Local artist to help organize major
international exhibition of Polynesian art works

Our leading female contemporary artist Mahiriki Tangaroa has been invited to participate in the curatorship of a major international art exhibition which will commence at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Australia in August 2012.
The exhibition will also travel to the St Louis Art Museum in St Louis, USA and then to an as yet unconfirmed venue in Europe.
The exhibition which will recognize the ancient traditional art forms of Polynesia is tentatively titled “Atua-sacred art from Polynesia.”
Mahiriki spoke with the Herald on Saturday afternoon.
She said that in the last four years, international interest in Pacific art has accelerated, becoming significant. Major institutions around the world have paid recognition through developments such as the development of the first Pacific Arts department at the National Gallery of Australia, the opening of the controversial Musee du quai Branley in Paris France to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s creation of permanent new galleries for Oceanic art.
The recent initiatives by overseas galleries has prompted further research into rare and sacred objects that were once created in Polynesia. What was formerly regarded as “wooden heathen idols” is now being acknowledged as exceptional art objects or highly acclaimed works of art.
The National Gallery of Australia Senior Pacific Art Curator, Michael Gunn, will be developing the exhibition alongside Mahiriki Tangaroa.
It will feature some 90 major art works from across Polynesia, focusing on the relationship between Polynesian art objects and Atua.
In 1995 Gunn began the process of identifying Polynesian art objects. He identified some 4,700 objects which he narrowed down to 135. This number will be reduced to a more manageable 90 for the exhibition. Most of the objects are in overseas institutions and private collections. Gunn has advised Mahiriki the objects will be borrowed from more than 30 places around the world.
Some of the most evocative sacred works of Pacific art were originally collected as “gods” or “heathen idols” when various Polynesian peoples were converted to Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The exhibition and catalogue will re-examine the concepts of “gods” as represented in Polynesian art. It will look into the ancient geographical place of origin and pay particular attention to the context in which an object was used and to the names associated with the object.
Mahiriki says much research will need to be done in order to produce the 300 page catalogue that will accompany the exhibition. The texts will focus on atua as they relate to particular objects, how they vary from region to region; and how people in various regions have interacted with them. Scholars of Polynesian origin will be invited to research and write relevant catalogue chapters for their own particular island groups.
Mahiriki said there is a need to consult with communities in order to understand what the objects mean.
Mahiriki said Gunn has emphasized that an important part of the exhibition is that each piece will be considered to be an ambassador for the people who created it and for their descendants. Visually, the focus will be on the objects as works of art.
With many art pieces having been in overseas institutions for a long time, their return to Polynesia, treatment and care will invoke issues concerning tapu. Although some objects may have buried in museum storerooms for many years, they will be regarded as “living” and Mahiriki said the exhibition will reveal the link between the traditional and the contemporary of today to also reveal the continuum- the unbroken link in the timeline.
Dr Michael Gunn is also President of the Pacific Arts Association which recently held its 10th conference symposium on Rarotonga at the Crown Beach Resort.
Mahiriki’s participation is not only a fitting recognition of her growing stature as a Cook Islands and Pacific artist but it is also an honour that the development of art within the Cook Islands has been recognized internationally.
This development is testament to the efforts of the talented body of productive locally based artists the likes of Mike Tavioni, Eruera Nia, Tim Buchanan, Ian and Kay George, Ani O’Neill, Joan Rolls –Gragg and Loretta Reynolds which has flourished in recent years alongside the encouragement and support of inspired and enlightened patronage from the likes of the Beachcomber’s Ben Bergman, the artistic owners of the Art Studio gallery Ian and Kay George, sponsors like CITC, Pacific Resort, ANZ and Air NZ and art lovers locally and overseas who purchase the works.

By Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 463 10 June
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