Tail Feathers is a collaborative exhibition showcasing taonga (treasures) from the historic – and very different – collections of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Canterbury Museum. This unusual selection of rare, exquisite, extravagant .
VICKI ANDERSON offers a few highlights of events in Ōtautahi Christchurch this weekend and beyond. Last Saturday, Lieutenant Guisung Lee, a top bloke and genuine hero who once saved someone’s life, took me on a guided tour of the HMNZS Canterbury. She (ships are she apparently) was in port at Lyttelton 10 years ago when the earthquake struck, and her crew provided immediate support in Lyttelton at the time. Up and down a dizzying array of stairs we went, traversing the Moorhouse Ave wing to Fitzgerald Ave, I met wonderful people, saw incredible views and learnt interesting things (they spend $9000 a month on sweets and have an ace basketball net). I somehow got a bruise on my knee in the shape of Australia on a fake fire made of cardboard used for drills. A passing man in uniform found it amusing (it was) and, lifting his eyebrows, asked if I was OK.
Artist Bill Hammond, photographed with one of his paintings in 1994, has died.
The story of Aotearoa’s art history cannot be told without mentioning Bill Hammond’s work, Arts Minister Carmel Sepuloni said of the exalted artist following his death. Hammond, one of New Zealand’s leading artists, was a legendary figure in his home in the port town of Lyttelton, just outside Christchurch. One of his best known works,
Fall of Icarus, is displayed at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Hammond’s famed paintings often had environmental themes. “Bill’s contribution to the New Zealand art scene and the sub-genre of the New Zealand Gothic was immense,” Sepuloni said on Monday.