Great to see you last night. I think we last met when you’d just moved up to Wellington and I was still milking in the ‘naki after our African adventure. Then you moved again. Up north.
After Glenda pretty neatly convinced you both to take that Takapuna joint with a sea view, you never stopped grumbling and grouching about the place. For years. Y’know – its humidity, traffic, its prices, its pretentious people and so on. Not to mention its upsy-downsy football team of course. As for natural disasters, lockdowns, etc … I won’t go on.
But, bluddy hell mate, since then it’s almost like you’ve had what that Ayckbourne mate of yours would call a car-thar-sis. Family disruptions aside, it seems that you’ve stopped moaning and fallen in love with the place. Auckland! Never thought I’d see the day.
Blow me down, you seem to have become an advocate for just about everything and everyone. From Auckland’s buses to its ferries, from its oddball characters to its libraries. To lots of its bits too – from Riverhead to Moolfud even if the grandkids are your excuse to explore lots of Maccas and KFCs.
Quite honestly, mate, it seems like you’ve discovered some sort of extra-special non-energetic energy in your post-Covid life. Part of me thinks you have somehow grown an extra leg. Or at least grown up. And good on ‘yer.
Never even dreamed I’d see such a contented, reflective and accepting Dickie. I can see you now sitting on that playwright feller’s beach gazing contentedly at Rangitoto.
Nice looking apartment too and that ever-helpful sheila deserved the flowers as well.
Probably a few lessons in there for me. Perhaps, after 50 years – yes FIFTY years – it’s time for me to stop getting irate about suss hotel food, Mendela, Pienaar and 747s.
Yes it was pretty definitely good to see you again. Might even visit sometime.
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What are we going to do without Roger Hall? Is this really the end of a theatrical era? Will regional theatre companies collapse?
These are some of the questions which theatre lovers, theatre companies and Creative New Zealand will be addressing over the next few years.
With the retirement of Roger Hall from playwriting New Zealand theatre scene will be dealt something of a body blow.
But those questions and their answers are for next week, next year. In the meantime, we have another Roger Hall play, probably his last production with “End of Summer Time.”
With his latest play Hall gives a nod to one of the important milestones in New Zealand theatre history, Bruce Mason “End of the Golden Weather”. Even the publicity material features images of Rangitoto and Takapuna Beach which was the site of Masons play.
The play charts the problems of older people thrust into a new social environment as well as discovering the joys and drawbacks of living in a new town.
We have met Dickie Hart before in two of Halls plays “C’mon Black” and “You Gotta be Joking”. Hart has moved to the big smoke from Wellington, moving into an apartment on the North Shore.
Dickie (Andrew Grainger) is confronted by a lot of problems in his transition to Auckland and apartment living and Hall has exploited all these situations. Dickie has to manage his wife Glenda’s new interests in the library and yoga and he has to deal with issues around the body corporate and the South African block manager.
He also has to manage more personal issues such as getting a health check from the doctor for his driving license, particularly the cognitive test as well as trying to fill in the census form and its questions on gender. identity
There is a scary account of the Dickie’s-first time visit to inner Auckland, navigating the motorway system, the bridge and the netherworld of the Aotea Centre carpark.
Dickie has moved to Auckland partly to spend time with his grandkids – a task that is which is not all that simple but he manages educational outings to Auckland volcanic cones brilliantly by combining these trips with visits to Auckland’s great dining establishments – MacDonalds, KFC and Subway.
The play is essentially in two halves– pre and post Covid , the second half being a bit more reflective.
Hall has developed a clever approach to his characters and their comments on life politics and relationship, a style somewhere between the misogynistic and woke, it’s a tenuous area but Hall negotiates it skilfully and Andrew Grainger pulls it off with a breezy, nonchalant style.
Hall is able to assemble his string of one-liners into a coherent, monologue which acts as political and social commentary of issues of the present day as well as providing a compelling portrait of a typical New Zealand character.
The play is a brilliant and sustained piece of comedy throughout, But at one point play turns into tragedy with a few lines and some convincing acting which demonstrates Halls consummate writing, Quigan’s directorial skill and Grainger’s intelligent acting.
