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Music without end: A book of listening

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Music Without End; A book of listening

Roger Horrocks

Atuanui Press

RRP $45.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

We are surrounded by music every day, in our houses, in the public space in shopping malls and with our audio devices and through this soundscape to our lives which we build up a huge sound bank of songs and music. Often, we are not aware of how this music is created but we are conscious of its components such as melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, and form, which work together to create a piece of music. But we rarely investigate them, they are magically and mysteriously assembled, providing enjoyment and diversion There are many though who become obsessed by what a composer, band  or singer have created and how these creators have seemingly produced something which touches on our psyche, our emotions and our way of seeing the world. There are some writers, composers and philosophers who try and understand this fascination with what music is and what it does.

Roger Horrocksm is deeply interested in this world of music and his new book  “Music Without End; A book of listening” which follows on from his 2022 book “A book of Seeing” delves  into areas of music which will resonate with readers as well as offering new perspectives and insights.

As the author says in his preface “I take a very broad approach … since I am interested in popular music, jazz, classical music contemporary classical sounds and music form non-Western traditions (including, Indian, African and Māori).

This very catholic approach has resulted in a book which covers the musical landscapes which most readers will be aware of but also presents new landscapes which will be new, novel and intriguing sending readers off in a quest for these often unknown composers, musicians and compositions.

The four chapters of the book are Music and Listening: A personal History, On Listening, Interviews and Music without End: A History of Western Classical Music

The opening chapter reads very much like the account many music lovers would write- early encounters with music which stimulated great interest in listening and collecting music. For Horrocks this has led to a very wide interest in both classical and popular music. He recounts his exploration of music with its various interwoven strands such as hearing Vivaldi’s “Four Season as the soundtrack to Kenneth Angers 1953 short film “Eaux d’Artifice” filmed at the Villa d’Este. 

His music education really developed when he spent time in the1960’s is the US One encounter meant that he saw the Merce Cunningham dance groups performing to music by John Cage and David Tudor and also got to talk with John Cage. An encounter with Arab / Andalusian music in a taxi in Paris as well as exposure to the experimental jazz of the of the 1960’s hearing musicians such as Ornette Coleman and archie Shepp

He also includes miscellany of musical events such as a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at Crystal Palace in 1857 which had an orchestra of 500 and 2000 singers. Providing a New Zealand context, he notes that two years before the concert the infant Auckland Choral Society had performed the work in Auckland.

For the third chapter the author interviewed ten contemporary musicians who offer different perspectives on the Importance of listening, inspiration and process in the creation of music. These include contemporary composers Eve De Castro Robinson and Annea Lockwood, conductor / composer /performer, Petere Scholes and   singer Caitlin Smith,

“Music Without End: A history of Western Classical Music”, is the final chapter in the book takes a broad approach to the history of Western Music. As the author notes, ‘What interests me is the constant evolution of styles and genres, along with development of instruments, venues and technologies.

Here he follows the course of the Western music over 800 years looking at the major periods – Baroque, Romanticism, Late Romanticism, Modernism, as well Atonal Music Serialism and Minimalism, He also devotes space to many of the Russian composers. including Sofia Gubaidulina, Alfred Schnittke and Valentin Silvestrov.

As well as looking at various aspects of music he devotes much of the book in tracing out the historical threads of Western Music he interested is in trying to understand how the music got to be written and the changes in approaches to composition.

In his exploration of the nature of listening he broadens out his enquiry, looking (and listening) at music from various perspectives such as the compositions of John Cage where the music is close to a theoretical or philosophical model.

This exceptional book not only introduces readers to many specialist areas of music, but it does so using an accessible language, providing interesting anecdotes and providing readers with a way of understanding their own approaches to music.

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Black Grace at 30

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Black Grace, If there ever was a time Image: Jinki Cabronero

Black Grace: Celebrating 30 years

Civic Theatre, Auckland

November 21

Then Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch

November 25 & 26

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

For their thirtieth anniversary finale Black Grace presented two works, one a new piece by Neil Ieremia and a work by the legendary American choreographer Paul Taylor, created in 1975.

Of the first work on the programme “If there ever was a time” Ieremia notes, “I was raised in the church, carried along by its stories, its hymns, its promises. I have been losing my religion for the last forty years. This work is my response to what I see as the weaponisation of faith”.

The work takes an ambivalent approach to his dilemma with the music he uses to propel the dancers a mixture of traditional Pacific music – Samoa Sila Sila and contemporary music including “Voodoo in my Blood” from Massive Attack & Young Fathers and “Monolith” featuring DJ Krush with their anti-capitalist rages.

The set featured a large image of the moon which slowly moved across the rear of the stag while above the stage was cloud form of wispy fabric which ultimately collapses, a metaphor for the failure of the old order and religion.

The music was a mixture of traditional Pacific music – Samoa Sila Sila and contemporary music including “Voodoo in my Blood” from Massive Attack & Young Fathers and “Monolith” featuring DJ Krush.

The work is like a series of rituals with repeated movements and sequences of action and reaction where the physical exertion of the dancers reflect idea about passion and emotion.

Like a lot of contemporary dance, the work owes much to the Stravinsky / Nijinsky ballet “The Rite of Spring” with its rituals and confrontations.

“If there ever was a time” used some of these ideas in addressing issues around religion, colonialism and Ieremia’s ambivalence about religio and its effects on the Pacic Island communities.

The dancers’ gestures and movements are those which have often been used by the company for many years – signalling with the hand, arm and leg displays which are strongly angular and abrupt. Some of the movements are close to rap moves with sharp slides, leaps and pivots, the agitated movements mirroring the frantic sounds of the music.

At one point group of dancers form an elaborate multi-faceted form – a parasite or insect which inches across the stage menacing the sole dancer who skips relentlessly.

