Tired old lady gets a facelift

A carved ship's figurehead on display in the Edmiston Gallery. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Gone is the wine-stained carpet, the bland walls. The National Maritime Museum's once fusty Edmiston Gallery has had a makeover. Didn't see it beforehand? You're not alone. Although the gallery has no trouble attracting international tourists, the New Zealand public has shown less enthusiasm in recent years, partly because the Viaduct establishment had become a relic itself.

So it's a pleasant surprise to wander into the revamped gallery space, with its spacious layout, sliding walls, modern concrete floor and muted colour scheme, the occasional wall adorned with poignant phrases from Allen Curnow's poems. Its new visage brings the art - "a visual history of New Zealand's seafaring spirit" - back to life. On Thursday night the gallery held a launch to reveal its facelift, and it reopened to the public yesterday.

"It's been a dramatic transformation," says the museum's chief executive Paul Evans. "It used to be a box with white walls and carpet which I'd liken to my grandmother's lounge."

The gallery makeover coincides with a broader project to redevelop the museum, which has been renamed Voyager. The logo has been redesigned and the building painted black, giving it a distinctive presence on Auckland's waterfront.

The museum's centrepiece is the bold Sir Peter Blake tribute, Blue Water Black Magic, the bright interactive space that now houses KZL32.

The adjacent Edmiston Gallery had to be slightly reduced to accommodate the big boat so it too got a facelift, although the $120,000 redevelopment was funded by sponsors (the Edmiston Trust and Chartwell Trust among them), rather than the Government and ARC contribution that fed the $9.5 million development of the rest of the museum. (The museum receives less than 5 per cent of the government funding available to the Auckland Museum so it has to charge an entry fee.)

Despite the small budget, the Edmiston finally looks and feels like a traditional art gallery. Most of the works were already part of the museum's collection; others belonged to the Edmiston Trust. Additional works were borrowed from Auckland Art Gallery and Auckland Museum to strengthen the narrative. Curator Karolina Spaseska-Markovska wanted the artworks to tell a story as visitors wander through time. The new layout has given the gallery a modern feel that suits the contemporary works, and the sliding walls can reshape the space to accommodate future exhibitions.

"It's been such an exciting project to work on," says Spaseska-Markovska, a Macedonian archaeologist who escaped the Balkan war and moved to New Zealand in the mid-90s. She originally started working in the museum as a volunteer. "New Zealand may be young but it has a dramatic maritime history."

Visitors are first guided through the pioneers' world of discovery through a series of mysterious figureheads salvaged from vessels such as the HMS Orpheus which left behind only artefacts when it sank in the Manukau Harbour in 1863, killing 190 people. Some of James Cook's journals and charts from his first voyage on the HMS Endeavour to the south seas are also on display.

Until now the gallery had nowhere which would do justice to the contemporary photography of Kendal Hayes. His dramatised stills of a man drowning get pride of place on their own wall.

"They were part of the collection but sat in storage," says Spaseska-Markovska. "We needed to put them in context so this was the right chance to show them."

One of the most striking works in the gallery is abstract artist Milan Mrkusich's stained glass window panels, once part of a chapel on Quay St. Though not new to the gallery, they radiate a new celestial glow thanks to the installation of a light-box.

Of the more historic works are paintings by marine artist Frank Barnes, yachting photographs by Henry Winkelmann and archival photographs showing the evolution of Auckland's waterfront.

"I wish we had a waterfront like that now," says Evans, examining a shot from 1903. "It didn't have the big red gates and the ports and all those sorts of things. It's remarkable to see how much it changed in such a short space of time. People would take their rowboats and row across to Birkenhead or Northcote. So many people don't know that side of Auckland's history."

The Edmiston also houses a generous collection of model ships, sculptural works and amazingly intact remnants from some of New Zealand's worst ship wrecks.

The Bounty's 725kg anchor now anchors the gallery, and an ornamental piece of skylight glass is one of many artefacts rescued from the doomed Orpheus.

Rows of pews on which visitors can watch projected films have been set up out of respect for the dead.

"We're trying to challenge people's perceptions of a maritime museum," says Evans. "Because a lot of people go, 'Oh, it's a museum of old boats'. It is but there's a lot more to it. New Zealand is a seafaring nation. Until 1960 people came here by boat and our nation has been created on those voyages of discovery. Then we move into the modern day with Sir Peter Blake and his quest for the environment.

"A maritime museum is just as much about advocacy for the environment as that mix of European history, Maori history, the migratory story and the discovery of the Pacific."

* Entry to the renovated Edmiston Gallery is through the Voyager Maritime Museum, Auckland Viaduct, open every day except Christmas Day, 9am-5pm. Free entry this weekend. (Entry is usually $16 for adults; concessions available). See www.maritimemuseum.co.nz.