John Daly-Peoples
Aotearoa Contemporary
Auckland Art Gallery
July 6 – October 20
The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua Orākei have announced a new contemporary art triennial at Auckland Art Gallery which will celebration of the breadth of contemporary art in New Zealand.
“The Gallery is thrilled to partner with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei to present a new generation of talented artists and showcase Aotearoa New Zealand’s diverse artistic environment.”
“Set to occur every three years, the exhibition provides ongoing representation and pathways for new artistic voices, bolstering the future resilience of New Zealand art. Aotearoa needs a contemporary art triennial and it now has one.” adds Lacy.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust Deputy Chair Ngarimu Blair says, “Our tupuna Apihai Te Kawau gifted 3000 acres of land on the Waitematā on 18th September in 1840 to become a city which welcomed people, cultures and ideas from afar. Our relationship with Auckland Art Gallery is founded in the shared goal to foster the arts reflective of our multi-cultural community in Aotearoa.”
With an emphasis on artists not previously exhibited at the Gallery, the exhibition presents 27 artists and 22 compelling new projects in a range of media including painting, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, photography, and performance.
Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, Natasha Conland says, “Aotearoa Contemporary reveals a new cluster of artists who work afresh with ritual and storytelling, mythology, rhythm, indigenous space and materials. There is also a special emphasis on art’s relationship with choreography through the commission of four dance works.”
Curator, Pacific Art, Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua adds, “From Ruth Ige’s enigmatic blue paintings of anonymous figures, to the art collective The Killing’s installation of supersized soft-toys in a state of play, there is something for everyone in this exhibition. Amongst the ambitious new commissions is a three-channel video by Qianye and Qianhe Lin featuring mythology set in Hailing Island off the coast of China and Aotearoa.”
Aotearoa Contemporary is proudly supported by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Auckland Art Gallery Foundation and the Chartwell Trust.
Aotearoa Contemporary has been scheduled to coincide with New Zealand’s leading contemporary art award, The Walters Prize 2024, to provide a broad overview of contemporary art in New Zealand in the Gallery’s winter programme.
The exhibition has been curated by Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua, Natasha Conland and Ane Tonga with support from Ruth Ha.
Artists featured in Aotearoa Contemporary
Emerita Baik, Leo Baldwin-Ramult, Heidi Brickell, Pelenakeke Brown, Jack Hadley, Ruth Ige, Hannah Ireland, Xin Ji, Reece King, Qianye Lin and Qianhe Lin, Te Ara Minhinnick, Ammon Ngakuru, Amit Noy, Sung Hwan Bobby Park, Meg Porteous, Maungarongo (Ron) Te Kawa, Tyrone Te Waa, The Killing (collective), Anh Trân, Manuha’apai Vaeatangitau, Jahra Wasasala and George Watson.
Jahra ‘Rager’ Wasasala is an award-winning cross-disciplinary artist of Fijian/NZ European descent. As an artist, Jahra investigates her ancestral connections through the art mediums of performance activation, contemporary dance and poetry, and has extensively toured her performance works both nationally and internationally.
As a child of the Pasifika diaspora, Jahra is invested in translating her shared internal conflict into an accessible, yet confrontational, physicalised language. Her most recent performance work titled “a world, with your wound in it” focuses on the complex relationship between the earth and a woman’s body, a theme Jahra continues to investigate in her developing work.
Maungarongo Te Kawa is a takatāpui fabric artist, educator, and storyteller. His practice makes old pūrākau newly relevant using brilliant colour, fluid design, and infectious good humour. Following a career in costume design and fashion, Te Kawa dedicated himself to full-time art-making and teaching. In addition to producing his own elaborate whakapapa quilts, he runs sewing workshops, guiding participants to express their creativity and genealogy through fabric.
Ruth Ige is a Nigerian New Zealand-based painter whose intimate, evocative compositions oscillate between bodily forms and painterly abstractions. While some resemble traditional portraiture, others consist of colour fields that capture a more mysterious, ethereal effect. Hands, shoulders, and faces emerge from a watery facture. “I am interested in creating images that are not easily understood,” says Ige. She considers her unique figuration, which renders her subjects featureless and inscrutable, to be a form of “veiling.”
Performances
The commissioned performances in Aotearoa Contemporary include Pelenakeke Brown, Is this a performance 1+2, Xin Ji, Doco Dance, Amit Noy, Errant and Jahra Wasasala, DRA.
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