Much of Dickie’s identity is linked to rugby and throughout the play there are mentions of the Rugby world Cup as well as images of Rugby games on the TV which dominated the apartment. The local library also gets a favourable mention as Dickie manages to find a copy of Brian Turners book on Colin Meads
Grainger takes on Roger Halls monologue with an energetic enthusiasm, the conservative cow cocky only just managing to adjust to a new life as he prowls the pared back apartment-cum-prison set designed by John Parker.
As with all Hall’s work this is an engaging play with sparkling dialogue and consummate acting.
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In her latest exhibition ”Concrete” Ruth Cleland continues her interest in the accurate depiction of her environment along with the use of the grid.
Gridding is a technique that has been used by many artists throughout history using horizontal and vertical lines over drawings or photographs for enlargement and transfer purposes.
Cleland uses a grid to transfer images of concrete floors onto board using either graphite pencil or acrylic. These images such as “Concrete Floor 3” ($12,8000) show the polished concrete surface with imbedded scoria along with signs of previous uses and marks.
The works are akin to the work of the Boyle Family who randomly chose sites or parts of the body which they then recreated, the completed work offering new interpretations of the environment or body.
These images of concrete floors could be of the floor of the gallery with its various sections of ground and polished concrete laid over the years. They are in fact of a supermarket floor that the artist has previously used as subject matter. One image, “Concrete Path” ($12,800) has a more personal connection being the concrete path outside the artist’s home.
These images of concrete are meticulous in their accuracy but the artist shows her skill in the depiction of both ambient light sources as well as overhead lights.
In some cases there is a companion piece to the photorealistic image as with “Concrete Floor 1” and “Grid / Concrete Floor 1” ($12,800 pair). The lines drawn on the grid have been used here to indicate the striations seen in the drawing as well as light intensity. This recording adds to the enigmatic nature of the work suggesting there is an underlying plan or logic inherent in the image itself which the artist has revealed.
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Auguste Renoir, Road at Wargemont, 1879, Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
A Century of Modern Art
Auckland Art Gallery
June 7 – September 28
John Daly-Peoples
A Century of Modern Art which has just opened at the Auckland Art Gallery is one of the most significant exhibitions mounted by the gallery in the last few years. It is on loan from the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and provides a survey of the major artists who transformed modern art from the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century.
The exhibition features 57 works by 53 artists, including Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Helen Frankenthaler, Édouard Manet, William Merritt Chase, Amedeo Modigliani, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Robert Rauschenberg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler, among others.
The Toledo Art Museum was established and funded by Edward Drummond Libby and still has a substantial Endowment Trust in his name . The endowment has some $330 million and a budget of more than $20 million a year,. Many of the works in the exhibition were gifted by Libby or acquired through the Libbey Endowment.
Georges Braque, Still Life with Fish, 1941, Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Some of the Impressionist / Post Impressionist works by artists such as Renoir, van Gogh, Morisot and Gauguin are major works whle some of them are of unfamiliar subjects such as Renoir’s ”Road at Wargemont”
Several of the works are excellent examples of their work such as van Gogh’s “Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers” and Monet’s Water Lilies of 1922, one of the many images of the flower he created in his later years.
The show also features some unfamiliar names of American artists such as Luther Emerson van Gorder whose “Flower Market, Paris” (late 19ht century) could be mistaken for a Pissarro.
Flower Market, PLuther Emerson, Van Gorder, Flower Market, Paris, late 19th century- early 20th century. Toledo Museum of Art, Gift of the artist
The small Whistler work ”Crepuscule in Opal, Trouville” of 1865 is an interesting inclusion in the show, the landscape with its slash of colour is an almost abstract work
Among the more contemporary work is Helen Frankenthaler “Blue Jay” painted at a transition time between paintings of organic forms and colour field paintings. There is also a Morris Louis whose work has not been seen in Auckland since his large exhibition at the gallery in 1971
Helen Frankenthaler, Blue Jay,1963, Toledo Museum of Art, Gift of The Woodward Foundation
There are also works by artists who we rarely see but whose work shows high level of sophistication such as Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, and Gray”, László Moholy-Nagy’s ”Am2”, and Max Beckmann’s “The Trapeze”.