The image of this confrontation evokes the imagery of Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” where an individual struggles to find identity and break from conformity.

In another sequence two figures – a betrothed couple, one holding a wedding bouquet enter from either side of the stage, their heads wrapped in cloth, restrained by straining figures. Their anonymity and desperation seem to have been taken from the Magritte painting “The Lovers” where two figures, their heads wrapped in cloth attempt to kiss, suggesting the complexities of love and intimacy.

The choreography was endlessly original and interesting where simple dance steps evolve into unusual and unsettling movements and as the music changes the forms, dynamics and energy evolve.

Black Grace , Esplanade Image; Jinki Cambronero

The second work on the programme was Paul Taylor’s 1975 work “Esplanade”, a piece Ieremia had been wanting to present for many years. It was inspired by the sight of a young woman running to catch a bus. This notion of using everyday movement and elevating it to dance has been a central concept of Black Grace dance since its inception.

The work links ballet, court dance and contemporary movement danced to Bach violin concertos providing a mix of elegance and simplicity.

Much of the time the dancers walk, run, slide, and whirl around the stage seeming to follow some predetermined paths in fluid and orderly formations. Elizabethan court dance refashioned in a modern form.

There were elements of energy and drama when the women took giant leaps into the male dancers’ arms as they rotated around the stage. These bolds moves contrasted with the more tender sequences which emphasised weightlessness and where the dancers met casually, touched lightly, bracing and gesturing in languid movements.

While much of the dancing was at frenetic pace there were also times when the dancers seemed to slow their movements to become more like stop motion sequences highlighting the nature of movement

While the work is based on the movement of the street there is a vibrancy and energy to the work with its combination of rushing and motionless dancers giving the work a visual and emotional power.

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The Collector: Thomas Cheeseman and the making of the Auckland Museum

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Collector; Thomas Cheesemen and the making of the Auckland Museum

Andrew McKay and Richard Wolfe

Massey University Press

RRP $65.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Museums have had a lot of critical press over the past few years, viewed as agents of the colonizers because their collections often contain artifacts taken from colonized countries, and their early practices reinforced colonial ideologies by presenting the colonizer as superior. They functioned as a means of control, where European museums collected objects from voyages of exploration and colonies to showcase their dominance and justify the imperial project. But a major thrust of museums has also been to preserve, interpret, and exhibit the local cultural and scientific heritage serving as a bridge between the past and present by collecting objects, telling stories, and providing a space for people to learn, reflect, and connect with history, art, and science.

That has certainly been the aim of the Auckland Museum and the individuals who initiated it, guided it and developed it. A new book “The Collector; Thomas Cheeseman and the making of the Auckland Museum” tells how the Auckland Museum, like man y other museums in the nineteenth century were guided by visionary individuals.

The newly opened Auckland and Institute in 1876 Thomas Cheeseman stands in the doorway

Authors Andrew McKay and Richard Wolfe write about the establishment of the museum’s first custom-built building in 1876 at the northern end of Princes Street.  When it opened the director was Thomas Cheesman who had been in the post since 1874, remaining in the post remained in that post until his death in 1923.

They write about the original building which was unfavourably compared to the more ambitious Christchurch Museum. It was “plain, improvised and almost invisible … It was housed in an old public building, with little funding and few staff. But that’s what makes the story compelling. The contrast between the buildings isn’t just architectural — it reflects differing levels of civic support, cultural ambition and access to resources. Auckland’s museum didn’t look like much, but it had people with vision, especially Thomas Cheeseman. Over time, he took that underwhelming space and turned it into a serious scientific institution.”

Under his visionary guidance the Museum and its collections flourished, necessitating a further move and the commissioning of a world-wide architectural competition to design a new Museum for Auckland which would be combined with a war memorial to commemorate soldiers lost in World War I. That new museum opened on its current site in 1929.

Not only did Cheesman manage to the institution for nearly fifty years but as a self-taught botanist he travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand, collecting and recording plants, and observing the geography of the country. During his career, Cheeseman also published numerous important papers on a range of flora, described three plant genera, and numerous plant species from New Zealand and the Cook Islands. At the request of the New Zealand government, Cheeseman began his magnum opus, Manual of the New Zealand flora, which was first published in 1906and in 1914 he edited the two-volume work Illustrations of the New Zealand flora.

Thomas Cheeseman

Cheeseman met or corresponded with many of the scientists in New Zealand as well as extensive professional relationships with local and international colleagues, including  the German-born geologist and director of the Canterbury Museum, Julius von Haast, the geologist James Hector of the the Colonial Museum, the geologist, zoologist and museum director Frederick Hutton as well as  Sir Joseph Hooker at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. 

Early on in his career he even corresponded with Charles Darwin as the authors write. “Charles Darwin was arguably the most famous scientist in the world and also one of the most controversial. And it wasn’t just a lucky moment. Cheeseman’s note was careful, respectful and scientifically rigorous. It showed that he wasn’t just some amateur with an opinion — he was a careful observer who took the work seriously. Darwin saw that. For Cheeseman, it must have been thrilling and validating. It also helped open doors — that exchange helped establish his credibility in the scientific world, and it reinforced the idea that valuable knowledge didn’t just come from Oxford or London, it could come from a young man on the edge of empire, with a sharp mind and a notebook. That Cheeseman dared to write at all — and so confidently — speaks volumes about both his scientific maturity and his quiet self-assurance.”

The book highlights Cheeseman’s efforts to develop the taonga Māori component of the museum and also touches on the ethically sensitive area of collecting the art and culture of Māori noting ‘While Thomas Cheeseman was largely guided by the norms of nineteenth-century science, some of his actions — particularly around the acquisition and display of taonga Māori — now fall into ethically ambiguous, if not outright troubling, territory. His drive to build the Auckland museum’s collections sometimes led him to treat cultural objects as specimens, detached from the communities that made and valued them.

