KEY ARTISTS:
Kahukiwa & Whiting
KEY MEANINGS:
Sense of place
Cultural
Spiritual and religious beliefs
Social and everyday life
KEY CONTEXTS:
Historical |
Social & Cultural |
During the 1960s and 70s a strong resurgence of Māori nationalism and culture developed alongside a growing political voice and demand for the honouring of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Mid-1970s saw events such as the Hikoi (Land March on Parliament) and the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act. The Te Maori exhibition of 1984, which featured traditional Māori artwork and was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, helped foster a greater appreciation of Māori arts and culture back in New Zealand. |
The effects of European colonisation changed the social and political role of the art-maker. The function of art changed from a primarily spiritual role to protest against change and an assertion of Māori identity and beliefs.
Many young artists responded to their Māori heritage, urban situation and Western education by producing works which were intended as a synthesis of Māori and European art forms and practices. Māori artists added their own twist to international modernism and experimented with the materials and techniques of Western art. While the media, techniques and often styles were derived from Western art, the subject matter, themes and motifs of the art works reflect Māori belief systems and experiences. Artists affirmed Māori values and dealt with social and political issues concerning Māori in their work (i.e The Treaty, land & cultural identity). |
What is Contemporary Maori Art? |
The evolution of Māori art over 20 years |
Impacts of Colonization on Modern Maori Culture |
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TO RECONNECT AND EMPOWERRobyn Kahukiwa (1938- )Robyn Kahukiwa is one of the foremost Māori artists in New Zealand. Kahukiwa’s work is often celebrated for its contribution to the evolution of traditional and contemporary Māori art, and her interweaving of art and politics.
Australian born, Kahukiwa lost connection with her culture and family until her return to Aotearoa at age nineteen. The rediscovery of her Māori heritage was the catalyst to her becoming a renowned thinker and maker. In the 1960s and '70s, as a young mother living in the state housing units of Wellington, Robyn Kahukiwa began quietly producing artworks depicting marginalisation, dis-empowerment and spiritual displacement. The events of the mid-1970s such as the Hikoi (Land March on Parliament) and the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act further determined her interest in issues relevant to Māori. She embarked on a body of work that crossed between ambitious protest style paintings, illustrative work and text rich pieces. Since her first solo exhibition in 1971, Kahukiwa has been engaged in representing Māori and Pacific cultures as a way of reclaiming tino rangatiratanga (self-determination), and earned recognition and greater prominence as a professional artist in the seminal exhibition Wahine Toa: Women of Māori Myth, which toured New Zealand in 1983. Today, Kahukiwa's art remains true to the core ideas of her early work. While Kahukiwa’s themes remain activist in nature, often exploring complex and fraught ideas of the dissolution of Māori identity, resettlement and cultural identity; her compositions are increasingly uncluttered and restrained, featuring only her powerful and select motifs. Now in her 80s, with a significant body of work behind her, there is a sense that her making has served as a form of therapy, a spiritual and cultural healing. Kahukiwa’s paintings investigate the diversity of urban Māori and Pacific communities, and often represent her personal search for cultural identity. Her mural-scale paintings are populated with ancestral figures, native birds, plants and trees, and their commentary relates to the realities and struggles of Māori. As Kahukiwa describes: “The reality of Māori life today has got to be put by me on canvas, because otherwise I have to think about it myself…that's how I can deal with it.” www.blackdoorgallery.co.nz/robyn-kahukiwa.html www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artist/1268/robyn-kahukiwa-artist |
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AT THE HEART OF OUR COMMUNITYCliff Whiting (1936-2017)Cliff Whiting ONZ made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand arts and culture over a career spanning more than fifty years in the fields of art education, art administration, marae building and renovation, and as an individual artist.
Born in 1936, in a whare raupō beside the Kereu river, inland from Te Kaha on the East Coast, Cliff Whiting showed early signs of having inherited the artistic creativity inherent in his whakapapa. This talent was nurtured, encouraged, and challenged by many, in particular by Pine Taiapa of Ngāti Porou and Gordon Tovey. Whiting developed a distinctive style of contemporary Māori art, based firmly on his Te Whānau-a-Apanui tribal traditions, which can be seen in his marae building and his public and individual artworks. His style across a wide range of art forms, including wood carving, sculpture and construction, bone and stone carving, oil and watercolour, ink drawing, printmaking, fibre-weaving and photography, along with an innovative approach to using new materials, has in turn been inspiring to many younger New Zealand artists. He contributed his expertise and time to a large number of marae building and renovation projects, he served on numerous national arts committees. He was the first Kaihautū of Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand where he worked to establish a fully bicultural kaupapa as a foundation for the institution, as well as carving Te Papa’s Marae, Rongomaraeroa. His many large scale works are displayed in numerous locations around New Zealand including the National Library, the Christchurch High Court, the Beehive, Television New Zealand, and the visitors centre at Aoraki Mt Cook. In 1998, Whiting was appointed to The Order of New Zealand. www.thearts.co.nz/artists/dr-cliff-whiting |