Max Beckmann, German, 1884-1950; The Trapeze; 1923; oil on canvas;H: 77 3/8 in. (196.5 cm); W: 33 1/8 in. (84 cm);Toledo Museum of Art; 1983.20;
There are a few important American artists as Stanton Macdonald-Wright who was one of the early American abstract artists and his “Synchromy, Blue-Green”, of 1916 is an example of the abstraction which developed in America in the early twentieth century.
Other American artists in the show include Gertrude Glass Green who was an important constructivist artist and Grace Hartigan who was a member of the New York School in the 1950’s and 60’s.
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Auckland Philharmonia with The Freemasons Foundation NZ Opera Chorus
Auckland Town Hall
July 5
John Daly-Peoples
La Travitaa is one of the most popular of Verdi’s operas and the scale is more intimate than much of his output, with no grand historical or political elements. The opera concerns itself with social issues contemporary to Verdi, almost autobiographical in places with regard to his relationship with the singer Giuseppina Strepponi who he had a scandalous relationship with in the 1840’s
It is also the only one of Verdi’s operas to specifically take place in his own time, although, the premiere was censored on moral grounds and he was forced to shift the period, from the contemporary to one hundred years earlier
The opera set in 19th Century Paris features Violetta, a high-class courtesan and the most celebrated figure of the Parisian social scene. She is carefree, attached to no-one, her own woman. But she is also seriously ill.
She meetsAlfredo, a poet who shows Violetta real, unconditional love for the first time. She falls for him and, abandoning her career, the two escape to a country retreat to live in domestic bliss. That is until Alfredo’s father shows up. He is unhappy with how his son’s relationship with a ‘fallen woman’ is damaging the family’s reputation and persuades Violetta to end things with Alfredo via a letter and return to the city.
Much later, Alfredo’s father is remorseful and finally reveals to his son why Violetta left him. He rushes to be with her, but Violetta’s sickness is now much worse
Oliver Sewell (Alfredo) Image Emma Brittenden
In the role of Violetta Valéry, Romanian soprano Luiza Fatyol will make her Australasian debut while Oliver Sewell (tenor) makes a welcome return to Auckland as, Alfredo, following his second season as a member of the principal ensemble at Germany’s Theater Bremen. He will be joined by Phillip Rhodes (baritone) as Alfredo’s father Germont, who reprises this role following his debut with Opera Australia last year.
Phillip Rhodes
Also performing with the Auckland Philharmonia will be acclaimed rising Kiwi stars James Ioelu (bass-baritone) as Marquis D’Obigny, Felicity Tomkins (soprano), winner of the 2024 Herald Sun Aria Competition, as Annina, 2024 Lexus Song Quest winner Katie Trigg (mezzo-soprano) as Flora Bervoix and popular Samoan baritone Joel Amosa as Doctor Grenvil.
The cast will be complemented by The Freemasons Foundation NZ Opera Chorus.
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Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa
A treasure trove of design.
By Justine Olsen
RRP $75
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
“In 1965 a twenty-four-year-old Bachelor of Arts student named Walter Cook bought an Art Nouveau tea set at the Willis St Wellington secondhand shop Odds & Ends. In the context of mid 1960’s design, with its flat patterns and stainless steel, the Liberty & Co pewter tea set would have seemed totally old fashioned to most but Cook saw it for style”.
This is how a new book on the unlikely art collector, Walter Cook opens. The book Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa celebrates the collection which is a small jewel in Te Papa’s crown. It also acknowledges the Wellington collector’s life and commitment over several decades with the book which illustrates over 200 works from the collection with full page colour illustrations
From that first work Walter Cook went on to amass a highly significant collection of ceramic, glassware and metal work. Apart from the collections importance it also shows how a collection can be built up without having to pay high auction house prices.