His acquisition methods could also be problematic. In several cases, taonga were obtained through missionary networks, collectors or private sales, often with little documentation about provenance or permission. Cheeseman rarely questioned the ethics of these transactions… These actions were not driven by malice, but rather by an unshakeable belief in the civilising power of museums and the primacy of scientific classification.”

The book tells the history and development of the Auckland Museum and its progress over more than fifty years to the triumph of the building on the present site in Auckland Doman. It also tells of the journey of Thomas Cheeseman who become a great person of influence not just in Auckland but nationally.  The book also gives an account of the changing scientific and cultural landscape of the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century.

It is a well-researched and written book, thoughtfully designed with numerous images which help tell the entwined stories of Cheeseman, the development  of scientific inquiry, the museum and museum’s collections.

Andrew McKay holds a PhD in art history from the University of Auckland and was a Professional Teaching Fellow in the university’s art history department.

Richard Wolfe is an Associate Emeritus of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and from 1978 to 1997 was Curator of Display. He has written numerous books on New Zealand art, history and popular culture.

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New Zealand Photography Collected 

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Cover image, George Chance – The Storm, Wanaka (c1940)

New Zealand Photography Collected 

175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa

Te Papa Press

Written by Athol McCredie

RRP  $90.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

New Zealand Photography Collected illuminates New Zealand’s photographic history, from the earliest nineteenth-century portraits of Māori and local ‘scenic views’ to the latest contemporary art photography. The previous edition of the book published in 2015 went into two editions and this expanded version featuring 400 images from Te Papa’s collection of 400,000 works.

From the iconic to the previously unpublished, the selection includes outstanding photographs by the Burton Brothers, Leslie Adkin, Spencer Digby, John Pascoe, Brian Brake, Frank Hofmann, Ans Westra, Eric Lee-Johnson, Marti Friedlander, Laurence Aberhart, Ann Shelton, Glenn Jowitt, Anne Noble, Yvonne Todd – and many more.

The book not only provides a wide selection of images, it also introduces the reader to the photographic artists who have used photography to explore our history and environment. The photographs of the nineteenth century makes us realise that these images are often our only reference point for how the country, its people and events looked in the past.

Author and curator Athol McCredie provides a wide-ranging selection of images across portraiture, landscape, science, documentary photography and art with informative notes.

Ellis Dudgeon
Lake Hawea, c.1947
Hand-coloured gelatin silver print, coloured
by Elaine Watson, 1962, 404 × 500 mm
Purchased 2023, O.051365
It is almost unknown for a hand-colourist to be identified on a photograph, but this one has a handwritten label on the back reading ‘Hand painted photograph by Elaine Watson, July 1962.’ This records that Watson hand-coloured it, not that she took it, for we know from a 1947 book in which it was reproduced in black and white that it was taken by Ellis Dudgeon, a photographer who ran a studio in Nelson from 1930 to 1970. Dudgeon’s scenic hand-coloured photographs were widely seen. Indeed, this image appears in colour on the cover of the upmarket magazine Mirror: New Zealand’s national home journal in 1955. In that version, the colouring is quite different: there is much more yellow in the tī kouka (cabbage trees), there are red flowers on the bushes by the lakeside, and it is much brighter and sunnier throughout. It is a more upbeat, holiday image than Watson’s subdued and uniformly toned version, showing just how much interpretive room there was for colourists, who were rarely present when the photograph was taken.

Together these photographs tell stories about life in this country from almost the earliest days of European colonisation and about how the practice of photography has evolved here, reflecting the dynamic and increasingly diverse nature of the collection, allowing for previously unseen treasures, and enabling familiar works to be recontextualised with fresh insights.

In making the selection, McCredie, says “I looked for photographs that were evocative, resonant, ambiguous, entertaining, and most especially, that might say something about the nature of photography itself.”

Whie no collection of photographs can be comprehensive the book offers many threads which weave together a sense of the nation’s history and culture. It is more than a history of photography tracing out our responses to the landscape, the built environment, events and people.

Through the book we see the taming and changing of the landscape, the changing domestic and commercial architecture, the way we dress and there are images of the  citizens we valued for their contribution to our civic and cultural life.

There are portraits of Māori such as Tomika Te Mutu, as well as other history makers such as Peter Fraser, Ed Hillary and Mike Moore along with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Tony Fomison and Yuki Kihara.

We also can see the way in which the photograph has changed from the need to simply record the landscape and people through to experimentation as well as viewing photography as a means of social and political change.

While there no comparative before and after images the book does have images of the changing face of the land as well as images of the major cities and the built environment from the nineteenth century and the twentieth which show the development of the urban areas. We are also able to see the changing nature of clothes, particularly those worn by females.

The inclusion of Frank Hofmann, one of the major modernist photographers is an example of the multi-talented artist who worked across the media providing many of the important modernist photographs as well as portraits. A photograph of the Christopher Bede Studio, which he founded also shows his ability to work across the commercial as well as experimental genres.

Frank Hofmann
Christopher Bede Studios, 1967
Gelatin silver print, 418 × 578 mm
Purchased 2016, O.044647
Christopher Bede Studios was formed by Frank Hofmann and Bill Doherty around 1950. It focused on home portraiture but also operated a studio, and this photograph was probably taken to promote its new premises being opened in Auckland in 1967. The image clearly sets out to demonstrate the varieties of photography the studio could undertake, from fashion and product photography to portraiture. It is pure advertising though, for it would be fanciful to imagine four photographers actually working simultaneously in the same studio space.
The studio had branches in other centres, and in 1970 it claimed to be New Zealand’s largest photographic organisation. In 1975 it became Bede Photography.

