Curator of Pasifik art to speak at USP Thursday

For the last 16 years, New Zealand art Curator Giles Peterson has specialized in running exhibitions of art works by Pacific artists.
Peterson, who has an international reputation, is in Rarotonga to do a lecture on curating, its complexities and how it benefits the community, at the USP on Thursday from 7pm-8pm. He spoke to the Herald on Monday morning.
Peterson was last in Rarotonga in 2007 when he curated the “Longtitude” exhibition at Ian and Kay George’s gallery “The Art Studio” in Arorangi.
Those 16 years have seen him run 43 independent art exhibitions of artists from the Cook Islands, Samoa, Fiji, Niue, Tonga, PNG and other Pacific nations.
At the USP on Thursday evening he will also mention his two latest shows overseas.
One of these, his latest exhibition in the USA is at the CN Gorman Museum at the University of California in Davis which is in San Francisco, features a diverse range of work by 47 artists and designers from Pacific nations. Cook Islanders Shona Pitt (a Tivaevae), Ian and Kay George, Mike Tuffrey and Lelani Kake have their works on show. The works are actually from Peterson’s own collection. In the first week some 20,000 people viewed the works. “Niu Pasifik”, the exhibition began in April and will end this month.
His other show was at three venues in Mexico City and featured photographic works by Pacific photographers.
Peterson says thanks to the overseas exhibits of works by Arnie O’Neil, Mahiriki Tangaroa and more recently, Kay George, Cook Islands art is attracting a lot more attention internationally.
Peterson says he plans to organize another overseas exhibition of pacific art works in October.
For the last 15 years Peterson has been teaching at Whitecliffe Community College of Art in Auckland where his subjects are NZ art and design history, contemporary art and Arts marketing and management.

By Charles PItt

Herald Issue 463 10 June
- World famous activist assisting residents
- Budget will decide if residents prosecute Government over landfill
- Forestry project sucking Mangaia dry
- Budget 2010 – fiasco or disaster?