Lamb to slaughter and Lamb of God

By T. J McNAMARA

The reworked te tuhi gallery, formerly the Fisher in Pakuranga, is producing exhibitions of the highest order, splendidly shown in the reworked gallery space.

Alpha Omega by Robert Jahnke occupies the largest gallery. Any exhibition by this artist is a major event not only because of his considerable talents and the infrequency of his shows but also because he is committed to a strong sense of social values. These are expressed in his work, which shows much thought and sheer hard grind.

In his large-scale installation he creates a monumental elegy to closed freezing-works and the social implications of their demise.

Created out of lead stand huge idols whose heads are the hard hats required to be worn in the works, whose torsos are the long impervious aprons of the freezing worker and whose feet are the regulation gumboots. Hanging on each monumental figure are the tools of the trade, the narrow wooden box with the steel for sharpening and the knife that cuts. No one who has worked in a meatworks could forget the rattling knock of a knife dropped back in its holder as the worker used two hands on the hot carcass.

The apex of the work is such a carcass, a lamb beheaded and gutted: food, sacrifice, work, profit and the Lamb of God that once took away the sins of the world.

That this is an elegy, a lament for the past, is emphasised by the way each of the seven idol figures is enclosed in a rigid glass case. The freezing worker and his way of life have become museum pieces.

The meatworks with their seasonal activity were a great tradition in New Zealand small towns and in big ones, too, like the long-vanished Westfield that cast a pall over the Great South Rd near Otahuhu.

In the blood and stink of the works an egalitarian New Zealand identity was forged. These solemn and repeated works with each figure representing a roll-call of names - Waitara, Mamaku, Hawera, Whakatu, Patea and Tataka - fittingly represent and make permanent an aspect of New Zealand's past and makes of the sheep an iconic and ironic Agnus Dei.

Sheep also feature in two other works in glass cases. Each one has 13 great horned sheep, rams all of them. They all face one direction, but one sheep in the middle faces the opposite way - Christ or Judas.

There is some connection with the larger figures. In the freezing works there used to be Judas sheep who led the flocks to the slaughter but avoided the killing themselves. That all kinds of political and artistic symbolism are intended is emphasised by inscriptions about the necessity of innovation.

On the walls are some oval works, heavy with metal but bright with neon signs that indicate letters of the Greek alphabet.

It is harder to wring meaning out of these works but they do suggest a historical context, that thus it has been and ever will be, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega.

This substantial exhibition does not complete the riches offered by te tuhi. In the smaller gallery, Frances Hansen offers Remembrance, an installation composed of photographs that record rituals of remembrance and offering and a series of squares made of fabric of the sort that will resonate in every viewer's memory.

Then there is a revival of a work done by John Reynolds for the Fisher Gallery in 1993. Part of the work is on show again, together with new work and a little book of explication written by Allan Smith from the Auckland City Gallery.

Finally there is a remarkable exhibition of photography by Angela Colbert, who has recorded eccentric New Zealanders who masquerade as celebrities. Look for the man with the Jimi Hendrix face and attitude seated on a grave in Grafton cemetery and the Marilyn Monroe lookalike - not with a tag tied to her big toe like Norma Jean in the morgue but with a sticking plaster on her bruised legs.

Is Parnell a fringe? Off-beat or not there is an unusual show called Hewn by Louise Pervis at Artis Gallery. As the title implies, most of the pieces are carved from marble but there is a cast bronze work as well as several works assembled from slate.

The cunningly carved marble works show intricately woven binding around stones and the intricacy of these is paralleled by works assembled from tiny pieces of slate. These are formed into impressive discs and curtains which are at once perfectly simple in concept but extraordinarily complex in execution.

It is all the work of a sculptor with a sensitive feeling for stone and the variety of ways it can be worked.




Body1: T HE reworked te tuhi gallery, formerly the Fisher in Pakuranga, is producing exhibitions of the highest order, splendidly shown in the reworked gallery space.

Alpha Omega by Robert Jahnke occupies the largest gallery. Any exhibition by this artist is a major event not only because of his considerable talents and the infrequency of his shows but also because he is committed to a strong sense of social values. These are expressed in his work, which shows much thought and sheer hard grind.

In his large-scale installation he creates a monumental elegy to closed freezing-works and the social implications of their demise.

Created out of lead stand huge idols whose heads are the hard hats required to be worn in the works, whose torsos are the long impervious aprons of the freezing worker and whose feet are the regulation gumboots. Hanging on each monumental figure are the tools of the trade, the narrow wooden box with the steel for sharpening and the knife that cuts. No one who has worked in a meatworks could forget the rattling knock of a knife dropped back in its holder as the worker used two hands on the hot carcass.

The apex of the work is such a carcass, a lamb beheaded and gutted: food, sacrifice, work, profit and the Lamb of God that once took away the sins of the world.

That this is an elegy, a lament for the past, is emphasised by the way each of the seven idol figures is enclosed in a rigid glass case. The freezing worker and his way of life have become museum pieces.

The meatworks with their seasonal activity were a great tradition in New Zealand small towns and in big ones, too, like the long-vanished Westfield that cast a pall over the Great South Rd near Otahuhu.

In the blood and stink of the works an egalitarian New Zealand identity was forged. These solemn and repeated works with each figure representing a roll-call of names - Waitara, Mamaku, Hawera, Whakatu, Patea and Tataka - fittingly represent and make permanent an aspect of New Zealand's past and makes of the sheep an iconic and ironic Agnus Dei.

Sheep also feature in two other works in glass cases. Each one has 13 great horned sheep, rams all of them. They all face one direction, but one sheep in the middle faces the opposite way - Christ or Judas.

There is some connection with the larger figures. In the freezing works there used to be Judas sheep who led the flocks to the slaughter but avoided the killing themselves. That all kinds of political and artistic symbolism are intended is emphasised by inscriptions about the necessity of innovation.

On the walls are some oval works, heavy with metal but bright with neon signs that indicate letters of the Greek alphabet.

It is harder to wring meaning out of these works but they do suggest a historical context, that thus it has been and ever will be, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega.

This substantial exhibition does not complete the riches offered by te tuhi. In the smaller gallery, Frances Hansen offers Remembrance, an installation composed of photographs that record rituals of remembrance and offering and a series of squares made of fabric of the sort that will resonate in every viewer's memory.

Then there is a revival of a work done by John Reynolds for the Fisher Gallery in 1993. Part of the work is on show again, together with new work and a little book of explication written by Allan Smith from the Auckland City Gallery.

Finally there is a remarkable exhibition of photography by Angela Colbert, who has recorded eccentric New Zealanders who masquerade as celebrities. Look for the man with the Jimi Hendrix face and attitude seated on a grave in Grafton cemetery and the Marilyn Monroe lookalike - not with a tag tied to her big toe like Norma Jean in the morgue but with a sticking plaster on her bruised legs.

Is Parnell a fringe? Off-beat or not there is an unusual show called Hewn by Louise Pervis at Artis Gallery. As the title implies, most of the pieces are carved from marble but there is a cast bronze work as well as several works assembled from slate.

The cunningly carved marble works show intricately woven binding around stones and the intricacy of these is paralleled by works assembled from tiny pieces of slate. These are formed into impressive discs and curtains which are at once perfectly simple in concept but extraordinarily complex in execution.

It is all the work of a sculptor with a sensitive feeling for stone and the variety of ways it can be worked.