There are number of images of individual  Māori and Māori  society which changes over the  course of time from initially being of an ethnographic nature  with images by John Nicol Crombuie and Alfred Burton through to seeing Māori as an integral part of society with photos by Ans Westra as well as seeing the inclusion of Māori photographers such as Tia Ranginui and Fiona Pardinton.

There are several small suites of work such as Eric Lee-Johnson images of Opo taken at Opononi in 1956, Gordon Burt’s commercial works mainly of automobiles and the Burton Brothers for their extensive images of the country.

Then there are individual images such as Frede Brockett’s dramatic image of the wreck of La Bella, Theo Schoon’s Geothermal studies or Eric Lee Johnson’s image of a bike wheel and shadow which predate similar work by Bill Culbert who, surprisingly, has no images in the book.

The landscape work in the book range from the nineteenth century images of the Burton Brothers through the NZ Tourism images, the myth-like work “Peter Pan on Mt Eden” by J. W. Chapman-Taylor through to the revisionist work of Mark Adams.

Les Wallace
Napier after Hawke’s Bay earthquake, 1931
Gelatin silver print, 158 × 386 mm
Gift of Holden New Zealand Limited, 1998, O.005635
The Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 3 February 1931 remains New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster: 256 lost their lives, and the region was devastated. With limited water to fight the fires that ignited after the quake, eleven blocks of central Napier were completely gutted. According to an eyewitness, by evening the town ‘looked as if it had been subjected to a severe bombardment’:
The centre of it for over a mile was a mass of flames. Every concrete and brick building had collapsed. It was like an upheaval and there was a terrible number of deaths . . . A number of people were lying in the streets and buried under the debris. Some were terribly injured and some were dead. The town was all in darkness and that added to the horror of the situation.

While there are not a lot of photographs of dramatic historical events like Les Wallace’s “Napier after the earthquake” there are a few, like Paul Simei Barton’s images of the demonstrations about the Springbok 1982 tour as well as the Covid 19 demonstration in Wellington by Adrian Lambert.

Mark Adams
13.11.2000 Hinemihi, Clandon Park, Surrey, England. Nga Tohunga: Wero Taroi, Tene Waitere, 2000
Chromogenic prints, 1200 × 3200 mm
Purchased 2020, O.049055/A-C to C-C
Mark Adams has often highlighted cultural incongruities in his photographs, and nowhere more so than in this triptych of the meeting house Hinemihi o te Ao Tawhito standing in a corner of an English country estate. The 1881 house was originally situated at Te Wairoa, the gateway village to the Pink and White Terraces. When Mount Tarawera erupted in 1886, the house was partially buried and subsequently abandoned. In 1891, the Earl of Onslow and Governor of New Zealand purchased Hinemihi and had it dismantled and reinstalled on his English estate as a sort of folly — something he probably didn’t see as incongruous himself, as he bought it as a reminder of his affection for New Zealand.
Adams took another equally dissonant triptych that pairs with this photograph. It shows the site where Hinemihi originally stood — now just a forlorn patch of empty land covered in long grass and thistles. Hinemihi will be returned to New Zealand (though probably not to this site), placing Adams’s photograph in dialogue with the future as well as the past.

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The Hanly House Residency. Preserving the legacy of Gil and Pat Hanly

John Daly-Peoples

The Hanly House Residency

A visionary plan to preserve, establish and maintain the home of Gil and Pat Hanly as an artist’s residency and museum at 7 Walters Road, Mt Eden was recently announced at the artist’s former home.

The house and extensive tropical garden located in the heart of Mt Eden, would operate as a social hub, gallery and museum as well as an education and research space for New Zealand art history, and a unique supported urban artists’ residency and studio for emerging contemporary artists locally and from across the world.

Iconic New Zealand artists Pat, a painter and Gil, a documentary photographer, contributed significantly to the social, political and cultural landscape of Aotearoa. Through the Hanly House project the family wish to celebrate Pat and Gil’s contributions to the cultural landscape of Aotearoa, and for visitors and researchers to enjoy and be inspired by it.

The Artist Residency Programme would support artist at a critical point in their career development by providing the house rent free for up to five years.

The residency would work with key stakeholders including Te Papa, AAG, ELAM and ILAM to achieve that goal.

Initial aims of the Hanly House would be to raise capital to purchase the house and garden from the Family. Once established it is intended that house would host regular arts focused functions and support public access to events at the house, support public access to the  garden and raise operational funds through events, endowment fund, and edition sales.

ARTIST RESIDENCY DETAILS

  • Long term (3 -5-year residency programme)
  • Open to national and international artists through an arts partner organisation.
  • Selection Process and Programme in Partnership with Te Papa, AAG, ELAM, ILAM
    • Artist to be between 30 and 40 years old
    • Artist’s family welcome to reside with artist
    • On acceptance of the residency, The Artist will be expected to reside and work at the address for the duration of the period, with standard holiday breaks.
    • The residing Artist participation and outcome expectations would include
      • Attend the Annual Garden Party Functions at the house.
      • Speak at quarterly In Conversation programmes at the house or another arts organisation.
      • Deliver a body of work or installation that responses to the region.
      • Produce and gift to the Trust a series of limited edition to the value of $20,000 for fundraising purposes.

The Hanly Family Trust is currently supporting the development of the Hanly House proposal and is calling on individuals for support. Supporters can make immediate donations of $5 or more and can pledge donations which will help offset the establishment costs and enable the commissioning of further development plans.

Supporters can register at various tiers:

  • Heart 1M+
  • Kowhai 500K+
  • Dove 100K+
  • Hope 5K+
  • Activist 1K+
  • Benefactors will be acknowledged, onsite, in print material and at functions.

