Green Cardamom to Show New Work by Pakistani Artist Bani Abidi

Green Cardamom to Show New Work by Pakistani Artist Bani Abidi

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 04:09 PM PST

LONDON.- Bani Abidi is one of the leading figures from a generation of Pakistani artists who trained during the 1990s and began exploring social contradictions through their artistic practice. Green Cardamom presents two key works by Abidi at this exhibition – Karachi Series 1 (2009), a photographic investigation into, and a lament, of the loss of Pakistan’s diverse cultural character in the face of the Islamisation of the nation’s society that began in the 1980s. This work was shown for the first time at the recent Xth Lyon Biennale curated by Hou Hanru.

Solo by Shirin Neshat

La Fabrica Galeria in Madrid Opens Shows Solo by Shirin Neshat

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 04:10 PM PST

MADRID.- From February 4 and until March 20, La Fabrica Galeria presents the work by Shirin Neshat, who will show, at her first solo exhibition at La Fabrica Galeria, "Faezeh" (2008) and the serie "Games of Desire" (2009). Neshat’s work engages the viewer through powerful images, sweeping scores, and evocations of human passions and desires, while examining the social tropes that both stratify and unite. Neshat pitches these dialectics of East/West, man/woman, and oppressor /oppressed, to such a degree that these seemingly immutable polarities become malleable locations for query. 

Christie's Offers Exceptional Vintage Photographs from the Miller-Plummer Collection

Christie's Offers Exceptional Vintage Photographs from the Miller-Plummer Collection

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 06:32 PM PST

NEW YORK, NY..- This fall Christie’s Photographs sales will feature The Miller-Plummer Collection of Photographs at Rockefeller Center on October 8. Offered as a single-owner sale and comprising 118 lots, the collection is distinguished for its range and depth from vintage masterpieces to modernist prints, all of impeccable quality. A unique opportunity for collectors around the world, the collection will be offered at a range of attractive estimates starting from $2,000. Harvey Shipley Miller and Randall Plummer began collecting photographs in 1973. Amassed over 20 years, this comprehensive collection was inspired by a commitment to assemble a discerning, encyclopedic ensemble of seminal works that exemplify the history and practice of the medium. Regarded as one of the leading private photography collections in the world, it is characterized for its major early works and represents a veritable survey of photographs that were pivotal to the development and evolution of photography. 

Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective

NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf Organises Major Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective

Posted: 21 Nov 2011 08:58 PM PST

DUSSELDORF.- Robert Mapplethorpe, who was born in 1946 and passed away in 1989, is one of the few artists who truly deserve to be known far beyond the borders of the art world. Mapplethorpe dominated photography in the late twentieth century and paved the way for the recognition of photography as an art form in its own right; he firmly anchored the subject of homosexuality in mass culture and created a classic photographic image, mostly of male bodies, which found its way into commercial photography. On exhibition 6 February through 15 August, 2010.

In 2010, the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf will organise a major retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs. His work was first shown in Germany in 1977 as part of documenta 6 in Kassel and then in a European solo exhibition in 1981 with German venues in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. In addition to various museum and gallery exhibitions the largest museum exhibition in Germany of Mapplethorpe’s work took place in 1997 when the worldwide Mapplethorpe retrospective, which opened at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, traveled to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. The last time Robert Mapplethorpe's works were shown in Düsseldorf was in the exhibition ‘Mapplethorpe versus Rodin’ at the Kunsthalle in 1992. 

Both during his life and since his death, Mapplethorpe’s work has been the subject of much controversial debate, particularly in the USA. Right up until the end of the twentieth century, exhibitions of his photographs were sometimes boycotted, censured, or in one case cancelled. His radical portrayals of nudity and sexual acts were always controversial; his photos of sadomasochistic practices in particular caused a stir and frequently resulted in protests outside exhibitions and in one instance, a lawsuits was brought against a museum director. 