This Japanese-inspired jug with a cherry blossom pattern and bamboo handle was bought in Blenheim. Its manufacturer, Pinder, Bourne & Co of Stoke-on-Trent, was taken over by Doulton in 1882. Jug, 1877. Manufacturer: Pinder, Bourne & Co, England. Stoneware, pewter, 210 x 145 x 145mm, CG001804.
For most of Cook’s purchases the book documents the date of acquisition along with the place and price paid. These notes in themselves provide and insight into Cook’s buying. While a number of the works were bought in Wellington there are also purchases made in Auckland and London. There are purchases from department stores, antique shops, secondhand shops, and markets,
One of the earliest works is a Doulton “Jug” by Hannah Barlow (1873) bought from Alma Fosters antique store on Dixon St in 1980. And the latest purchase was of some1979 salt and pepper mills designed by Thygesen & Sorensen from the Danish firm PP Linie
Most of his purchases were from retail stores where he paid the current retail prices of $30 – $100 but he appears to have found many of his works in secondhand stores. So, a Susie Cooper tea set was bought in 1981on the Wakefield Markets at a stall run by Paul Orsman.
There was Pilkington Vase purchased for $30 in 1982, a Watcombe Pottery Palm Pot for $3.00 two “Morris” ware candlesticks for$5 in 1965, , a “Tudric” Vase for $5 and a “Tudric” dish for $2.00.
Two bowls by the Swedish artist Stig Lindberg were purchased in 1985 – “Pungo for $35 and Veckla for $6.00.
This ‘Tudric’ ware vase evokes the tulip form with its rising stem and cup-like flower. It was bought from Joanna Holmes Antiques, Masterton, in 1969 for $5 Tulip vase, ‘Tudric’, c.1905. Commissioner: Liberty & Co. England. Manufacturer: WH Haseler Ltd. Pewter, 220 ×165 ×110mm, GH004284.
The book has full page illustrations of the works from the collection grouped within particular periods – The Arts and Crafts Movement, Aestheticism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the interwar period and Postwar Modernism.
For each of these chapters Olsen provides descriptions of the history and aesthetic thinking behind the works created. So, we get details about the potteries and the individuals who created the works as well as an indication of how the works in the collection fit within the development of the art form.
Cook also acquired an example of Bretby Art Pottery which was purchased at the New Zealand Exhibition in Christchurch of 1906 / 07 and later purchased from Neale Auld’s Willbank Court Antiques.
In this early period there are also examples of Royal Copenhagen work with some ceramic plates
Along with information on the potteries and artists of the period including a profile of the importance of Christopher Dresser an important artist, designer and promoter English design in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
This ‘Syren’, sometimes referred to as ‘Duveen’, pattern set by Royal Doulton was bought from Alma Foster in 1980. Coffee service, ‘Syren’, c.1932. Manufacturer: Royal Doulton & Co Ltd, England. Ceramic. From Left: Cup, 60 x 75 x 75mm, CG001905; saucer, 15 x 115 x 115mm, CG001905; coffee pot, 205 x 75 x 145mm, CG001903; jug, 75 x 73 ×45mm, CG001904/1. 04
The Art Nouveau section features some of the elaborate work of the time with work from the Minton Pottery, Villeroy & Bosch as well as metalwork from the German company Wurttembergische Metallwarenfabrik.
The Art Deco section features a number of works from the Doulton and Co factory along with biographies of some of the importance female designers including Clarice Cliff, Truda Carter and Susie Cooper.
There is also a substantial entry about Keith Murray who worked for Wedgewood and whose designs influenced Ernest Shufflebotham who had a major impact on New Zealand pottery through Crown Lynn.
The Postwar Modernism section features work by Susie Cooper and Scandinavian Design which includes Rosenthal and designers Nittsjo Keramik, Carl-Harry Stallhane and Stig Lindberg.