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For more information – hanlyhouse.nz

Contact diane.blomfield@icloud.com to discuss your pledge.

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

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PĀ – Te Huarahi ki te Kāinga  Hiria Anderson-Mita’s continuing journey

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Hiria Anderson-Mita

PĀ – Te Huarahi ki te Kāinga Finding my way Home’

Tim Melville Gallery

Until November 15

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Writing about Hiria Anderson-Mita a couple of years ago I noted that she “has never had to look far for subject matter. She only has to look around the room, out the window or down the road. Her paintings are essentially documentation of her daily life, painting what she sees, the people she encounters and her immediate experiences.”

Her domestic interiors or local views of her local environment were both mundane and intriguing.

This incongruity in many of her works give the images both a simplicity and sophistication. One could compare her paintings to the simple French Impressionist paintings as well as the recent landscape paintings of David Hockney, in creating timeless views.

In her latest exhibition the  paintings and view points have been extended, broadening out from the local to the wider area of hers and her ancestors land  so the exhibition becomes for her “a return to the ancestral landscapes that have shaped who I am.”

In the catalogue notes she writes “The tracts of farmland in these artworks hold the DNA and stories of my ancestors. Their ridges and valleys are layered with the pā sites of my tūpuna; connections that survey pegs and ownership papers can never sever.
 
In fact those pegs and papers are reference points for rediscovery.  

Through researching Māori Land Court records and field books made by 19th Century Government Surveyor William Cussen – alongside maps, archaeological files, photographs, oral histories and the living landscape itself – I am tracing the footprints of my tūpuna.

Each painting in this exhibition describes and locates a site of history and connection within the rohe of Ōtewa, Rangitoto Tuhua and the surrounding pā of Ngāti Maniapoto and Rereahu.

The pā tuna, the kohatu, the maunga, and the awa I paint were once sources of sustenance  for entire communities. I want to make them visible once more; to bring them into the light. And to reinsert our knowledge and our presence into the whenua from which we have been separated by pen and politics.

I have been guided by ancestors who still reside within me. My paintings are my journey home.”

Central to the works is the large “Ōtuaoroa” ($11,500) which is the original name for the area. The artist calls the painting “A map”, so the image is like the chart of a mythical land or a treasure map found in a children’s book with each road, farm, bend in the river all bearing a history. Many of these places are then seen in a larger format in other paintings such as “Puketarata Rd No2” ($3500) which is the view from her childhood home or “Hikurangi Pa” ($3250) a  bend in the river where her ancestors had been born and which sustained the local population with food.

There are also links to the geomorphological qualities of the land which had intrigued Colin McCahon and his study of the landforms and their history.

Puketarata Pā

This idea of discovering the history and formation of the land is seen in Puketarata Pā ($7500) where the landscape is inscribed with other information such a pre-European name, survey number, the indication of tracks or landforms as well as the Google Earth Coordinates.

Turamoe Pa Otuaoroa (Te Kooti’s Lookout)

Most of the works have personal connection to the artist and their importance and significance is made clear from their titles of the catalogue notes. So, there is the obvious “Otewa – My Mothers Ancestral Home ($3500) as well as “Turamoe Pa Otuaoroa (Te Kooti’s Lookout)” ($3250) featuring the hill site where Te Kooti spent the last years of the Land Wars.

Otwea Pa – Into the Future

Most of the works in the exhibition are landscapes but there are a few are more emblematic. One “Otewa Pa – Into the Future ($5750), a portrait of a niece where the artist envisions the future and  there is the more abstract “Hinaki a Rautawhiri / Te Awa a Tane Pa Tuns” ($4750) which looks to the past with a design  featuring netting used to trap fish and fowl.

The paintings in the exhibition paintings along with a poem she has written, “her return Home” as well as many of her previous paintings build a visual biography of her personal connections with the land, a history which is both personal, tribal and mythological.

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What on at Auckland Arts Festival 2026

John Daly-Peoples

hi. Wehi. Mana

Auckland Arts Festival

5–22 March 2026

John Daly-Peoples

Next year’s Auckland Arts Festival brings together an inspiring collection of works from New Zealand’s major performing arts organizations as well as an impressive lineup of Māori and Pacific individuals and international performers from Australia, China and America.

The festival opens with a free, all ages celebration in Aotea Square Sau Fiafia! Boogie Down!, brings together the infectious rhythms of nine-piece Pacific funk collective Island Vibes.

La Ronde

The intoxicating, lavish and seductive La Ronde will take over The Spiegeltent for 21 performances, with a mixture of circus, live music and comedy. From the creators of Blanc de Blanc and Limbo, La Ronde exclusively premieres in New Zealand after a sell-out season in Australia.

The Samoan musician Fonoti Pati Umaga will present an honest and unapologetic humourous story, Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan​. Created with Oscar Kightley, Nathaniel Lees, Neil Ieremia and Sasha Gibb, this is a world premiere production of powerful and unfiltered reflection on resilience, identity and transformation.

Auckland Theatre Company and Tawata Productions, will premiere Waiora Te Ūkaipō  The Homeland​, a powerful story of family, culture and belonging. Written and directed by Hone Kouka, with waiata and haka composed by Hone Hurihanganui.

From acclaimed collective Binge Culture comes Werewolf, a thrilling, darkly funny horror-comedy exploring how we respond to crises. Theatre Scotland gave it a positive review “Werewolf does very well in setting the scene early and vividly. The audience truly feel a part of the experience and like we are trapped in a “safe house”. Impeccable performances from our three “wardens”, brilliant lighting and some incredible sound design create a perfect hour of interactive and immersive theatre. 

