Refashioned Toi Art at Te Papa

PRISCILLA PITTS

Twenty years ago Te Papa Tongarewa redefined what a national museum could be. Not everyone liked it. Most vocal among its critics were members of the visual arts community—and with good reason. Opening day, and who can forget Parade with a Richard Killeen cut-out arranged around the uppermost cupboard of Christine Hellyar’s Clutch, Brood and Echo (1990) or Colin McCahon’s Northland Panels (1958) squished into a too-small space alongside a refrigerator. The labels written for a hypothetical someone of very limited intelligence, a word or two highlighted just in case the reader missed the point. The huge blue and red ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ objects that invited, not reflection, enquiry or thought, but, rather, mindless reaction. Upstairs the more conventional exhibition Dream Collectors did little to showcase Te Papa’s art collection.

After a time art was largely banished to the attic where even an expansion of the original fifth-floor space did little to draw any but the most determined visitor to see what was on offer. Sometimes what was on offer was worth seeing but at times efforts to cobble together Te Papa’s art and non-art collections resulted in some very unhappy marriages. In the last few years the curatorial team has developed a series of good-looking, fairly modest exhibitions from the institution’s