In 2008, the Supreme Court in Japan ruled that Mapplethorpe’s erotic images did not contravene the country’s ban on pornography and released a volume of his photographs that had been seized and held for over eight years. As far as the American critic Arthur C. Danto was concerned, Mapplethorpe created ‘some of the most shocking and indeed some of the most dangerous images in modern photography, or even in the history of art.’ 

In Germany, on the other hand, Mapplethorpe’s photographs were part of the ‘aesthetic socialisation’ of the generations that grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s. Lisa Ortgioes, the presenter of the German women’s television programme ‘frau tv’, notes that during this time, Mapplethorpe’s photos were sold as posters; his ‘black’ portraits in particular being a regular feature on the walls of student bedrooms at the time. 

The curator of the exhibition, Werner Lippert, is quick to point out that ‘this exhibition needs no justification. Mapplethorpe was quite simply and unquestionably one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. It is an artistic necessity.’ 

The exhibition in the NRW-Forum covers all areas of Mapplethorpe’s work, from portraits and self-portraits, homosexuality, nudes, flowers and the quintessence of his oeuvre the photographic images of sculptures, including early Polaroids. The photographs are arranged according to themes such as ‘self portraits’, which includes the infamous shot of him with a bullwhip inserted in his anus, as well as his almost poetic portraits of his muse, Patti Smith, the photographs of black men versus white women, the body builder Lisa Lyon, the juxtaposition of penises and flowers (which Mapplethorpe himself commented on in an interview: ‘… I've tried to juxtapose a flower, then a picture of a cock, then a portrait, so that you could see they were the same’), and finally those images of classical beauty based on renaissance sculptures, and impressive portraits of children and celebrities of the day. 

Despite the obvious references to the Renaissance idea of what constitutes ideal beauty and the history of photography from Wilhelm von Gloeden to Man Ray, this exhibition shows Robert Mapplethorpe as an artist who is firmly anchored is his era; his contemporaries are Andy Warhol and Brice Marden; Polaroids were the medium of choice in the 1970s, and the focus on the body and sexuality was, at the time, for many artists like Vito Acconci or Bruce Nauman a theme that was key to social change. Above all, Robert Mapplethorpe developed his own photographic style that paid homage to the ideals of perfection and form. ‘I look for the perfection of form. I do this in portraits, in photographs of penises, in photographs of flowers.’ The fact that the photographs are displayed on snow-white walls underpins this view of his work and consciously moves away from the coy Boudoir-style presentation of his photographs on lilac and purple walls a dominant feature of exhibitions of Mapplethorpe’s work for many years and opens up the work to a more concept-based, minimalist view of things. 

The selection of over 150 photographs covers early Polaroids from 1973 to his final self-portraits from the year 1988, which show how marked he was by illness and hint at his impending death, and also includes both many well-known, almost iconic images as well as some never-before seen or rarely shown works. The curators delved deep into the collection of the New York-based Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to create this retrospective.

Visit the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf at : http://www.nrw-forum.de/

Prints by Ansel Adams were Top Lots at Swann Galleries' Auction

Prints by Ansel Adams were Top Lots at Swann Galleries' Auction

Posted: 21 Nov 2011 09:06 PM PST

NEW YORK, NY.- Two versions of Ansel Adams’s iconic image of "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico", 1941, sold to collectors at Swann Galleries' auction of Photographic Literature & Fine Photographs on December 8. A very rare vintage print created in 1948 that was signed and inscribed by Adams to Valentino Sarra, a photographer and W.P.A. poster designer and friend of Adams, sold for $360,000. It was one of only approximately 10 vintage prints Adams rendered with a delicate tonal quality. 

Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art will present “Pure Pleasure”

Richard Avedon

Gagosian Gallery Announces Exclusive Representation of Photographer Richard Avedon Posted: 20 Nov 2011 06:02 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery announces the worldwide representation of Richard Avedon, in partnership with The Richard Avedon Foundation. Larry Gagosian comments, “Avedon is America’s consummate modern photographer and one of the iconic artists from a generation which produced many extraordinary painters, sculptures, and photographers. We consider it a great privilege to represent one of the true masters of twentieth century art.”

Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

Brooklyn Museum Hosts "Hide/Seek ~ Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 05:41 PM PST

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, the first major museum exhibition to explore how gender and sexual identity have shaped the creation of American portraiture, organized by and presented at the National Portrait Gallery last fall, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum, through February 12, 2012. With the cooperation of the National Portrait Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum has reconstituted the exhibition in concert with the Tacoma Art Museum, where it will be on view from March 17 through June 10, 2012. HIDE/SEEK includes approximately a hundred works in a wide range of media created over the course of one hundred years that reflect a variety of sexual identities and the stories of several generations

Highlighting the influence of gay and lesbian artists, many of whom developed new visual strategies to code and disguise their subjects’ sexual identities as well as their own, HIDE/SEEK considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern Americans, how artists have explored the definition of sexuality and gender, how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—have been influenced by marginalization, and how art has reflected society’s changing attitudes. 

Announcing the Brooklyn presentation, Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman states, “From the moment I first learned about this extraordinary exhibition in its planning stages, presenting it in Brooklyn has been a priority. It is an important chronicle of a neglected dimension of American art and a brilliant complement and counterpoint to Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, a touring exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum, also on view this fall. ”

In addition to its commentary on a marginalized cultural history, HIDE/SEEK offers an unprecedented survey of more than a century of American art. Beginning with late nineteenth-century portraits by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent, it includes works from the first half of the 1900s by such masters as Romaine Brooks, George Bellows, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe; the exhibition continues through the postwar period with works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Agnes Martin, and Andy Warhol, and concludes with major works by late twentieth-century artists such as Keith Haring, Glenn Ligon, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Catherine Opie. 

The Brooklyn presentation will feature nearly all of the works included in the National Portrait Gallery exhibition. Among them are rarely seen paintings by Charles Demuth, whose better-known industrialized landscapes are on view in the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Youth and Beauty; a poignant portrait of New Yorker writer Janet Flanner wearing two masks, taken by photographer Bernice Abbott; Andrew Wyeth’s painting of a young neighbor standing nude in a wheat field, much like Botticelli’s Venus emerging from her shell; Robert Mapplethorpe’s photograph riffing on the classic family portrait, in which a leather-clad Brian Ridley is seated on a wingback chair shackled to his whip-wielding partner, Lyle Heeter; and Cass Bird’s photographic portrait of a friend staring out from under a cap emblazoned with the words “I look Just Like My Daddy.” The exhibition will also include David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly, an unfinished film the artist created between 1986 and 1987.

Newly developed metallic "micro-lattice" material is world's lightest

RESEARCH WATCH

Newly developed metallic "micro-lattice" material is world's lightest

By Darren Quick

21:44 November 17, 2011

The new micro-lattice material is so light that it can sit atop dandelion fluff without damaging it (Image: Dan Little, HRL Laboratories, LL

Earlier this year we looked at a "multiwalled carbon nanotube (MCNT) aerogel" -also dubbed "frozen smoke" - that, with a density of 4 mg/cm3, became the world's lightest solid material. Now frozen smoke has been knocked off its perch by a new metallic material with a density of just 0.9 mg/cm3, making it around 100 times lighter than Styrofoam. Despite being 99.99 percent open volume, the new material boasts impressive strength and energy absorption, making it potentially useful for a range of applications.

The 0.01 percent of the material that isn't air consists of a micro-lattice of interconnected hollow nickel-phosphorous tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers - or 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. These tubes are angled to connect at nodes to form repeating, three-dimensional asterisk-like cells.

The new material draws parallels with large structures, such as the Eiffel Tower, which is incredibly light and weight-efficient thanks to its hierarchical lattice design. As an illustration of just how efficient such a design is, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal used in the Eiffel Tower were melted down it would fill just six centimeters (2.4 in) of the structure's 125 m2 (1,345 square ft) base.

