{"id":17,"date":"2011-09-08T04:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.otago.ac.nz\/hocken\/2011\/09\/08\/a-whole-lot-of-rain-at-the-hocken\/"},"modified":"2014-12-05T21:41:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T21:41:22","slug":"a-whole-lot-of-rain-at-the-hocken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/a-whole-lot-of-rain-at-the-hocken\/","title":{"rendered":"A Whole lot of Rain at the Hocken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-o1EDm9M-RMQ\/TmhLQvOnTwI\/AAAAAAAAADM\/BsFIWCpePe8\/s1600\/Rain_blog1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-o1EDm9M-RMQ\/TmhLQvOnTwI\/AAAAAAAAADM\/BsFIWCpePe8\/s320\/Rain_blog1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Ralph Hotere\u2019s imposing artwork <em>Rain<\/em> (1979) will be familiar to a generation of University of Otago humanities students because it was commissioned by the university in 1979, and, once adorned the foyer of the original Hocken Library building (now known as the Richardson building). The work\u2019s title references a poem written by the much loved New Zealand poet \u2013 the late Hone Tuwhare. Excerpts from Tuwhare\u2019s poem \u2018Rain\u2019 are stamped and scrawled across the bottom reaches of the artwork\u2019s three, unprimed canvas lengths.<\/p>\n<div>The evocative five-metre high banners were removed from their original site in 2007 after concerns over their deteriorating condition. The building\u2019s windy foyer and sunny aspect had led to major degradation of the thin paint pigment deployed by Hotere. The first stage of restoration work, carried out by Auckland paintings conservator Lydia Gutierrez, was completed in July and the banners have now been installed in the foyer of the current Hocken Library building at 90 Anzac Ave, Dunedin. Further paint consolidation will be carried out early next year.<\/div>\n<p>The Hocken\u2019s mezzanine floor enables visitors to experience this work \u2018up close and personal\u2019 and from a range of different aspects. Before <em>Rain <\/em>could be hung a special steel rigging had to be engineered and erected across existing roof trusses. While the three banners are lightweight, the perspex backing panels erected to support the fragile work weigh some 70 kilograms.<\/p>\n<p>Next time you enter the Hocken Library look skyward and be entranced by the beauty of <em>Rain<\/em>! Read what the Otago Daily Times published about the rehung banners <a href=\"http:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/news\/dunedin\/176401\/hotere-triptych-back-all-its-glory\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Natalie Poland, Curator of Pictorial Collections<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ralph Hotere\u2019s imposing artwork Rain (1979) will be familiar to a generation of University of Otago humanities students because it was commissioned by the university in 1979, and, once adorned the foyer of the original Hocken Library building (now known as the Richardson building). The work\u2019s title references a poem written by the much loved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15373],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nz-historical-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}