For one night only, internationally acclaimed American soprano Julia Bullock will be performing with the Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Christian Reif showcasing a repertoire blending classical masterworks, jazz and The Great American Songbook. A recent review noted “Bullock’s meditative mixtape ends in safe haven, with Odetta’s bluesy arrangement of “Going Home,” a song rooted in Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. Bullock reaches into her burgundy lower register, and pianist Christian Reif depresses the soft pedal, to achieve maximum comfort.”

“These songs refract love in various colours and further illustrate why Bullock is one of today’s most discerning and expressive singers. Contemporary composers are particularly enamoured, including John Adam’s new opera Antony and Cleopatra.”

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Moana & The Tribe present ONO, a powerful live performance and video work honouring six Indigenous women worldwide – a stirring journey of hope and unity through te reo Māori, kapa haka and electronic-dub beats.

A flagship free event, Whānau Day brings together music, performance, kai and hands-on arts experiences in a vibrant celebration of community.

Duck Pond

Circa’s production of Duck Pond, reimagines Swan Lake as a spectacular circus, full of physicality and cheeky humour. In A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen, theatre-maker and musician Joshua Hinton weaves song, memory and mouth-watering aromas as he recreates his grandmother’s curry live on stage. Fresh off mesmerising Australian audiences and completing a 23-show season in Edinburgh, is The Butterfly Who Flew ​into the Rave, this award-laden crowd favourite returns home for a triumphant encore.

The Butterfly Who Flew ​into the Rave,

The Australian company Gravity & Other Myths, will present Ten Thousand Hours, with eight acrobats and one musician paying homage to the discipline and the joy of movement. 27 Club delivers a blistering rock concert celebrating the legends lost too soon – Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Robert Johnson.

Long Yu, Serena Wand and Jian Wang

The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its renowned Music Director, Long Yu, comes to New Zealand from China in an extraordinary cross-cultural celebration of Eastern and Western symphonic traditions featuring celebrated soloists Jian Wang (cello) and Serena Wang (piano). Across two evenings, the orchestra performs classical works by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov alongside selections from Elliot Leung’s Chinese Kitchen: A Feast of Flavours.

Jane Harrison’s multi-award-winning play The Visitors reimagines the arrival of the First Fleet through the eyes of seven First Nations Elders. Directed by Wesley Enoch, this Sydney Theatre Company and Moogahlin Performing Arts production is a sharply written, deeply resonant piece of speculative historical theatre that challenges and educates​.

Built from the world’s apologies – famous, absurd and deeply personal – Sincere Apologies is a funny, awkward and unexpectedly moving participatory performance exploring how we say sorry and what we really mean.

Ihi. Wehi. Mana. reunites past and present members of Te Waka Huia with esteemed choral musician Karen Grylls and a bespoke invitational choir, for a stirring, celebratory event combining kapa haka, waiata and vocal talent.​

Additionally featured in the festival is a double bill of bold new writing, He Kākano showcases Becoming Jeff Bezos by Kai Tahu playwright Alex Medlan, a razor-sharp satire on capitalism and chaos, and Marmite & Honey by Rainton Oneroa (Te Aupōuri), a moving family drama unfolding over 24 hours at a tangi. Both works will be developed with Jason Te Kare.

Ten Thousand Hours,

The acclaimed Australian company Gravity & Other Myths, will perform Ten Thousand Hours, with eight acrobats and one musician pay homage to the discipline of mastery and the joy of movement. 27 Club delivers a blistering rock concert celebrating the legends lost too soon – Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Robert Johnson.

Closing the Festival with pure brass swagger, Big Horns is a high-octane, homegrown funk collective redefining the modern big band, led by guitarist Dixon Nacey. Featuring Jordyn with a Why, MOHI and Muroki, He Manu Tīoriori gathers the next generation of soulful voices for an uplifting evening of waiata in the Spiegeltent. Inspired by Dame Hinewehi Mohi’s Waiata Anthems project, this showcase of original te reo Māori compositions celebrates the beauty, depth and contemporary vitality of Aotearoa’s music.


2026’s programme also includes Bluebeard’s Castle which sees New Zealand Opera and Auckland Philharmonia reimagine Bartók’s haunting masterpiece as an intimate portrait of a couple confronting dementia. Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Macbeth, choreographed by Alice Topp, transforms Shakespeare’s tragedy into a gripping modern study of ambition and power.

Set in the heart of the Festival Garden, Rova Sound Stage offers a relaxed, social space to discover fresh talent and genre-crossing performances from neo-soul and alt-pop to hip hop, jazz and electronic music. Audiences can grab a beanbag and a drink, soak up the summer sun, and dance into the night with the resident Festival DJ.

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Dick Frizzell’s weighty exhibition of New Zealand landscapes

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dick Frizzell, The Weight of the World

Dick Frizzell

The Weight of the World

Gow Langsford, Onehunga

Until October 25

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dick Frizzell’s latest show  “Weight of the World,”  at Gow Langsford could well be a reference to Ringo Starr’s 1998 comeback single of the same name which uses the phrase to describe the struggle of letting go of the past and embracing the future. 

The exhibition is ambivalent in terms of the artist’s own life and work, linking the past with his history of breaking new ground. At times his work has seemed to be conservative, borrowing art of the past and outdated advertising images. But this reworking or appropriating images of the past can also be a way of charting new directions for his art.

The exhibition also alludes to his recently published autobiography “Hastings” with its references to growing up in small town New Zealand and the rural landscapes of Central North Island in which the young Frizzell’s encounters with the world of Hastings provide an almost heroic account of his life.

As the artist says “My landscapes occupy a special place in my affections because they define, more than any other of my endeavours, the most solid manifestation of my philosophy. Both the subjects and their manner of representation are chosen to emphasise my eternally optimistic faith in the physical universe that I believe we are ultimately destined to define. I hope… through my piles of hills, stumps, trees and land… to literally convey ‘the gravity of the situation’.”

