What would William Mathew Hodgkins think of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery today?
The gallery’s current director Cam McCracken wonders how the gallery’s founder would react to Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert’s corrugated iron and neon light installation being installed next to Thomas Gainsborough and John Hoppner’s portrait of a countess, opposite the Mataaho Collective’s road sign work.
Or the book, a review of the past nearly 20 years of the gallery’s work, siting Australian-based, New Zealand artist Anglea Tiatia’s moving image across from French-born painter Tissot’s oil work.
Back in the early 1880s, when Hodgkins had the idea of creating a collection representing significant moments in European art history and locally painted contemporary "masterpieces" in a space that would bring the works and audiences together, he and his supporters started from nothing. More than 140 years later the gallery has produced a book, Te Ahikāroa: Artists & Stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery, featuring 200 works, a mix of more recent acquisitions with works selected from the collection, and an accompanying exhibition.
"If they could only see where that little spark, that idea, that little acorn has grown into this incredible place, this incredible collection, this incredible set of relationships — it’s extraordinary," McCracken says.
"Thinking back to that founding moment and the aspirations that were articulated by the founders in 1884 are the exact same aspirations that we have now — that strategic intent is still relevant 142 years later as it was then."
Te Ahikāroa, the book and exhibition of the same name, have given McCracken and his curatorial team of Lucy Hammonds and Lauren Gutsell the opportunity to reflect on their tenure at the gallery and also builds on the previous two books on the collection Beloved: Works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2009), which marked the gallery’s 125th celebrations, and Treasures of Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1990).
Hammonds says the Dunedin community should be very proud that DPAG is a leader nationally and internationally and does things no other gallery in the country is doing.
The history of leadership, ambition and bravery that Hodgkins and his friends showed back in the 1880s has continued, she says.
"I hope that is the place where we continue to operate in our own quiet way as something that nationally, internationally, we can be relied upon to be ethical and to be brave."
McCracken says one of the most significant things they have done, which is reflected in the book, is develop the gallery’s bicultural approach embedding it in the way the gallery works, from how it conceives and develops exhibitions, supports artists, shapes the collection and invites communities into the space.
They have also formed significant relationships with the likes of Ngāi Tahu artists collective Paemanu, as well as with Christchurch Art Gallery (allowing the institutions to co-buy significant works which neither could afford on their own) and the Gordon Walters Estate.
The book’s name, Te Ahikāroa, was selected by mana whenua and translates to the burning fires of occupation, a signal of the continuous occupation of land through whakapapa over a long period.
"They brought it out as a metaphor for what we’re talking about here which is a fire, a place where energy comes from a collective, from connectivity which felt like [it] had a very strong relationship to the collection as a place where many many parts come together and something exciting and powerful is born from that," Hammonds says.
It begins with the photography of Neil Pardington and the words of acclaimed writers, thinkers and community organisers Paulette Tamati-Elliffe, Komene Cassidy, poet laureate Robert Sullivan and Hana O’Regan and Claire Kaahu White.
"We’ve got those founding thinkers who are really pushing forward in these spaces to open the book. To have them located within the world of the art gallery and the history of the art gallery is a super exciting thing alongside the William Mathew Hodgkinses and the Francis Hodgkinses and the Ralph Hoteres — it just starts to signal that forever expanding pursuit of excellence for people and communities in all of the different creative ways. It’s inspiring."
"I think we’ve made some really significant additions to the collection. I think that being able to do that becomes increasingly difficult with the economic reality and the inflation that exists certainly within the art market. So to be able to add really significant works, and we’ve done that, is extra pleasing," McCracken says.
"I can flick through that book and look at page after page of works that we collectively have debated and talked about and brought in and it’s so heartening to think that they have a permanent home here."
For Gutsell, the book, which has been two years in the making, is a celebration of the gallery’s "artist-centred" approach, indicated by the artists — from the 14th century to 2005 — being listed alphabetically.
"That immediately is a gentle shift ... that’s carried in the title, ‘artists and stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery’.
"It sounds like a simple thing but actually it sits at the heart of what we do and our belief in the work of artists and the power of art," she says.
At the heart of the book, literally, are essays by Gutsell and Hammonds focusing on the four pou, or pillars, that provide the foundation for thinking about the collection — people, place and identity, global networks and the power of art.
"These pou acknowledge and create connections across the collection and reflect the work of the contemporary institution — work that is artist-focused and led by the needs of both artists and communities," Gutsell says.
The exhibition is inspired by the book, but follows a journey through place and times as suggested in the book’s name, rather than following the alphabetical format.
Gutsell says the lighting and contemporary installations will create some "beautiful moments of light and movement and darker gallery spaces" and so will be quite atmospheric as people move through the journey of the show "which is quite exciting".
Almost all of the spaces have a large-scale recent work which visitors may not have seen before or have not seen for some time. And contemporary works are juxtaposed alongside historic works giving them new meanings.
"Our Monet will sit in this room alongside Rebecca Baumann and works by Billy Apple and Kushana Bush and Reuben Paterson and others. It’s a reminder of radical art-making. It’s cool to be able to put all those things together and let people think about those ideas and take people into different moments across time and think about the work then, the work now, how that’s shaped different artistic movements and ideas."
To showcase the gallery’s expanding collection of moving image works, a screening room has also been set up.
"That is where some of our really significant recent acquisitions come in from."
TO SEE:
Te Ahikāroa Artists & Stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery, March 28 — June 30, 2027
11am, March 28: Tour with DPAG curators and artists Neil Pardington, Kate Fitzharris and Ani O’Neill.
1pm, March 28: Talk with Dr Anya Samarasinghe on selected historical artworks held in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection.
