare historical photographs from the Gulf province of Papua New Guinea. The sacred objects, alongside photographs that show them in context, demonstrate the deep connection between art and community life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn from public and private collections, as well as the Museum's own holdings, many of the works are being exhibited for the first time in the only in-depth investigation of these art traditions in 45 years.The selection of rare historical photographs—some exhibited for the first time—taken by early travelers to the Papuan Gulf is drawn from The Photograph Study Collection of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

For more information, visit: www.metmuseum.org

New Ireland: Art of the South Pacific
St. Louis Art Museum
15 October - 7 January, 2007
Additional venues: Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, April 2-July 8, 2007 and Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche zu Berlin, August 10-November 11, 2007.

For more information and related programs, visit http://www.slam.org

the other APT
Brisbane, Australia
28 November, 2006 - 23 January, 2007
the other APT explores issues for “Australia’s” Native peoples and our role in the Asia Pacific Region, and also deals with the issues of migration of our neighbours including the importance of Place, Legend, Identity, Politics and Mutual Respect in the interest and importance of open Art Dialogue.

Objets de pouvoir en Nouvelle-Guinée : donation Anne-Marie et Pierre Petrequin
On view until 7 January 2007
The exhibition "Objets de pouvoir en Nouvelle-Guinée : donation Anne-Marie et Pierre Petrequin" is now on view at the Musée des Antiquités nationales, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (close to Paris) until the 7th of January 2007. Catalogue de la donation Anne-Marie et Pierre Pétrequin (1500 pièces), 544 pages, 159 illustrations en couleur et 951 illustrations en noir et blanc, éditions RMN, 100€ (french available only) .

For more information, visit: www.musee-antiquitesnationales.fr

Ombres de Nouvelle Guinée: Arts de la grande île d'Océanie dans les collections Barbier-Mueller
On view until November 25, 2006
The exhibition "Ombres de Nouvelle Guinée: Arts de la grande île d'Océanie dans les collections Barbier-Mueller" is now on view at the Fondation Mona Bismarck, 34 avenue de New York, 75116 Paris until November 25, 2006. Various members of PAA have contributed to an illustrated catalogue, edited by Philippe Peltier and Floriane Morin (French available for € 59; English version at the press).

For more information, visit: www.monabismarck.org

Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society in the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea
Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College
1 April - 17 September, 2006
The exhibition explores the relationship between social life and artistic expression since the nineteenth century in one of the most important art-producing regions of Papua New Guinea.

For more information, visit: www.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu

Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
21 May - 13 August, 2006
Over 250 objects, including major sculptures in wood and stone, feather and basketry images, feather cloaks, wooden bowls, decorated bark cloths, ornaments and valuables of ivory, shell, bone and nephrite, and other ritual items such as fly whisks, fans and drums. representing the major regions of Polynesia. Many rarely exhibited.

For more information, visit:www.scva.ac.uk
 

Catalog by Steven Hooper, published by British Museum Press £25, available at www.britishmuseum.co.uk; in NZ in conjunction with Te Papa Press, NZ$64.99 at tepapapress@tepapa.govt.nz

Ozeanien - Kult und Visionen
Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold
10 October, 2003 - 14 February, 2004

Korewori - Magische Kunst aus dem Regenwald (Korewori, Magic Art from the Rain Forest [of Papua New Guinea])
Museum der Kilturen, Basel
27 March, 2003 - 18 January, 2004

The Marquesas: Two Centuries of Cultural Traditions
Mission Houses Museum, Honolulu
23 October - 15 December, 2003

Weltvagant - ein Leben auf Reisen: Paul Wirz (1892-1955) / World Traveler - A LifeAbroad: Paul Wirz (1892-1955)
Kantonsmuseum Baselland, Liestal, Switzerland
25 October, 2002 - January/February, 2003
A selection of photographs by this noted ethnologist will also be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 18 February - 28 June, 2003.

Island Connections: Cultures of the Pacific
Mathers Museum, University of Indiana
On view until 29 June, 2003

Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 2002
Queensland Art Gallery
12 September, 2002 - 26 January, 2003
For further information, contact gallery@qag.qld.gov.au or visit www.qag.qld.gov.au

Embedded Nature: Tapa Cloths from the Pacific Islands
Peabody Museum-Harvard University
On view until 31 January, 2003
The exhibit features some of the earliest known tapa from the Pacific Islands as well as recent gifts of constructed tapa items from Tonga and the Cook Islands. The Peabody Museum, located at 11 Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA.

Art from the South Seas: The Admiralty Islands
Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Switzerland
16 June - 20 October, 2002
160 works on loan from the museums of Basel, Bremen, Berlin, Dresden, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne (in the sequence of numbers of loans), collected up to 1931 (Basel) or pre-1914 (German museums).

Anceaux's Glasses: Anthropological Photography since 1860
Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, The Netherlands
March 8 - September 8, 2002,

Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
11 December, 2001 - 8 September, 2002