The ultralight micro-lattice material shows the same concept can also reap benefits on a much smaller scale. The wall thickness of the hollow tubes can be measured in nanometers, the diameter of each tube in microns, each tube length in millimeters, and the entire micro-lattice in centimeters - or even one day, meters, claim the researchers.

In addition to its ultra-low density, the researchers say the new material's micro-lattice architecture gives it extraordinarily high energy absorption with the ability to completely recover from compression exceeding 50 percent strain. This is due to the fact that the extremely small wall thickness-to-diameter ratio of the material makes the individual tubes flexible. Its impressive properties could see it used for battery electrodes, catalyst supports, and acoustic, vibration or shock energy damping.

The novel material was developed by a team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and California-based company, HRL Laboratories. for DARPA.

The research team's paper, "Ultralight Metallic Microlattices," appears in the November 18 issue of Science.

World's slowest roller coaster unveiled

Published: Thursday, 17 November 2011

Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth's 'Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain'

 

If the undulations, loops and dizzy heights of a roller coaster are a little too much for you, you can take them at your own speed, on foot, in Hamburg-based design duo Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth's new architectural sculpture, Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain overlooking the Rhine in Duisburg, Germany.

Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth's Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain

This 249-stepped, 45m high pedestrian roller-coaster sits on top of a man-made mountain of zinc from a nearby metal works, covered with a coating of grass. "There is so much heavy metal in the hill," says Ulrich Genth, "one used to joke that we could get all the power for our project out of the hill by just pouring acid on it."

Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth's Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain

The artists say the piece "subtly and ironically plays with the dialectic of promise and disappointment, mobility and standstill. The thing only looks fast from far away, but then it is a struggle to climb it with one's own feet and then even more frustrating when the impassable loop is encountered, confronting the walker with the absurd comicality of the limiting experience of the speed of walking." The title refers, so Genth explains, to the "paradox of Achilles and turtle, so, on one hand, to the turtle as a symbol of slowness and, on the other hand, to the tiger as symbol of capitalism. It reminds us a little of Olafur Eliasson'sUmschreibung (2004) in Munich - a staircase which literally leads back to where you started. 

Olafur Eliasson, Umschreibung (2004), Munich, Germany

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Bernd and Hilla Becher, Zeche Concordia, Oberhausen (1967), Germany
Gelatin-silver print, 50 x 60 cm

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How the Bechers made the boring beautiful

Published: Friday, 18 November 2011

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Photographers like to document, catalogue and analyse and there is no better example of this than the German collaborative artists Bernd and Hilla Becher. For over 40 years - until Bernd's death in 2007 - all kinds of industrial architecture from water towers, warehouses, blast furnaces, gas tanks and half-timbered houses came under their scrutinising eye. 

Meeting as painting students in Dusseldorf in 1957 they began collaborating on photographing the disappearing German industrial landscape concentrating, at first, on the Ruhr where Bernd's family had worked in the steel and mining industries. They were fascinated by the shapes and attracted to the high design ideals of the buildings they photographed, calling them "anonymous sculptures". With an 8x10inch view camera they photographed the buildings from a number of different angles but always with a straightforward objective point of view. They photographed only on overcast days and early in the morning to avoid shadows. 

At each site they would shoot overviews of the surrounding landscape to show the structures in their context and how each building related to another. Their first project, Framework Houses took close to two decades to complete. In drawing attention to such architecture they helped in many cases to preserve it. The Art Deco Zollern Coal Mine in the Ruhr was designated a protected landmark following publication of their photographs. 

They exhibited the photos in strict formation, grouped by subject, in a grid of six, nine or 15 images and used the word 'typology' to describe these ordered sets of photographs. Titles were brief to the point of being almost non-existent and captions noted only time and place.

Towards the end of his life Bernd began teaching at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf where his students included Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer, Thomas Ruff and Elger Esser. As well as inspiring and influencing these and countless other photographers (Stephen Shore worked with Bernd on his first solo show at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and subsequently took to making an inventory of American life in his series' American Surfaces and Uncommon Places) - their work also had a big impact on Minimalism and Conceptual Art.

