ExhibitionsClosed

Open Home: Contemporary New Zealand artists explore home lifeKāinga Tuwhera: He Toi Poka Hou Mai o Aotearoa

Works by Derrick Cherrie, L Budd, Graham Fletcher, and others explore what happens when home life goes on display.

When | Āhea

31 Aug 2016 – 26 Feb 2017

Where | Ki hea

Level 5

Cost | Te utu

Free exhibition

Ages | TE REANGA

All ages

Accessibility | E wātea ana ki

Wheelchair accessible

Find out more about accessibility at Te Papa

Homes are places to retreat to. But they also reflect how we’d like to be seen. The contemporary art in this exhibition explores what happens when home life goes ‘on display’.

With home ownership increasingly out of reach for New Zealanders, these uninhabited works are particularly poignant. These are spaces you might imagine living in, but never actually will – from mini ‘playhouses’ to dining rooms with desirable décor.

Neil Dawson, *Glow. From the series: House Alterations*, 1978. Purchased 1993 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (1993-0034-3).
We need you to fill in this form before sending your mosquito specimen.

Graham Fletcher, *Untitled*. From the series Lounge room tribalism, 2011. Purchased 2013. Te Papa (2013-0024-1)
In this imagined living room, pieces of iconic art and designer furniture share the space with a Polynesian carving. Who lives here? And why did they arrange these objects just so?
This painting is part of a series called ‘Lounge room tribalism’. Graham Fletcher, a Samoan New Zealander, composed these scenes after seeing tribal objects displayed inside real homes – ‘from middle-class villas to student flats’. These objects are separated from their original cultural context. The result, in Fletcher’s view, is an ‘odd, yet complementary, mixture of the contemporary and the sacred’.
Wendy, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and Captain Hook bring you on a magical theatre performance. Will you be able to help Wendy cheer up Tink? Come along to find out!

Derrick Cherrie, *Studio*, 2001. Purchased 2001. Te Papa (2001-0028-1)
Downsizing might be popular these days, but you’d find it tricky to live in a house this small.
*Studio* is a half-scale model of a real home – a sort of playhouse for adults. You can’t see inside it or open the door, and yet you wonder what it would be like to make it your own. How would you furnish it? Where would you eat or sleep?
Looking for lost and found? Either head to our Information Desk on Level 2 or complete this lost property form.

Martino Gamper, *Sliced Stracciatella (table). From Gesamtkunsthandwerk*, 2011. Te Papa (2011-0034-1/1-19).
This set-up looks familiar – a table and chairs, a place for food and conversation. But look closely and surprises emerge. A chair has been made from a drawer and a coffin-shaped piece of wood. A tree stump is reinvented as a stool.
Everything here was handmade by three collaborating artists – jeweller Karl Fritsch, furniture designer Martino Gamper, and sculptor Francis Upritchard. The work’s title, Gesamtkunsthandwerk, is a play on the German word Gesamtkunstwerk – a ‘total artwork’ combining various disciplines. The artists inserted the word ‘hand’. For them, the experimentation and handmaking of the objects is the main point here – the sawing, firing, moulding, and gluing that transformed raw or mass-produced materials into something new.

Karl Fritsch, *Candlestick holder. From Gesamtkunsthandwerk*, 2011. Te Papa (2011-0034-1/9-19).
Join us for the 2019 Michael Volkerling Memorial Lecture - Class, art and culture in a settler colonial society: Researching contemporary Australian culture

Martino Gamper, Francis Upritchard, Karl Fritsch, *Gingerbronze. From Gesamtkunsthandwerk*, 2011. Te Papa (2011-0034-1/11-19).
Nike Savvas talks to Curator Contemporary Art Nina Tonga about her work, Finale: Bouquet, on display in Toi Art until Jan 2020.

Martino Gamper, *Belly Bowl. From Gesamtkunsthandwerk*, 2011. Te Papa (2011-0034-1/6-19).
Join us for a celebration of Māori weavers and weaving, marking the launch of the new edition ‘Whatu Kākahu/Māori Cloaks’, published by Te Papa Press.

Neil Dawson, *Meld* from the series: *House Alterations*, 1978. Purchased 1993 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (1993-0034-2)
If there’s one thing all New Zealanders can relate to, it’s the ‘little wooden house’. That was Neil Dawson’s thinking when he made these art works in 1978. Disenchanted with what he called ‘self-indulgent’ sculpture, Dawson created these toy-like objects to reach a broad audience.
Experience the joy of dance and take your first ballet steps with RNZB Educator Bea Lee-Smith. Suitable for kids aged 5–11.

Discover moreKia kitea ake

Toi Art
Fresh takes and new favourites. You’ll find them in Toi Art – the home of the National Art Collection.
Discover new artists, get creative in the family-friendly Art Studio, or spend time with a favourite artwork.
On now
Long-term exhibition
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
From Open Home to Suburban Dreams
Lisa Walker: I want to go to my bedroom but I can’t be bothered
The 30-year evolution of world-renowned New Zealand jeweller Lisa Walker.
Closed
17 Mar – 22 Jul 2018
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists
A celebration of mana wāhine, indigenous identities, and the role this collective has played over the past 26 years in giving voice and visibility to Māori and Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Closed
17 Mar – 15 Jul 2018
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga