2 February 2010

GALLERY HIGHLIGHTS: 3 - 16 FEBRUARY

Saturday 6 February is Waitangi Day, and the Gallery has lots of great events to celebrate. Dance along to Hikoikoi and The Mamaku Project, check out two great films and enjoy kai from the hangi. Concert kicks off at midday on the Gallery forecourt, so bring your sunscreen and your dancing shoes.

Our Talisman and Chris Heaphy: Untitled (bleu) exhibitions are in their final weeks, so be sure to pop in to see them.

Hikoikoi live at San Francisco 2009

Wed 3 Art Bite: Paul Johns

5.15pm / meet at the front desk / free

Paul Johns's provocative contribution to The Naked and the Nude draws on the modern fascination with sexuality and religion.

Wed 3 Gross Indecency?

6pm / contains nudity / free

Richard Gross's sculptures unwittingly stirred up ferociously conservative, puritanical and evangelical passions from an outraged New Zealand. Presented by Mark Stocker.

Sponsored by The Press

Gallery conservator Edward Sakowski works his magic on Petrus van der Velden's Jacksons, Otira

Wed 10 Art Bite: Bill Sutton

5.15pm / meet at the front desk / free

Pat Unger takes a look at figure studies by Canterbury's best-loved regionalist landscape painter, Bill Sutton.

Wed 10 Conservation and Restoration: Restoring Jacksons, Otira

6pm / free

An evening of microscopes, and the occasional storm with conservator Edward Sakowski and curator Peter Vangioni as they take a close look at Petrus van der Velden's oil painting Jacksons, Otira, which recently underwent extensive conservation treatment.

Sponsored by The Press

Waitangi Day Events - Saturday 6 February

Hikoikoi performing

Hikoikoi and The Mamaku Project

Bring your sunscreen and sunhat, and sit back and enjoy a free outdoor concert from noon. The concert will be preceded by a procession led by the Tamaki Heritage Village from the Court Theatre Lawn at 11.30am and powhiri on the Gallery forecourt at 11.45am.

12 noon-1.30pm: Hikoikoi kick off the celebrations with their blend of earthy beats and luscious harmonies.

1.45-3.15pm: The Mamaku Project, who have been making waves in the New Zealand festival scene with their unique blend of poetry and rhythm.

Film: Pounamu

11am - 2pm on the hour / 50mins / Philip Carter Family Auditorium / free

A story of jade is revealed in this New Zealand-made documentary by Colette Culbert, set to the rhythm of ancestral recitals and against the backdrop of majestic landscapes.

Hangi

11.30am & 1pm / $10 per meal / cash only

Enjoy freshly cooked kai being served from the Gallery forecourt.

Film: Eagle Vs Shark

3pm / Philip Carter Family Auditorium / free

Acclaimed New Zealand director Taika Waititi sharpens the edges of reality for his first feature film - a quirky rom-com about two lonely misfits who discover the right match isn't always perfect.

Last Weeks!

John Edgar When the chips are down (detail) 2009. Metabasalt, glass. Courtesy of the artist

Talisman

Until 14 February

This exhibition features twelve contemporary New Zealand jewellery artists who have made new work responding to the enduring power of the talisman. Ritual, superstition and transformation, aspects often forgotten or lost in secular society, are explored.

Monica Richards Gallery

Sponsored by Creative New Zealand and in partnership with Canterbury Museum

Chris Heaphy: Untitled (bleu)

Until 14 February

Screening to coincide with the exhibition Blue Planet, this video work from the Gallery's collection is of the waters of Lake Taupo, near the mouth of the Hinemaia River. The soundtrack is a mixture of Gregorian chanting and sacred music by sixteenth-century Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi.

Tait Electronics Gallery

Current Exhibitions

Ricky Swallow The lift 2001. Watercolour on paper. Collection of Matt Aberle, Los Angeles. Image reproduced courtesy of the artist, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles, and Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington

Ricky Swallow: Watercolours

Until 21 February

Featuring more than eighty works, this exhibition surveys the full range of Australian artist Ricky Swallow's atmospheric watercolours - from early science-fiction scenarios and still-life studies through to his recent haunting portraits of members of the Kelly Gang.

Touring Gallery C

A UQ Art Museum touring exhibition

The Vault: Neil Pardington

Until 14 March

Working behind the scenes in museums and galleries throughout New Zealand with his large-format camera, Neil Pardington reveals the hidden collection storage spaces that are normally closed to the public.

William A. Sutton and Ravenscar Galleries

A Christchurch Art Gallery touring exhibition

The Naked and the Nude

Until 18 April

This exhibition brings together dozens of bodies from the collection, from languid academic nudes to the fragmented bodies of recent art.

Along the way, the exhibition charts the growing tension between the nude and the naked - between works of art that idealise the body and those that try to tell it like it is.

Touring Gallery A and B

Blue Planet

Until 7 November

Looking at the ways artists have used the colour blue, Blue Planet celebrates imaginative art making and thinking, as well as different cultural and global perspectives. Shaped with younger audiences in mind.

Burdon Family Gallery

Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection

The collection display has undergone a complete refreshment. The spectacularly reconfigured exhibition spaces feature a dynamic mix of new and seldom-seen works, as well as new conversations among old favourites.