This Italian glass ‘Fazzoletto’, or handkerchief, vase expressed the imagination and technical sophistication of the mid-twentieth century Italian glassmakers Venini & Co. Its latticino and pink filagree patterns drew on traditional Murano glass techniques and it was designed by leading Murano glass designer Fulvio Bianconi (1915–1996). The vase was bought from Linley Halliday and David Owens’ Curiosity Shop on Constable Street in Wellington. Vase, ‘Fazzoletto (handkerchief)’, c.1950. Manufacturer: Venini & Co, Italy. Designer: Fulvio Bianconi. Maker/artist: Paolo Venini. Glass, 98 x 135 x 128mm, CG001949.
What the book also reveals is that a collector of any type of artwork needs to have all the qualities Walter Cook had -.an understanding of the market, the history of the objects, a knowledge of aesthetics, dedication and a keen eye
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For Black Grace’s “Rage Rage” the Aotea Centre’s Hunua Room was set up with a high catwalk built through the centre of the space.
Was this nod to Dylan Thomas’s “Rage rage against the dying of the light” or a personal rage of Neil Ieremias. His work has always had an element of the personal and the political with works which are confrontational both between the performers themselves and between performers and audience.
Up to a couple of dozen performers race around the stage, in waves of massed groups, performing a series of linked dances to a range of music from traditional Samoan to contemporary rap.
Like all Ieremia’s shows this was a high energy and relentless performance combining many of the elements of his previous explorations in dance.
There is the hand clapping, foot stomping, the falls / collapses, hand movements like a form of deaf signing and arms used as a kind of semaphore.
The various sequences are introduced by Strictly Brown founders Leki Jackson-Bourke and Saale Ilaua who reminisce about their time at school, favourite TV and films and playground games. These reminiscences lead the company into surges of movement.
The sounds are a mixture of the traditional and the modern as the dancers negotiate issues of the present which are rooted in the past. Some of these are addressed in the latter part – Covid, climate change and the future of Tuvalu.
Many of routines seem based on the schoolyard ‘game’ of Rush, some of which morph into fights or just dissipate.
The final sequence is a mix of despair and celebration danced to a nihilistic vocal soundtrack-
“I don’t belong here
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here”
With the refrain
You don’t belong here
Which encapsulates so .much feeling and emotion focused on the emptiness of contemporary life.
Like much of Black Grace dances there is a tension and drama created by the action and reaction, between rapid movement and calm, between a zombie-like state and intense animation.
Throughout the performances there is an awareness of the beauty and intensity of the dance and the strange conflicting visceral and abstract nature of the dancing which underlines Ieremia’s ability to create dance which is focused and potent
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Headlining Auckland’s Cabaret Festival starting this week is La Clique featuring a range of performers with some of them presenting at a press preview.
La Clique has been performing for many years with their performers changing over the years. It was here at the Auckland Arts Festival in 2007 and while some of the performers have changed the class, innovation and magic is still there.
Performing in the Civic, the show is particularly magical, not just being in the Civic but being on the Civic’s stage. The lights, curtains and apparatus that we never see takes the audience into a very different space and looming over us are the seats of the stalls and balcony and above them the ceiling of the Civic with its twinkling stars of the solar system.
Tara Boon is a foot juggler which sounds like a pretty easy trick to take to the beach later in the year, that is, until you realise that some people can’t even get their shoes on without becoming a contortionist. Boon is as dexterous with her feet as ordinary people are with their hands. Resting on her reclining chair, she initially upends an umbrella which showers the stage with red petals and with her act she is able to manipulate up to four oriental umbrellas – on the handle or on their edges.
It’s a simple slick stylish act performed to the song “Umbrella” by Mechanical Bride and you keep forgetting how difficult it is to manipulate an umbrella, let alone four of them.
Byron Hutton is a juggler who is as clever with his hands as Boon is with her feet. He manages to juggle with his hands as well as other parts of his body, the clubs dancing and cavorting around him in fluid movements.
He showed his consummate skill a couple of times when he lost a club and instantly caught another from his offsider before moving on to the next routine.
Heather Holliday Image: Liam Newth / Auckland LIve
The act which attracted thy most gasps was the fire eating Queen, Heather Holliday. I’ve seen a few fire eaters before but never up close, so close I could feel the heat of the flames. I know they use low combustion fuels which are less dangerous than things like alcohol and petrol but even so it all looks a bit scary, especially when she takes her flaming batons and drags them across her skin
At the end of her performance, her offsider came on with a flute full of what I thought was a celebratory glass of champagne. But no. This was a glass full of her flame throwing fluid. She drank the flute and then spouted out a flaming jet like a flamethrower which had all the audience recoiling .