New Zealand's National Museum Te Papa (Our Place) ~ A Comprehensive National Museum

 New Zealand's National Museum Te Papa (Our Place) ~ A Comprehensive National Museum

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 08:37 PM PST

New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa (Our Place), faces the sea in the national capital, Wellington, at the southeastern end of the North Island. It is one of the world's most comprehensive national museums and presents a vision of New Zealand's past, present and future, the strands of its nationhood, and the spirit that brings the nation together. It traces the flowering of a rich culture, the growth of a people, and the weaving of a tapestry that encompasses not only the past but the future as well. Exhibitions range from historic artifacts to modern interactive displays. A living Nature environment, Bush City, transports the visitor into a recreated habitat island which includes native trees and shrubs, a lagoon, stream and underground caves. Te Papa is on Cable Street on the Wellington waterfront, easily accessible on foot from the city's central business and retail district. The museum was designed by Ivan Mercep for Jasmax Architects. Built on a site the size of three rugby fields, it has a total floor area of 38,000 square meters. The building has its own New Zealand-invented shock absorbers which isolate Te Papa from most ground movement during an earthquake. It took four years to build. Te Papa’s first predecessor was the Colonial Museum, which opened in a small wooden building in 1865. The tiny Colonial Museum opened behind Parliament Buildings shortly after Parliament moved to Wellington in 1865. In 1907, the Museum became known as the Dominion Museum. The idea of developing a public art gallery in Wellington was gathering support around this time. In 1913, the Science and Art Act provided for the establishment of the National Art Gallery in the building. But not until 1930 did the idea start to become a reality under the National Gallery and Dominion Museum Act. In 1936, a new building to house the Dominion Museum and new National Art Gallery opened in Buckle Street, Wellington. It incorporated the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. They sold their land and donated the proceeds to the new organization. The way the National Museum functioned was also in need of review. The Museum had been much loved for many years but no longer represented its increasingly diverse community. Society had changed, and so had views about New Zealand’s history and identity. In 1988, the Government established a Project Development Board to set the scene for a new national museum. This Board consulted people nationwide, including iwi (tribal groups), about their visions for the museum. The goals for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) emerged. In 1992, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act was passed. Te Papa would unite the National Museum and National Art Gallery as one entity, unite the collections of the two institutions so that New Zealand’s stories could be told in an interdisciplinary way, be a partnership between Tangata Whenua (Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand) and Tangata Tiriti (people in New Zealand by right of the Treaty of Waitangi), speak with authority, represent and appeal to New Zealand’s increasingly diverse society, be a place for discussion, debate, involvement, and celebration and link the past, present, and future. On 14 February 1998, Te Papa opened in Cable Street, Wellington. Since Te Papa opened, more than 17 million people have visited the Museum. The narrative-based, interdisciplinary, and interactive approach has attracted international attention, as has the commitment to biculturalism. The Marae, Rongomaraeroa, reflects Te Papa’s bicultural nature and observes Māori customs and values. It is a fully functioning marae, an inclusive place where all New Zealanders can meet, discuss, debate, and celebrate. It is also a place to welcome the living and farewell those who have passed on. The Marae is unique because the kawa (protocols) change according to the iwi (tribal group) in residence. Every few years, a different iwi works with Te Papa to develop an exhibition. Kaumātua (elders) from the iwi are in residence at the Museum throughout. They set and uphold the kawa on The Marae. The idea of the waharoa, or gateway, is particularly meaningful at Te Papa. Two important waharoa are on display , a contemporary one on The Marae and a traditional one in Wellington Foyer. The entire Museum is also a waharoa, a gateway to New Zealand’s natural and cultural heritage. As well as significant collections of New Zealand art, the taonga (treasures) looked after by Te Papa comprise the largest Maori collection held by any museum in New Zealand, and number almost 17,000. These cover the broad spectrum of Maori art and culture, from the most highly revered and significant cultural heirlooms through to the most humble of day-to-day items, from very early pre-European times to today. . .Visit the museum’s website at … www.tepapa.govt.nz2011-03-25