While his paintings can be seen as simple descriptive works there is a complexity to their construction as well as their context and history. creating dense works about observation, contemplation and significance.

Dick Frizzell, Dirt Road

Several of the landscape images from the exhibition could have been illustrations to his autobiography such as “Dirt Road” ($27,500) and “Backtrack” ($45,000), images that are quintessential New Zealand scenes which link past and present with images which are both descriptive and metaphoric.

There is one work with the same title of the exhibition, “The Weight of the World” ($163,000). It depicts a large tree stump, a reference both to his own tree stump works of the 1980’s as well as those by artists such as Mervyn Taylor and Eric Lee-Johnson. These dead trees were both a symbol of modernism and change as well as an emblematic of the past and loss of identity. 

Much of the artist’s work is imbued with this sense of nostalgia and Frizzell has regularly depicted aspects of New Zealand – a series of local businesses, the huts at Scott base and the controversial series of hei tiki works which all helped define the nature of New Zealand culture.

There are a few signs of habitation or figures in his works mainly small insignificant buildings, “Whitebaiter’s Huts” ($27,500) and “Leaning Toilet” ($27,500) but there is also a painting of a Ratana Chapel “The Beginning and the End”  $27,500) displaying the words  ārepa (alpha) ōmeka (omega), and the large panoramic  “Autumn Morning Alexandra” $185,000).

Dick Frizzell, The Beginning and the End

The only paintings of a settlement in the exhibition are “Autumn Morning Alexandra, 2023 “($185,000) and “Alexandra Morning 2019” ($65,000) where the emphasis is on the natural aspects of the view, the distant hills, the colours of the sky and Autumn leaves as well as the surrounding vegetation. The largest work in the exhibition is “Milling Whakaangiangi” ($225,000), a celebration and recognition of the ever-changing face of the land.

As well as taking inspiration from the New Zealand artists of the early twentieth century there are acknowledgment of other artists – such as his Monet-like “Winter, Earnscleugh Road” ($55,000) and a nod to Winslow Homer’s lighthouse with his “Castlepoint”.

Dick Frizzell, Winter, Earnscleugh Road

As with much of the artist’s work there is a wry humour in many of the paintings both in terms of the subject and the titles. A small painting of a pie is titled  27/3/2025” where English and mathematics merge, similar to his Greek / English word play in “The Beginning and the End”.

The exhibition reveals an artist addressing conflicted personal and national histories around land, seeing the land as both a record of our history and a metaphor for our changing identity, seeing the future looming out of the past.

Dick Frizzell, Milling Whakaangiangi

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Exhibition of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel coming to Wellington for Christmas

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Michelangelo Creation of Adam

MICHELANGELO – A Different View 

Tākina, 50 Cable Street

December 22 – February 8

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican is home to one of the greatest artistic accomplishments in history. It was there in the early 16th century that Michelangelo created the brilliant religious frescoes on the ceiling telling the stories from Genesis. He also painted The Last Judgement on the altar wall, depicting the Second Coming and the Final Judgement.

While millions of viewers have visited the chapel in Rome each year it is not always the most pleasurable experience with the room  crowded with hundreds of people and a constant babble of voices. Having to crane one’s neck to see the ceiling surrounded by milling people is not the ideal way to see the work.

Now a new photographic exhibition attempts to replicate the experience with large reproduction of the Michelangelo’s ceiling and   The Last Judgement. The exhibition was shown in Auckland three years ago, attracting large numbers interested in the religious, art and historical significance of the works..

The exhibition has used state-of-the-art technology to reproduce photographs taken of the artworks following recent restorations

The printing techniques used have been able to  reproduce the colours, the details and  brushstrokes, even compensating for the curved nature of some of the paintings

The reproduction 4.6 metres by 20 metres –  about half the size of the actual ceiling but up close the images provide a new experience.

The image of the ceiling is laid out on the floor and adjacent to it is a viewing platform which provides a view which in many ways is better than the original. Even if you have seen the original this is a different experience as you can see the detail of the work and appreciate the overall design as well the juxtaposition of figures and colours.

Many of the smaller elements of the work which are hardly visible when standing in the chapel such as the small bronze-coloured medallions but these are clear now and add another level of complexity and  understanding to the work.

For many the work will be a religious experience seeing the stories from the Bible brought to life on a grand scale. For others it will be an admiration of the originality and skill displayed by the artist along with an appreciation of the working conditions he faced in creating the works.

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement

On the Sistine Chapel ceiling he painted his complex telling the story of the Creation according to Genesis, the beginning of the world. Then in the Last Judgment he presents the end of the world when the godly are separated from the ungodly. Here the scene is presided over, not by the old, bearded god of the ceiling but by a youthful dynamic figure. Michelangelo also included a self-portrait – a flayed skin  which is something of a metaphor of the artist who considered himself to have been eviscerated by the whole painterly journey.

The ceiling painting is a stunning example of trompe l’oeil with the painter creating an illusory architecture with marble putti supporting a cornice on whose regularly placed outcrops are stone seats on which, nude figures are seated along with images of major Prophets and Sibyls seated on monumental thrones .

Michelangelo, Delphic Sibyl

Michelangelo had a difficult task in reconciling the ideas of Renaissance Humanism with the theology of 16th century Christianity. This was because the Church emphasized Man as essentially sinful and flawed, while Michelangelo was focused on Man’s beauty and nobility. The  two views were irreconcilable and led to later problems such as the nudes of the Last Judgment having drapery painted over their testicles after the artists death.

For Michelangelo it was the creation  of the  human body which was paramount. In his depiction of the creation of Adam it is not so much the creation of a man but the creation of a body and this awe in the beauty of the human body is repeated in many of the figures both naked and clothed

Prior to the Renaissance images of God were rare and generally symbolic. In the early Renaissance such image depicted a patriarchal God the Father as an old man, usually with a long beard. Michelangelo’s image of God saw him with almost human qualities. In the second scene, the Creator is fully defined and heroic and we even see a rear view of him with his buttocks visible through purple drapery.

Also included in the exhibition are images of   the lower frescoes in the chapel. Often given less prominence these wall paintings by several artists including Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandio and Matteo da Lecce depict the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ. They were all  completed in twenty-five years before Michelangelo began work on the ceiling.

They are impressive  paintings but do not have the same power as those of the Michelangelo works Rather than just tell stories he attempted to create emotional responses through the power of gesture.

Many of these artists were showing off their draughting and painterly skills using the relatively new ideas of perspective with Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter being a fine example. Michelangelo does not use these techniques instead using his knowledge of anatomy to create tactile human figure in three dimensions.

When one compares the naked torsos in The Disputation over Moses’ Body by Matteo da Lecce. with those of Michelangelo’s one can see his consummate understanding of the human figure.

Important to an understanding of the paingtings is the role that the Pope Julius II played in commissioning the works. He was a warrior pope and he chose his papal name not in honour of Pope Julius I but in emulation of Julius Caesar. He was one of the great pre reformation humanists seeing links between the Ancient Greeks and this can be seen in other works he commissioned by Raphael  such as  The School of Athens (also in the Vatican) being painted at the same time as Michelangelo was working on the  Sistine ceiling

Like Julius the individuals faces portrayed are bold and dramatic and filled with energy. Compared to the figures in the lower frescoes these are strong personalities which speak of the need for militant Christians, not the softer versions of the lower frescoes.

Michelangelo’s inventiveness can be seen  in the figures he creates. He has used the faces of ordinary people. He probably used the faces of people he saw in the streets or in the church not the stereotypes normally used. These figures are men and women who walked the streets of the sixteenth century Rome.

Michelangelo’s masterpiece combines the worlds of art, religion, science, and faith in a provocative and awe-inspiring work of art.

Categories
Reviews, News and Commentary

Victoria Kelly and Rossini take different approaches to Stabat Mater

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Stabat Mater

NZSO
Auckland Town Hall

September 3

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The NZSO latest concert “Stabat Mater featured two works based on the image of the Virgin Mary standing at the site of Christ’s crucifixion which had led to numerous compositions and art works has which has added to the church’s iconography and rituals.

Rossini’s Stabat Mater complete in 1841 was based on the medieval Latin poem describing the Virgin Mary’s grief at the crucifixion of her son while Victoria Kelly’s Stabat Mater was a response to both Rossini’s work and the medieval text. Kelly’s work was less of a sorrowful meditation on to the event but rather a reflection on the misogynistic nature of the text.

Rossini’s Stabat Mater featured three New Zealand singers: soprano Madison Nonoa, mezzo-soprano Anna Pierard, tenor Filipe Manu along with Australian bass-baritone Jeremy Kleeman.

The singers were joined by Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, which also performed during Kelly’s new work.

The orchestral opening of Rossini’s Stabat Mater was very operatic contrasting with the low, soft sounds of the choir, as though angelic voices were descending.

The Air that followed had a rather breezy tone and Filipe Manu finely nuance delivery was rich in emotion as he sang about the sword that pierced the Virgins heart. Jeremy Kleeman in a later Air displayed a fine tightly controlled voice with a luxurious sound.

The duet revealed the colourful voice of Madison Nonoa along with the more fulsome sounds of Anna Pierard. Together they were able to convey the torment and grief of the Virgen.

The Quartet which saw the four soloists elegantly interpreted the text, their voices complementing g each other. Their singing did highlight one of the problems with Rossini’s major failing with the work in not assigning characters at the crucifixion to the individual singer – The Virgin, Mary Magdalen, John, the two thieves.

In the Cavatina section Anna Pierard showed drama in her voice along with some terse vibrato and in her Air  Madison Nono started off with barely a whisper which was take up by the choir which turned inti a thunderous sound, her light, piercing  voice seeming to be the Virgin overwhelmed by the choir

In the final quartet the four soloists emphasised their individua voices, seemingly disconnected unfocussed somehow replicating the discord and cacophony which would have occurred during the time of the crucifixion. All this was brought to a conclusion with the chorus and their transcendental Amen.

Victoria Kelly’s response to the medieval text and Rossini use of it “provoked an overwhelming sense of rase and sorrow in me” she has written. Rather than see the texts and the event form a religious perspective she has seen the misogynistic and religious oppression which is tied to much of the church’s teachings. She has taken a revisionist approach and her text for the work is full of critical lines such as

“She wants no choirs castrated,

No congregation tithed,

no people bound and silenced.

no false priests fellated.

The work opening with a low electronic sound leading to the murmuring strings which created a sense of travel or /transition as though we were being transported back to an earlier time.

Much of the time the work sounded like a lament, the sombre singing of the choir and the music interwoven, the text reinforced by the tension and intensity of the choir.

The choir displayed a nice balance between singing and choral speaking their quality, pitch, power, tempo, effective in conveying the meaning and emotion of the work.

The phrase” She does not mourn” occurred several times through the work and was repeated at the conclusion as the words slowly and softly disappeared.

The dark brooding sounds of the final moments of the music contrasted with the angelic voices of the choir and rather than end with a b ang something triumphant like the Rossini it ended with a whimper.

Making her New Zealand debut was Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi whose lively conducting, sweeping gestures and close attention to the soloists and choir ensured an impressive performance.

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