and it should have comments enabled by default due to being posted on or after the 24th march 2026 (unless I add the exclude comments tag). and it should have comments enabled by default due to being posted on or after the 24th march 2026 (unless I add the exclude comments tag). and it should … Read more
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The fallout from the Mercy Pictures exhibition People of Colour continues to inflame the Aotearoa art world. Here, art writer and former gallerist Sarah Hopkinson attempts to understand the often contradictory values that produced Mercy Pictures, and what the tumult means for the future of the industry. In October I attended the opening of Mercy … Read more
The Swimmers author Chloe Lane interviews Zina Swanson, whose paintings are inspired by old and outlandish books about botany. December 1990, my family and I stayed with my aunty and uncle in the Christchurch suburb of Mount Pleasant. I remember the summer mostly hazily – picnics, swims, long hot days – though I also have … Read more
The controversy over the People of Colour exhibition at Mercy Pictures shows how alt-right ideas can thrive in irony-steeped artistic environments, writes Amal Samaha. On Saturday, a gallery show in Auckland ended. The exhibition featured rows upon rows of flags, each on a relatively uniform rectangular frame, set in neat rows. All apparently normal, except … Read more
The legendary photographer’s new book Nature – Stilled showcases museum specimens the public rarely sees. Books editor Catherine Woulfe writes: People say “stunning” lightly but that’s really what it felt like, the first time I opened Nature – Stilled. There is no flicking through. You sit and you look properly and it is a pleasure, … Read more
At a nondescript rural intersection in Waikato lies the site of a near-forgotten massacre, the subject of a new show by artist and writer Bob Kerr, who tells the story of Rangiaowhia here. At daybreak on Sunday 21 February 1864 Colonel Marmaduke Nixon led an attack on the undefended settlement of Rangiaowhia. The inhabitants took refuge … Read more
Sally Blundell talks to Christchurch poet John Newton about the book he wrote for his friend, Llew Summers: Body and Soul. Hutzpah. If there was one word missing from his book on the life and work of sculptor Llew Summers, says John Newton, it would be “hutzpah”. “Llew and his early sculptures and the way … Read more
After three decades in existence, Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust has launched its own gallery on Auckland’s Karangahape Road. The first thing that hits you entering Tautai Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Moana Legacy, is the range of works on show. On one huge wall is a mural of black humanoid crocodiles on a pink background by … Read more
Chloe Lane’s novel The Swimmers is about euthanasia. On the cover is Nicola Farquhar’s painting Peachthief, part of a West Auckland exhibition winding up this week. “Do you want to keep this?” I asked. “No,” P said. “But it’s your special denim jacket,” I said, holding it up. I could see P through a long … Read more
This month, the Ministry of Education’s Creatives in Schools programme received a $4 million boost. But leading arts educators say the scheme fails to create lasting change for a system in crisis. New Zealand has led the world in this area before, writes Mark Amery. From the 1880s through to the 1930s, influential American philosopher … Read more
A collective of four wāhine Māori artists, Mata Aho Collective transforms human-scale Māori weaving practices into atua-scale contemporary artworks that recently earned them a nomination for the 2020 Walters Art Prize. For writer Cassandra Barnett, their work provides some much-needed solace during a painful time. Today, I am a grieving and angry mother. As I … Read more
Tulia Thompson talks to Paparoa painter Jack Trolove and considers his new body of work, on show in Auckland from Sunday. After painting all day, Jack Trolove walks along the mangrove coastline. It is dusk, as the day is turning, dark gathering, the mangroves becoming more shadowy. The way places you love slip into your consciousness, like … Read more
Wrapping everyone in a blanket of love, whakapapa and mauri for Matariki is the brave, exuberant and generous fabric art of Maungarongo Te Kawa, writes Amanda Thompson. E te Atua Nau enei rau harakeke he taonga Tukuna ki a matou Kia tika o matou mahi Ko Papatuanuku e takoto nei Tuturu Whakamaua Kia tina, tina … Read more
In a photo essay by Justin Spiers and interview with Spinoff art editor Mark Amery, artist John Ward Knox introduces his Karitāne home and garden, and various projects – bees, pond, a portrait on silk of the prime minister from a live sitting. Ward Knox also answers one of this year’s biggest mysteries: the origins … Read more
The prime minister yesterday announced a package including $25m to ‘provide artists whose projects are funded by Creative NZ with jobs.’ An even more substantial investment in the creative arts will help drive our post-Covid recovery, argues Paul Millar. When Covid-19 forced the postponement of the popular international literary festival WORD Christchurch, director Rachael King … Read more
From a Ronnie Van Hout take on The Breakfast Club to James Oram carving a rendition of his own face out of soap, Christchurch Art Gallery’s show of new video art in response to Covid-19 isolation is worth championing, writes Mark Amery. Commissioning artists in uncertain times makes sense. For, uncertainty for artists is typical … Read more
When Te Papa reopens shortly, it’ll mark the end of the first big test of new tumu whakarae/chief executive, Courtney Johnston. Jeremy Rose spoke to Johnston about her vision for the museum, the impact of the pandemic, the return of taonga and making good on the Treaty. In 2016 a Hawaiian delegation came to collect … Read more
Megan Dunn takes a long look at the art in the Auckland Hospital collection and finds out that yes, there is art, even in intensive care – but the price of seeing it is everything. I got the pamphlet in the mail back in January. It says after someone close to you dies it is … Read more
What makes Zoom so exhausting? And where to for art? For Auckland artist Cushla Donaldson it’s about work that embraces the social and physical in new ways. Increasingly in Zoom meetings, rather than staring stoically at me from the other side of the screen, my opposite zoomer is asking if it’s OK if they do … Read more
In the age of the selfie and mundane domestic photography recontextualised for social media, Auckland artist Meg Porteous’s work speaks strongly to the politics of representation. Art editor Mark Amery shares words and images with Porteous across bubbles, via screens, in advance of her show at the Auckland Virtual Art Fair from this Thursday. I … Read more
Questions are being asked about the judging process for New Zealand’s most prestigious art prize, the Walters Prize, with leading art commentators suggesting a review is necessary. It was a short 13 line story on Radio New Zealand’s website last Friday that signalled some discontent, somewhere, out in the artworld. “The judging process for the … Read more
Kim Paton, director of Auckland gallery Objectspace, contrasts the creativity of artists online in lockdown with the “stunning awful blow” dealt at the same time to the cultural sector. In the panic of the lockdown announcement, I bought a sewing machine. I’ve always sewed. In my late teens and early 20s I earned money making … Read more
Nirin, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, remained open in March while many other exhibitions closed. Now one of Australasia’s most important art events is going online. “Nirin represents something like a spider’s web that connects people and ideas,” wrote Rosana Paulino in the catalogue for the Biennale of Sydney. “It is the border through which … Read more
There have been calls for major institutions like Auckland Art Gallery to do better in identifying LGBTQI+ or LGBTQI+ associated artists. New Auckland Art Gallery director Kirsten Paisley believes it’s ‘a conversation that needs to happen’. Writer Samuel Te Kani digs into the complications below the surface of the erasures of a queer New Zealand art … Read more
Comedian Penny Ashton writes on the necessity of the arts, especially during lockdown. On March 22, everyone’s favourite fiscal bloodhounds, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, sent out a tweet in response to Creative New Zealand’s announcement that it will dedicate an emergency response package to helping New Zealand’s artists, in the face of all our … Read more