The development of the national art collection began in about 1905 under the guidance of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and gathered momentum with the establishment of a National Art Gallery, housed with the Museum in a new building in Buckle Street in 1936. Artworks purchased between 1905 and 1936 formed the basis of the collection and included early New Zealand and international works with an emphasis on Britain. The proportion of local art collected by the National Art Gallery increased steadily as confidence in the significance of the art and of the Gallery itself grew. The collection now houses a broad range of predominantly New Zealand, but also international, painting, sculpture, prints, watercolors, drawings, photographs, and archival material. The strengths of the collection of early New Zealand sculpture come from the close connection between the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and the National Art Gallery, one of Te Papa’s predecessors. Because of this association they have a strong collection of works by New Zealand artist Margaret Butler and some works by early New Zealand sculptors Francis Shurrock and William Wright. In the 1970s, the collection was developed to include New Zealand ceramics. Works by Barry Brickell, Doreen Blumhardt, Len Castle, and Anneke Boren were all purchased at this time. In addition, in 1996, all the works by New Zealand artists that had been commissioned for the 1992 Expo New Zealand in Seville were added. With the 1993 acquisition of works from the Stone Bone Shell exhibition of New Zealand jewelry, decorative arts also began to form a component of this collection. In the early 1980s, efforts were made to acquire works by significant contemporary New Zealand sculptors. As a consequence, we have a strong collection of works by Greer Twiss, Don Driver, Andrew Drummond, Neil Dawson, Christine Hellyar, and Vivian Lynn. In addition, efforts were made at this time to acquire sculptures by modern New Zealand artists who were not represented in the collection, such as Russell Clark. With a growing awareness of the cultural heritage of sculptural forms within New Zealand came a significant recognition of contemporary indigenous artists. With exhibitions specifically dedicated to contemporary Maori art, the collection gathered important examples of contemporary Maori and later Pacific work. Well-known examples here are works by Fred Graham, Para Matchitt, and Michel Tuffery. As the collection of New Zealand sculpture developed so too did the definition of sculptural form, which began to move towards incorporating installation, assemblage, site-specific works, and post-object and new media art. Because of the nature of these forms, there are only a few in the collection. There are good examples by Ralph Hotere, Pauline Rhodes, Derrick Cherrie, Billy Apple, and Jacqueline Fraser. For the opening of the new Museum and exhibition spaces, nine site-specific sculptures were commissioned, some of which now form part of the fabric of the new building. The focus of the New Zealand Prints is in the area of works created after the drawings and watercolors that recorded the eighteenth and early nineteenth century voyages of exploration in the Pacific and those that record first settlement in New Zealand. These include prints after paintings by artists such as Sidney Parkinson, Louis de Sainson, George French Angas, and Charles Decimus Barraud, and appear as both individual prints and in bound volumes. Highlights include a selection of the botanical prints of Banks’ Florilegium, early imprints of the Cook folios and D’Urville folios, and lithographs by Edith Halcombe. The New Zealand print collection contains examples of 2oth century artists’ prints whose work is also represented in other media, for example, woodcuts by Philip Clairmont, screen prints by Gordon Walters, etchings by Robyn Kahukiwa, and lithographs by Tony Fomison. There are also collections of work by artists whose work is primarily graphic. These include a large collection of etchings by A H McLintock and E Heber Thompson, wood engravings by Mabel Annesley and E Mervyn Taylor, and linocuts by Eileen Mayo and Stewart Maclennan. The work of contemporary printmakers such as John Drawbridge, Gordon Crook, Robin White, Kate Coolahan, Barry Cleavin, Max Hailstone, and Paul Hartigan are strongly represented. New Zealand watercolors and drawings are represented by large collections of works by a diverse group of artists including Maori and military subjects by Horatio Gordon Robley, T J Grant, and W F Gordon; landscape and early settlement works by Nicholas Chevalier, William Swainson, John Gully, and J C Richmond; and New Zealand flora and fauna by John Buchanan, Sarah Featon, and F E Clarke. The work of turn-of-the-century artist Petrus van der Velden is extensively represented by drawings and sketchbooks. Artists of the first half of the century are well represented. These artists include Raymond McIntyre, Jenny Campbell, Roland Hipkins, Mina Arndt, James Nairn, Dorothy Kate Richmond, Christopher Perkins, and John Weeks. More recent acquisitions include major works by John Pule, Tony Schuster, and William Dunning. Highlights of this collection include substantial representation of the works of Rita Angus, Frances Hodgkins, Colin McCahon, Sir Tosswill Woollaston, and John Pule.

The emphasis on local, New Zealand artists carries through into the painting collection. Over time, this collection has been shaped by Te Papa’s and its predecessor’s relationship with the government, the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, and the city of Wellington. As a consequence of these relationships, the Paintings Collection shows strengths in the work of particular New Zealand artists, in particular genres of painting (portraiture, for example, because of a quantity of ‘national’ portraits), and in subject matter relevant to the events and geography of Wellington city. Te Papa’s collection has strengths in the work of Petrus van der Velden, in both his New Zealand and his Dutch subjects, and J M Nairn, from his time working in and around Wellington as a professional artist. In portraiture, Te Papa has a number of works by painters such as Mary Tripe, Archibald Nicoll, C F Goldie, and Gottfried Lindauer. Of early modern New Zealand painters, the collection holds good examples of works by John Weeks, Charles Tole, Russell Clark, Sir Tosswill Woollaston, and Lois White. The Rita Angus loan collection, from the Angus Estate, together with Te Papa’s collection of this New Zealand painter, forms a body of many excellent works. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, there was a push to strengthen the New Zealand Paintings Collection. As a result, the collection has good examples of works by many artists of this time - in particular, paintings by Jeffrey Harris, Michael Smither, PhilipTrusttum, and Gretchen Albrecht. Te Papa’s collection of late modern New Zealand painters (Colin McCahon, Ralph Hotere, Tony Fomison) is a reflection of the perceived need to have a good representation of significant New Zealand painters. Te Papa also has a collection of some 600 international (mainly British) drawings and watercolors. Highlights of this collection are works by Thomas Girtin, John Sell Cotman, David Cox, Samuel Prout, and Thomas Rowlandson and a larger collection of twentieth century British paintings, that includes works by Winifred Knights, Anthony Gross, Paul Nash, David Jones, Edward Burra, and John Tunnard. There is collection of International sculpture in the collection which includes works by British and French artists, including Aime-Jules Dalou, Jacob Epstein, Auguste Rodin, Charles Wheeler, and Barbara Hepworth. This collection was extended significantly in 1983 by the bequest of Judge Julius Isaacs, which included two works by Marcel Duchamp. A small number of sculptures were purchased as illustrative examples of artistic styles and trends in international art. The international print collection includes a strong representation of German, Dutch, and Italian prints from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries; French prints of the nineteenth century; and twentieth century British prints. There is also a smaller group of Japanese woodblock prints. Particular highlights are large holdings of engravings and woodcuts by Albrecht Durer and etchings by Rembrandt. English satirical prints of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by William Hogarth and James Gillray are well represented, as are the etchings and aquatints of James McNeill Whistler. A highlight of the collection dating from the early twentieth century is the large number of etchings, including some rare versions of prints, by Australian artist Lionel Lindsay. A large collection of linocuts by artists influenced by English artist Claude Flight, who pioneered a particular kind of linocut print, is also held. These works from the 1930s are a highlight of the extensive and comprehensive collection of twentieth century British prints. There is a collection of early twentieth century European prints by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eric Heckel, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, and André Masson. Experimental prints by Pop artists of the 1960s and 1970s form a distinctive group within the collection and feature the work of artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, and Robert Rauschenberg. New directions in printmaking in the 1980s by international artists are represented by, among others, Bea Maddock, William Wiley, Susan Rothenberg, George Baselitz, and Dorothea Rockburne. Photography was first collected as art for the national collection in 1976. The focus since has been primarily on New Zealand contemporary work, with some forays into collecting international photography. There are about 1700 photographs by contemporary New Zealand photographers in the collection. Large groups of work are held by artists including Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Wayne Barrar, Peter Black, Glenn Busch, Anne Noble, Peter Peryer and Ans Westra. The International photography collection includes approximately 130 images by mostly American photographers acquired in the 1980s. Many of the famous names are represented, such as Edward Weston, Minor White, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. The other group of international work is by photographers from the famous photo agency Magnum. This was acquired by the gift of the 1989 travelling exhibition “In our time: the world as seen by Magnum photographers”. Photographers include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith, Elliot Erwitt, and Marc Riboud. The museum also have large collections of historical artifacts, Māori and Moriori cultural treasures, a collection of Pacific Island artifacts that reflects not only the diversity of Pacific Island cultures but also New Zealand’s relationships with Pacific communities at home and abroad and a large natural history collection (that includes the world’s largest giant squid). Amongst the interactive features are a virtual bungee jump and an ‘earthquake room’.

