Reviews

Christchurch Tour: Ohinetahi

Even in the rain the sculpture park and garden at ”Ohinetahi”, Governors Bay, was a spectacular sight!

Read more |December 4, 2018

A Taste of Botanical Collections, Orchids and Forget-me-nots

Two quirky features of our biodiversity captured the interest of Friends of Te Papa who joined Te Papa’s botany curator Carlos Lehnebach and botany researcher Heidi Meudt at a Science for Lunch session about the museum’s botanical collections and New Zealand’s orchids and forget-me-nots.

Read more |November 28, 2018

Masters of Modern Art From The Hermitage

Exploring the origins of modern art, from the bold experiments of Cezanne, to the radical innovation of artists like Matisse and Picasso, this exhibition documents the seismic shifts that took place in European painting in the years after 1900 and encapsulates a defining moment in art history.

Read more |November 23, 2018

Le Freak, C’est Chic – ‘Fashion Matters’ November

Glasses of wine in hand, Friends of Te Papa filled the Soundings Theatre on 11 November for an eagerly awaited talk on Revolutionary Dress.  It was the fifth in Peter McNeil’s series on fashion, in his signature style…

Read more |November 16, 2018

Bill Culbert – A Living Legend

At the end of Garrett St we climbed the ubiquitous concrete staircase to the Hopkinson Mossman Gallery to visit their current Bill Culbert exhibition, Desk Lamp, Crash, 1998/2018. A very special chance to meet one of New Zealand’s few artists who is a household name both here and internationally. Culbert grew up in New Zealand, living […]

Read more |November 9, 2018

Exploring Te Papa’s Botanical Collections

A special moment for Friends of Te Papa during a behind-the-scenes experience of the museum’s botanical collections was taking a close look at the very first specimens of silver fern, rewarewa and Cooks scurvy grass collected by the European naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander almost 250 years ago during Captain Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand.

Read more |November 9, 2018

Détour, by Michael Parekowhai – A layered cacophony of visual stimulation

Détour, the major work by Michael Parekowhai commissioned for the opening of Toi Art filled the Threshold Gallery, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Maori and Indigenous Art , Megan Tamati-Quennell, walked us through some of the ideas behind the works in the show in a talk aptly titled Generosity, conversation and collaboration.

Read more |November 9, 2018

Ancient Animals You’ve Never Seen

Have you ever viewed a shark with a circular saw blade for teeth, or a dragonfly with a 75 centimetre (30 in.) wingspan? Have you walked among life size animated models of creatures that roamed the earth before the dinosaurs? You can watch such animals, many breathing and opening their monstrous jaws, at the Permian […]

Read more |October 29, 2018

Peter McLeavey 50 years – 50 Knockout works

Celebrating 50 years with 50 works that tell a history of art at the heart of the New Zealand identity by some of our best known artists of Aotearoa, this exhibition runs until Saturday 13 October 2018.

Read more |September 28, 2018

Following the Light

Earlier this year Thelma Karaitiana, Pou Tikanga in Residence at Te Papa for the Rongowhakaata iwi, welcomed a group of Friends to historic Te Hau ki Tūranga, the oldest surviving carved meeting house in the world. Thelma had us enthralled by the story of this historic whare whakairo, which is a physical record of the […]

Read more |September 27, 2018