The past is always with us

The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand. Photo / Louis John Steele

Our history is the broad base for a new exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery for the next 10 months. Curated by Allan Smith and Jane Davidson-Ladd, the works - all from the gallery's collection - have four themes: origins and arrivals; the devastating eruption of Mt Tarawera; encounters between Maori and Pakeha; and people made famous by history's events.

Goldie and Steele's The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand, which has been in the gallery's collection since 1899, is probably its most iconic work - and its most notoriously inaccurate.

"It is a real favourite," says Davidson-Ladd. " But some Maori really don't like it because of the representation. An ethnologist has looked at the canoe - it's an 18th-century war canoe rather than one that would have gone on those long voyages. The sail form would never have existed. The figure on the prow is pointing, which is an inappropriate gesture in Maori culture. It is represented in such a dilapidated condition, and Maori don't think that's accurate, they would not have arrived like that.

"It is very strongly drawing on Gericault's Raft of the Medusa which was a shipwreck. Goldie and Steele are dramatising this history, there was a lot of myth-making around at the time of the painting about New Zealand history, and the theory of the Great Fleet arriving in 1350 which has since been disproved."

The exhibition, housed in four spaces on the ground floor, showcases around 50 works.

Exhibition

What: Picturing History: Goldie to Cotton
Where and when: New Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery, to Feb 21, 2010; free