On temporary exhibition at the Te Papa, you can currently see “Brian Brake: Lens On The World” (until 8 May 2011). Brian Brake (1927–1988) was New Zealand’s best known photographer from the 1960s to the 1980s, though his career spanned more than 40 years. He first made his name as an international photojournalist, photographing for picture magazines such as Life, National Geographic and Paris Match. His most famous work was on the monsoon rains in India in 1960. This essay yielded the widely reproduced Monsoon girl, an image of a young woman feeling with pleasure the first rains on her face. Brake was also well known in New Zealand for his 1963 best-selling book, New Zealand, gift of the sea and, in the 1980s, for his images associated with the Te Maori exhibition. Brian Brake’s early grounding in photography came about in three ways. Each activity shaped Brake’s later work. The camera club period fuelled an interest in scenic and spectacular landscapes; studio portraiture influenced the way he lit his later studio photographs of museum objects; and the film experience developed his ability to create a story by assembling individual shots – a valuable skill for a photojournalist. He was involved in camera clubs in Christchurch and Wellington as a teenager, then became an assistant in a Wellington portrait studio. Finally, before going overseas in 1954, he worked as a cameraman at the National Film Unit in Wellington. Brake joined the prestigious Paris-based photo agency Magnum in 1955. This set him on course for the life of a globe-trotting photojournalist through to the early 1960s. The 1950s were the heyday of black and white magazine photojournalism. A host of large-format picture magazines such as Life, Look, Paris Match, and Illustrated provided a window on the wider world. Their success was possible mainly because television was not yet widespread, but also perhaps because relatively few people were able to travel themselves. In the 1960s, Brian Brake moved from small assignments, mostly involving black-and-white photography, to more extended picture stories – usually in color and often taking up to a year or more to shoot. This shift resulted from the close relationship he formed with the international picture magazine Life, then in an era of grand projects and big budgets. It was also a time when magazines were increasingly using color reproduction. This suited Brake well. His study of color cinematography for the National Film Unit in 1951–52 had given him greater expertise and comfort with working in color than most photographers at that time. Although Brian Brake left New Zealand in 1954 and lived overseas for most of the next two decades, he always thought of himself as a New Zealander. He began photographing the New Zealand landscape as a teenager, and returned to this theme in a 1960 photo essay on the land and its people. These photographs became New Zealand, gift of the sea, a best-selling book that struck a chord with New Zealanders looking for a more sophisticated vision of their country. When Brake returned home permanently in 1976, he continued photographing the landscape but became equally known for his images of craft objects and taonga Maori – work that contributed to a growing interest in rethinking New Zealand’s collective heritage.