Maioha Kara, Kura, 2024. Photo / Laree Payne Gallery
Maioha Kara, Kura, 2024. Photo / Laree Payne Gallery
COLUMN
Hastings Art Gallery exhibitions coordinator Mark Anderson talks about his experiences as exhibition coordinator over the past five months.
Five months into my new position as exhibitions coordinator at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga, and many of the daily processes which had at first seemed mind-bogglingly convoluted and impenetrable are now completed without a second thought, as the cogs in the gallery machine click pleasingly into place, all helpfully enabled through tight teamwork and oodles of goodwill.
One of the first great challenges I was tasked with at the onset of starting my job was the assembling of artworks for our upcoming reprisal of In Good Relation, an exhibition by Te-Whanganui-a-Tara based artist Maioha Kara (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Ngāti Tipa, Te Ātihaunui-A-Papārangi, Tūhourangi, Te Whānau a Hinetapora, Kuki Airani).
This quest will see a satisfying conclusion in the form of an opening on Friday, November 22, as the Hastings Art Gallery presents our iteration of Kara’s elegant and evocative mahi toi on the walls of our Main Gallery, alongside the local duo of Jacob Scott and Jason Kendrick.
Exhibitions coordinator Mark Anderson at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings Art Gallery. Photo / Ebony Holt
Initially exhibited at Pātaka Art + Museum in Porirua earlier this year, the artworks that made up that exhibition were redistributed back to private collections and institutions at the end.
Obtaining the leads on their whereabouts was not altogether too difficult, (this was especially helped by generous assistance from Kara’s art dealer Laree Payne), but I felt like I had my work cut out for me in navigating a series of lender requests that ran the length of the motu.
The biggest obstacle, it seemed, was convincing private owners of Kara’s work, who had possibly just become used to the idea of having their beloved artwork back in their homes and lives, to lend their work out again for another four-month-long exhibition.
Once consent was granted, it was then up to me to make an itinerary for a road trip to gather them and bring them safely to Heretaunga.
Although many lenders wish to remain anonymous when credited on wall labels, there is often an unacknowledged and enormous amount of generosity that goes into lending a privately owned work to a public institution such as ours.
Having the work publicly seen and redistributed into public discourse is undoubtedly beneficial for the artist, owner, and dealer gallery alike, but we as a culture also benefit from having the work recontextualised by a curator that sees value in what the works have to say to an audience and a community in the broader contemporary dialogue of life within Aotearoa.
Assembling this body of work together to form a cohesive whole is only one part of the many-tiered process in presenting an exhibition such as Kara’s.
Through the logistics, negotiations, and email trails of coordinating such a show, it is of daily importance to me that I remind myself that I am not merely dealing with things – that I am in a way a kaitiaki, stewarding and caring for taonga which possess a living and breathing kaupapa that can help us navigate our way forward through troubled times.
This is especially embodied in the artworks of In Good Relation, which sparkle and enlighten with the concept of iraira (to shine) and the energy and mauri (essence) of all things.
