Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Room F209, F Block, Otago Polytechnic, Forth Street, Dunedin: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
YOUNG GUNS RELOADED:
RE-EVALUATING THE CONTEMPORARY MĀORI ART OF THE 1990S
Ed Hanfling, Dunedin School of Art
Michael Parekowhai (Ngā Ariki Kaiputahi, Ngāti Whakarongo), The Bosom of Abraham, 1999 Screen printed vinyl on fluorescent light housings
Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
In 2001, Manuka Henare wrote: “Māori art is vitalistic in its expression of religion and philosophy, particularly where it is the intention of the artist to enhance vital potential. The art is said to be alive.” It is unlikely that he had in mind the work of the “Young Guns” – the artists who became identified with Contemporary Māori Art in the preceding decade, the 1990s. Shane Cotton, Jacqueline Fraser, Michael Parekowhai, Lisa Reihana and Peter Robinson enjoyed critical acclaim for work that was irreverent and referential, but also provoked debate about the extent to which their art could be seen as “Māori art” or consistent with the “vitalistic” basis of Te Ao Māori. This seminar considers the metaphysical dimensions of 1990s Contemporary Māori Art, activated through recontextualisation and reappraisal (as in the recent Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora), while suggesting that there is value in holding on to the humour and calculated impropriety that initially gave the work its vitality.
Ed Hanfling is a prolific Pākehā critic, art historian, and curator who teaches at the DSA. His research focuses on judgement and value, modernist abstract art, and 20th-century art in Aotearoa New Zealand. Among his books are 250 Years of New Zealand Painting (co-authored, Bateman 2021) and texts on Milan Mrkusich and Ian Scott.
