October 10, 2013

Today I had some time so I ventured into the Auckland inner-city all by myself for the first time. Even though it is only a 15-20 minute drive into the city it takes a lot longer when you are trying to use public transport instead of your own private car. Luckily I caught a bus right on time and was able to ask a few people for help finding the Auckland Art Gallery once I got off. Once inside the huge Art building, I was amazed to see how unique and diverse some of the collections were. There was everything from natural landscapes of New Zealand to abstract piles of “rubbish” that someone placed in a unique way and called artwork.

These photos are from the outside park near the Art Gallery as well as the sign outside. So I don’t know about all of you but I love Free stuff so of course I was super excited to find the art gallery on the list of free activities in Auckland. I thought this sign was a cute arrangement of words to incorporate the theme and advertise for the gallery, thus I am sharing it with you! Obviously there is a play on letters in the arrangement and coloration of the sign.

 “Toi Aotearoa” is the Maori word for New Zealand. Throughout the gallery they had many early Maori representations (sculptures, masks, images, paintings, etc.) as well as tapestries that were created by the Dutch, English, along with other early explorers that came to New Zealand. It was really interesting to see how each of these Discoverers portrayed New Zealand compared to how the place is in real life. The tour guide said that in most of the paintings they are very idealized because Europeans wanted to portray New Zealand as a dreamlike place because of how amazing it is. Also they said that the reason why most of the Maori are displayed in sad or down-turned expressions because they were becoming a dying race due to European diseases and wars between tribes.

“A puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn & a King” was a quite graphic video presentation of the horrors of life and abuse caused to women when crossing the ocean to discover New Zealand. Although it was displayed through shadow figures and acted out in motion on the screen without sound, it was quite obvious what was happening and the misfortune that some people encountered on that long journey. The picture with the red and black shadow light figures was an image captured from that film.

The Gallery was 3 Floors and on the third there was an outlet to go up to the roof. The image with the clock tower and decorative benches is from the roof. Throughout the gallery there were places where you could see the original architecture of the building such as these columns, the floor in some places and the spiral staircase. These touches of the past were a great way to link the old and new inspiration from present and past throughout the history of New Zealand. It was also very interesting to see the Christian influence that was apparent in many of the biblical images throughout the gallery. The rest of the images are of Auckland city.  

So part of the exciting part of this Art Gallery venture was that i had to brave the bus system here and navigate my way through the city. No worries after asking a few kind people for help i only got on the wrong bus once and had a fabulous time and then found my way home successfully. In most of the parts of the US that i have been public transport is not exactly as popular as just using your own car so thus the reason this was such an event for me! Luckily everyone is very nice here and was willing to help me navigate my way through the city.

Thanks to all those who read,
Kelcee Moore