Bull in a china shop

Artists will always find places to make and exhibit work, whatever the circumstances*. Christchurch is testament to this. Ruin and devastation seem to provide excellent backdrops or even springboards for art. To paraphrase Honors Sculpture student, Tim Middleton's wise words at the conclusion of his 183 Milton Street domestic art space last September, "the phoenix rising from the ashes needed to be invigorated" and, from what I can see, there are now new spaces and ways of exhibiting work which underline an invigorating renaissance.

Since the first earthquake rocked the city in the early hours of the 4^th of September, 2010, the region has been shaken by around 10,000 aftershocks, a pattern which has defied normal earthquake behaviour. The most significant of these was the earthquake that struck at 12.51 p.m. on the 22^nd of February 2011. This event saw the loss of 182 lives and over 900 buildings in the Christchurch central city.    Despite the fact that many of the city’s art spaces, dealer galleries, and artists’ studios were destroyed in the earthquakes, creativity is still flourishing and finding its place in the broken city. Even the main Christchurch Art gallery, which served as Civil Defence HQ throughout the weeks and months following the devastating quake, has now been closed. But this has not stopped the art community. The latest phoenix is Michael Parekowhai’s On First looking into Chapman’s Homer. Fresh from Paris, and more impressively, perhaps, the 54^th Venice Biennale, the two bronze grand pianos, each supporting a life-sized bronze bull, seem perfectly placed on a vacant lot against the backdrop of a broken cityscape. The exhibition, which takes its name from a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats, celebrates the emotional power of a great work of art, and the possibility of great art to evoke an epiphany in those who see it.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
 Round many western islands have I been
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
 When a new planet swims into his ken;
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
 He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

 

On the second storey of Ng Gallery and overlooking the bulls, are two more Parekowhai pianos. One, a beautifully carved red Steinway, He Kōrero Pūrākau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: Story of a New Zealand river, and the other serves as a plinth of sorts for a stand of delicate bronze olive trees. The red piano echoes the collaboration going on outside the gallery in the greater city of Christchurch, as performance makes up an integral facet of its appeal. The music that comes from it is how it fills the space and creates or fills out its meaning.

*Warren Feeny, EyeContact, 22 September, 2011.