We saw just three acts but on the night, there will be a dozen. It will be a night full of the sexy, the funny and the dangerous
La Boheme, The student garret / studio (Act I & IV) Image. Andi Crown
La Boheme
Composer Giacomo Puccini
Librettists Luigi Illica, Guiseppe Giacosa
N Z Opera
Kiri te Kanawa Theatre
Until June 6
Then
Wellington 18 – 22 June
Christchurch 2 – 6 July
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
There are no gods or fairies in La Boheme. There are no heroic figures in La Boheme. There are no evil or deeply flawed characters in La Boheme and there are no complicated plots or byzantine machinations in La Boheme.
All the characters we encounter are young and ordinary, all making their first steps into adulthood, living in a bohemian environment, full of possibilities.
This ordinariness is in contrast to many other great operas where characters face great moral dilemmas, battle tyrants or life’s injustices. This is one of the few great operas where we see characters on stage who we can recognize as very much like ourselves – or twenty year old versions of ourselves.
Four of the very ordinary characters live in a very ordinary student flat and the opera opens with Rodolfo, a writer and his artist friend Marcello struggling to create masterpieces while they battle the freezing temperature by burning one of Rodolfo’s plays to keep warm. Colline, a philosopher, and Schaunard enter with food and drink but instead of paying the rent they decide to celebrate Christmas at the Café Momus, where they encounter Marcello’s girlfriend, Musetta who is with her sugar daddy Alcindora.
At the same time Rodolfo meets the frail seamstress Mimi, and they fall in love. But their tender romance is doomed, for Mimi is ill with consumption, and Rodolfo is too poor to help her. Through the opera they also have to confront the other aspects of life and love -jealousy, guilt and despair which comes with that love. As a contrast is Musetta whose love has a wider focus given to Marcello, Alcindora as well as others.
Ji-Min Park (Rodolfo) and Elena Perroni (Mimi) Image. Andi Crown
The slowly dying Mimi (Elena Perroni) who all but whispers in many of her arias gives memorable performances. While she presents a gentle voice often almost whispering while at other times she was able to sustain an expressive intensity as with her “Donde Lieta Usci”aria
Rodolfo and Mimi have a purity of soul which seems to bond them despite their Act 3 questioning of their relationship and this is reflected in their voices. Ji-Min Park (Rodolfo) is able to express an urgency with his rich voice while both Elena Perroni’s voice and demeanor coveys a sensitivity and frailty.
Rodolfo’s three friends also contribute some lively singing with their first act witty dialogue and humorous interchange with the landlord Benoit. Marcello provides some brilliant duos with Mimi and Musetta, notably the third and fourth acts while the philosopher Colline ( Hadleigh Adams) provides an additional concept of love with his aria dwelling on his much-loved coat.
The musician Schaunard (Benson Wilson) contributes slightly to the singing in the opera but his main purpose seems is to always have some money and always has food or wine available as the hedonist of the group and a contrast to Rodolfo.
Emma Pearson (Musetta) Image. Andi Crown
The setting has been changed for Mid nineteenth century to Paris in in 1947 and the bohemian nature of the artist’s lives in seen ibn some huge paintings like those of Pierre Soulages in the studio / garret. The post war date also means the costume designer (Gabrielle Dalton) have been able to give the Musetta and Mimi some contemporary fashion with Musetta being attired in some stylish Dior inspired outfits.
The simplicity and honesty of La Boheme has meant it is always accessible with a story which is clear, immediate and romantic and universal. Director Bruno Ravella and Conductor Brad Cohen have ensured that the story and the characters are brought to life with sensitivity, authenticity and joie de vivre.
The current exhibition “Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua” is the artists first comprehensive exhibition of his work and features more than 65 works spanning his 50-years as a photographer. documenting the land, the people and its history. These photographs are of places across the Pacific, the United Kingdom and Europe.
