Parekowhai heads to Sydney Biennale

By PAUL PANKHURST

Let's start with those giant rabbits. Here's what the news story said in the Press in Christchurch.

"The man behind a controversial artwork planned for Cathedral Square says his stylised rabbits reflect the impact of colonialism on Maori and how people have transformed the land."

But that does not sound like Michael Parekowhai.

Number one: he does not try to box off the meaning of his work. There are enough art writers around to pin this stuff down on the specimen table.

Number two: he would not make his art sound that boring.

A later quote in the story sounded more like him: "People will either see them as cool-looking rabbits, or as multi-level monsters in their city."

A phone call establishes that, a) the artist was in high-stress mode over a six-day deadline for sending some new work to a dealer gallery in Sydney and, b) he did not accept the newspaper's summation. "I didn't say that."

The fibreglass rabbits that are exciting Christchurch - "I wouldn't go from here to the dunny to see them" was a comment from a former head of the city's School of Fine Arts - are only one portion of what this Auckland artist has on his extra-large plate.

He is one of two New Zealand artists - the other is Taranaki's Michael Stevenson - showing work at the Sydney Biennale, the international festival of contemporary art opening on May 15.

Parekowhai says the Australians will see a mix of his work: big photographs of stuffed sparrows, big photographs of arrangements of artificial flowers, and Thunder Ranch Special - a gathering of taxidermed rabbits around a log-like length of orange plastic pipe.

Back home, he's just put a new set of works on the walls of the Ryder Hair Salon in downtown Auckland.

These are blow-ups of Cuisenaire rods, the colourful blocks for teaching children about maths.

Elsewhere, you can come across Parekowhai's work at the Glenfield Public Library or in the shape of the gates at the Manukau District Court ("I was quite suspicious, because it's mostly brownies who get caught up in the judicial system," the artist says of the commission).

Long-term, he plans more piano makeovers along the lines of The Story of a New Zealand River, the name for the transformed Steinway on show at the Auckland Art Gallery, inlaid with a paua-shell design and decorated with dark lilies that look plastic but are carved from kauri.

Inevitably, some projects - including a couple of 100 per cent guaranteed headline generators - are not up for discussion.

Alongside all this, he presses on with his day job, teaching at Elam art school.

It's been a brilliantly fast rise for the 33-year-old, whose first solo show was in 1993.

His work is local - think of his Maori mannequins, with "Hi, my name is Hori" - but it also travels well.

Last year, he was one of the country's arts laureates (handily, the award comes with a $30,000 cheque), turned up in the pages of Vogue (trying to look staunch like Jake Heke, he later joked), and took over a floor of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh for his installation Patriot: Ten Guitars.

This newspaper described him as the "hot artist du jour". If that was so, his day is certainly stretching on.

Interviewed in the front room of his Pt Chevalier home, Parekowhai is disarmingly self-deprecating.

"All good" is the term he uses most often, as in: "Mostly, I talk s***, so if you can extrapolate something of interest out of there, that'll be all good."

He describes himself as someone who's only ever had one idea: trying to find the special in the ordinary. An obvious example was blowing up an image of a "humble little pest" like a sparrow to a size that made it "regal" and "rarefied" - more like an eagle.

Parekowhai also talks about the idea of Maori as "the ordinary".

"When Cook first came to En Zed and said, 'We're English and who the hell are you fellas?', they looked around and just said, 'Well, we're Maori, we're just the ordinary people. We're just average.' So Maori is the average or the ordinary."

As an interview subject, one of Parekowhai's winning traits is a willingness to talk about his artworks not only as art but also as stuff that's cool to mess around with.

"I've got one in the bedroom if you want to check it out," he says, talking about a guitar, one of the custom-made beauties inlaid with paua kowhaiwhai patterns created for Ten Guitars.

The guitar comes out. The journalist has a go. Soon, the artist is playing away, singing a song, with his wife, Marie-Janna, harmonising.

"He manu ahau, he manu ahau.

"E rere ana,

"I nga wa katoa."

It's a children's song, about being like a bird.

Parekowhai has performed this at Elam, in a videotaped duet with himself.

Looking around the room, there are artworks, including the individually framed words "cross", "poly" and "nation", his contribution to a show 11 years ago at Artspace, when that gallery was on Quay St.

There are Elvis videos stashed beneath the television, a photograph of the couple's Las Vegas wedding on the mantelpiece, an array of toy figurines that have featured in Parekowhai's art, and piles of kids' clothes. Tucked up elsewhere are the couple's two boys, Thomas, 1, and Henderikus, 3.

Born in Porirua and schooled at Windy Ridge Primary in Glenfield and Northcote College, Parekowhai was one of five children in a family where one parent was Maori, one parent was Pakeha, and both were teachers. Education was a big deal.

"I failed secondary-school art," he says, "big time. I got 32 per cent for School C."

"You're joking," says the artist's wife.

"Nuh, and 48 for bursary, I think. Only just missed."

Parekowhai got into Elam through an entry system not based solely on marks.

In another conversation, his big sister, Cushla Parekowhai, a librarian and art writer, remembers a stand-out part of his application for art school: a six-slice toaster from home, transformed into a milking cow via additions such as a baked bean tin, car air horns, and nip-serves from spirit bottles.

Elder sister and little brother are long-time collaborators. "Mikey" wagged school to tag along with Cushla for her lectures at Auckland University. Now, she serves as a sounding board for his ideas, names his artworks, and writes texts to go with them, eschewing artspeak in favour of personal narratives, such as stories from their childhood.

Cushla's approach is illustrated by something she wrote for the exhibition in Wellington of work by the Australian artist Tracey Moffatt. Her piece talks not about Moffatt, but about the day she thought she had won the fourth-form girls' cross-country at Northcote College.

The brother/sister collaboration has not been without its icy patches - "five years of not speaking to someone - that's ridiculous," says Cushla - and the siblings seem to agree the artist took himself too seriously after leaving art school.

Michael says he took a break from art from 1994 to the start of 1998 after a relationship bust-up that came when he was overloaded, working days as an art teacher at Long Bay College and nights on his own work.

"I've only been back three years," he says, singing a snatch of the Gary Glitter song - "Did you miss me, yeah, when I was away?"

He says these days he's sorted out his priorities.

His art matters. "But I'm a husband and a father and a school teacher and all those other things before I'm an artist. Because that's just how it is. Does that make sense?"

Yep, that makes sense. Sounds good. It's all good.