Shiny smiling monkey face

Détour by Michael Parekowhai

Détour by leading conceptual artist Michael Parekowhai provides alternative ways to encounter and experience art. Whimsical but with a critical edge, Détour is his response to the repositioning of contemporary art at Te Papa with the opening of the new gallery.

Working with ideas such as portability, journeying, and the unearthing of treasures, Michael Parekowhai has created a conceptually layered exhibition that upends fine art conventions and art gallery etiquette, and questions notions of value and taste.

Drawing on works from the Art, History, Taonga Māori and Archive collections at Te Papa, and loaned artworks, alongside an elephant, bobble-headed monkeys, and other works created specifically for the show, Parekowhai’s beguiling installation, his forest of plastic trees, ‘mines the museum’ and reframes art you perhaps already know.

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