Much of his practice documenting sites of significance across the country, include places where Captain James Cook and his crew came ashore on their visits in 1769 and the 1770s, as well as locations where Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed in 1840.
Over the decades, Adams has sustained a deep and ongoing engagement with subjects of interest. He has photographed whakairo Māori (Māori carving) both here and overseas and the work of, Samoan master tattoo artists, Māori–Pākehā interactions in Rotorua, carved meeting houses, locations of significance for Ngāi Tahu in Te Waipounamu and the place of museums and photography in the area of cross-cultural exchange.
It includes photographs taken across the Pacific, the United Kingdom and Europe that explore the migration of artistic and cultural practices across the globe, and examine the role of museums, and photography itself, in the ongoing area of cross-cultural exchange.
The various sections of the book show Adams’ range of work from his early works, his focus on Rotorua, tatau, Treaty Signing Sites, Museums, Cooks Sites Māori meeting house in overseas locations, Te Waipounamu and his more recent interest in Photograms.
Several of his multi-image work are fascinating in their scope and production but the book does not do them credit, even when spread across several pages. With these works the exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery make an impression in some cases filling an entire wall of the gallery. “0 degrees” is such a work, a panoramic 360-degree set of images taken at Greenwich Park which includes the Royal Observatory, the home of Greenwich Mean Time and Prime Meridian.
Other works on a grand scale include his “Nine Fathoms Passage”, the photographers view replicating William Hodges view of Dusky Sound, and his panorama of the meeting house, Hinemihi in the grounds of Clandon Park in Surrey, England as well as the magnificent meeting house Rauru in the Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg.
Mark Adams, 13.11.2000. Hinemihi. Clandon Park. Surrey. England. Ngā tohunga whakairo: Wero Tāroi, Tene Waitere, 2000, colour inkjet prints, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery, 2014.
Author of the book Sarah Farrar says “You could say that, in many respects, Mark has been ahead of his time as a Pākehā and Palagi artist. But what does that really mean — to be ‘early’ or ‘ahead of one’s time’? It’s all relative and I’m sure many people would view a respectful approach to tangata whenua and tangata o le moana as seriously overdue.”
Adams’ photographs are of exceptional quality and intriguing in their distinctive approach to subject matter. The viewer is challenged to interpret , question and reflect on them. One commentator, Damian Skinner has noted that Adams photographs “offer no resolution, only problems. They patiently track the material traces of various forces that coalesce in specific sites”.
Mark Adams, 19.05.1989. Te Ana o Hineraki. Moa Bone Point Cave. Redcliffs. Ōtautahi Christchurch. Te Waipounamu South Island, 1989, gold-toned silver bromide fibre-based prints, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery, 2014.
Generally, with photographs of important sites the photographer is essentially saying – “I was here – this is how it looks”. However, with many of Mark Adams photographs of historical sites, the land seems of little interest, often devoid of figures. With these the photographer seems to be saying “this is how it looked”. The photographs require the viewer to transport themselves back to that place but in another time.
Sarrah Farrar notes “His photographs of museums and art galleries remind me of the artifice and stagecraft that we are actively involved in as curators and museum professionals. Every decision we make communicates something to audiences. We construct meaning through the selection of objects (even those that are absent), their placement and their interpretation. Mark’s photographs remind me of the power dynamics and knowledge systems that are inscribed in museum, library and art gallery experiences — even embedded into the design of the buildings themselves. A great example of this is Mark’s panorama of the science-fiction-like modernist design of Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek, which feels so at odds with the fact that it’s the home of the journals of Georg Forster, the naturalist who travelled with James Cook on his second voyage.”
Mark Adams, 1988. Hori Korei. George Grey monument. Albert Park. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 1988, silver bromide print, courtesy of the artist.
The book is a stylish, superbly-designed production with over 200 images, mainly black and white. It features an excellent text by Sarah Farrar as well as a forward by Ngahuia te Awekotuku and afterword by Nichlos Thomas
New Zealand Arts Review 