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Michael Parekōwhai

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Michael Te Rakato Parekowhai
Born1968 (age 55–56)
Porirua, New Zealand
Alma materElam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
MovementInstallation art, conceptual art
AwardsArts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2001

Michael Te Rakato Parekowhai (born 1968) is a New Zealand sculptor and a professor at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts.[1] He is of Ngāriki Rotoawe and Ngāti Whakarongo descent[2] and his mother is Pākehā.[3]

Parekowhai was awarded an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2001. He represented New Zealand at the 2011 Venice Biennale.[4]

Early life

Parekowhai was born in Porirua. Both his parents were schoolteachers. He spent his childhood in Auckland's North Shore suburbs, where he also attended school. After leaving high school, Parekowhai worked as a florist's assistant before commencing his BFA at University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts (1987–1990). He trained as a high-school art teacher before returning to Elam to complete his MFA (1998–2000).

Themes and style

Parekowhai makes a variety of work across a range of media that intersects sculpture and photography. Sally Blundell, writing in the New Zealand Listener, says:

Originality, authenticity, ownership. In Parekowhai’s work, such notions blur, slipping into a collective act of translation that interweaves the canon of "high art" with cultural tradition, the handmade object with mass-produced tourist tat, the imported with the proudly colloquial.[2]

Despite the range of Parekowhai's output, his practice is linked throughout, both stylistically—a characteristic 'gloss' of high production value—and thematically.

Curator Justin Paton writes that Parekowhai's works "have a way of sneaking up on you, even when they're straight ahead." He continues:

Pick-up sticks swollen to the size of spears. A photograph of a stuffed rabbit who has you in his sights. A silky bouquet that rustles with politics. Seemingly serene beneath their gleaming, factory-finished surfaces, Michael Parekowhai's sculptures and photographs are in fact supremely artful objects. 'Artful' not just because they're beautifully made...but also because they manage, with a combination of slyness, charm and audacity, to spring ambushes that leave you richer.[5]

Notable works

  • Chapman's Homer, part of an ensemble exhibited at the 2011 Venice Biennale
    On First Looking into Chapman's Homer – an installation of two bronze bulls on grand pianos, two bronze olive saplings and the figure of a stoic security guard, his entry in 54th La Biennale di Venezia in 2011. Part of this installation, titled Chapman's Homer and consisting of a single bull atop a piano, was acquired by the Christchurch Art Gallery.[6]
  • The World Turns – a life-sized bronze elephant tipped on its head and eye-to-eye with a kuril (water-rat), commissioned by the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.[7][8]
  • He Kōrero Pūrākau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: story of a New Zealand river — an original Steinway grand piano covered in glossy red carvings.[9] The piano is played at each of the exhibitions that it features in, for example in the 2012 Te Papa exhibition with works from Colin McCahon and Jim Allen.
  • The Lighthouse: Tū Whenua-a-kura – Queens Wharf, Auckland[10]

Exhibitions

The World Turns

Solo

  • 2016 "The Tongue of The Dog, outside Waikato Museum, Hamilton, New Zealand[11]
  • 2015 The Promised Land Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, Australia.[12]
  • 2013 The Past in the Present, Michael Lett at the Auckland Art Fair, Auckland
  • 2012 On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch.[13][note 1]
  • 2011 54th Venice Biennale New Zealand Pavilion. Also at Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France
  • 2011 The Far Side Michael Lett, Auckland
  • 2011 Te Ao Hurihuri Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch
  • 2009 The Moment of Cubism Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 2009 Seldom is Herd, Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney, Australia
  • 2009 Yes We Are One Day Sculpture, Wellington, New Zealand[14]
  • 2008 Jim McMurtry Maori Hall / Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 2007 The Song of the Frog, Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 2007 My Sister, My Self Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 1994 Kiss the Baby Goodbye Govett-Brewster, New Plymouth.[note 2]
  • 1994 A Capella, Greg Flint Gallery, Auckland

Group

Collections

Parekowhai's work is held in most New Zealand public gallery collections and a number of international museums.

Awards / honours

  • Artist Laureate, Arts Foundation of New Zealand, 2001.
  • Premier of Queensland Sculpture Commission, Queensland, Australia, 2011.
  • Nga Toa Whakaihuwaka, Māori of the Year for Arts, 2011.
  • Barfoot & Thompson, 90th Anniversary Gift to Auckland City, Waterfront Commission, 2013.
  • 'Top 50 Public Art Project' awarded by Americans for the Arts, Public Art Network, 2013 Year in Review, for Blue Stratus, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Arizona, USA, 2013.
  • Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, 2017.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
  2. ^ Also at Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton.

References

  1. ^ "Professor Michael Te Rakato Parekowhai". Creative Arts and Industries. University of Auckland. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  2. ^ a b Blundell, Sally (14 May 2011). "Michael Parekowhai interview". New Zealand Listener. Retrieved 15 June 2019 – via Noted.
  3. ^ Leonard, Robert (2003). "Michael Parekowhai". robertleonard.org. Robert Leonard. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  4. ^ Stocker, Mark (22 October 2014). Michael Parekowhai at the Venice Biennale. Retrieved 15 June 2019. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |website= ignored (help)
  5. ^ "Special Agent Michael Parekowhai's Generous Duplicity". Art New Zealand. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  6. ^ Stocker, Mark (22 October 2014). "Sculpture and installation art - Māori sculptors". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Million-dollar mammoth makes minister mad", 17 October 2012, Daniel Hurst, Brisbane Times
  8. ^ "ARTIST NAMED FOR $1M SCULPTURE COMMISSION AT GOMA 5TH BIRTHDAY PARTY", 26 November 2011, qld.gov.au
  9. ^ "He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: story of a New Zealand river, 2011". Ocula. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  10. ^ "The Lighthouse lights up this Saturday". Auckland Council. Auckland Council. 10 February 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  11. ^ Shontelle Campbell (November 2016). "Sculpture a talking point". Hamilton News.
  12. ^ Michael Parekowhai: The Promised Land (1st ed.). Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery. 2015. ISBN 978-1-921503-74-0.
  13. ^ "Michael Parekowhai: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". Christchurch Art Gallery. 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
  14. ^ "Michael Parekowhai". One Day Sculpture. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  15. ^ "Black Rainbow". Te Uru. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

Further reading

  • Maud Page et al., Michael Parekowhai : the promised land, Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 2015. ISBN 9781921503740
  • Mary Barr (ed), On first looking into Chapman's Homer : New Zealand at the 54th Biennale di Venezia 2011, Auckland: Michael Lett and Roslyn Oxley Gallery, 2011. ISBN 9780958264785
  • Michael Lett and Ryan Moore (eds), Michael Parekowhai, Auckland: Michael Lett, 2007. ISBN 9780958283106
  • Margery King and Ngahiraka Mason, Michael Parekowhai: Ten Guitars, Pittsburgh: Andy Warhol Museum, 2001.
  • Robert Leonard, Michael Parekowhai: Ten Guitars, Auckland: Artspace, 1999. ISBN 9780958210331
  • Robert Leonard and Lara Strongman, Michael Parekowhai: Kiss the baby goodbye, New Plymouth: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 1994. ISBN 0908848102
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