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LIGHT SWITCH AND CONDUIT
The Jim Barr and Mary Barr Collection
9 Apr 2016 – 14 Aug 2016
This exhibition explores the relationship between artworks and the domestic context by delving into the personal collection of Jim Barr and Mary Barr. Light switch and conduit focuses on their recent period of collecting and brings together works by key figures in the rising generation of contemporary New Zealand artists, alongside more established New Zealand artists and several international artists as well. This exhibition includes work by Dan Arps, Fiona Connor, Simon Denny, Oscar Enberg, Glen Hayward, Kate Newby, Campbell Patterson and Luke Willis Thompson. Link
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Michael Parekowhai Canis Minor 2016 (detail), Axminister carpet, brass, bronze, c-type photograph | Photo: Max Bellamy
What if? Dunedin... 
Axminster. Like York Minster. Not ‘minister’?/Oh, bugger, here comes Mrs D’Arc again. Oh, hello, Joan, ahem, how’s your Dauphin’s lumbago?
Subtle flag inference (above), designed by whatifdunedin
Is anyone else frustrated at the meaningless art exhibitions that DPAG is inflicting on the poor suffering Dunedin ratepayer? My wife and I went there over Easter expecting to see arranged an exhibition of classical works from our “hidden” collection depicting the traditional Easter theme. But no such luck. Again we are subjected to empty space and ambiguous art that one had difficulty in trying to figure out what it was trying to say. Compared to the excellent Toitu Museum, DPAG is still a disgrace!!!
Significant numbers of works from the permanent collection are displayed on the lower ground floor of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery according to fixed policy and include works by Frances Hodgkins in the side annex. Recently, the gallery’s contemporary exhibitions have returned to painting as a force to be reckoned with (great!) – for example:
JEFFREY HARRIS Renaissance Days
Renaissance Days presents a series of recent work by Jeffrey Harris, one of the senior figures of New Zealand painting. Diminutive in scale, yet loaded with intense detail and colour, Harris uses these works to push against his history and claim new territory for his practice. more (28 Nov 2015 – 28 Mar 2016).
More on current exhibitions at http://dunedin.art.museum/exhibitions
Future exhibitions http://dunedin.art.museum/exhibitions/future
Past exhibitions http://dunedin.art.museum/exhibitions/past
Galleries are currently in transition for the new displays advocated for at the post (top of thread) which will be outstanding!
For information and to search the DPAG collection database, go to http://collection.dunedin.art.museum/ Here you will find explanation of the various holdings and from there you can independently google more.
Interpretation at the DPAG is provided near the entry of each exhibition area; and the staff guides are on hand at reception and in the public galleries for all queries.
Further to, quickly completed a visit to DPAG today – the strongest offering you could ever hope to see of the Art Gallery’s permanent holdings (historical combining more recent acquisitions and bequests) – to love…’beloved’, a phrase not too overworked in the Gallery’s lexicon – including the new Shane Cotton work co-purchased with Christchurch Art Gallery, and the following rarely seen large panel work by Ralph Hotere…. alluringly adept, beauty of hue and finish.
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Shane Cotton
The Haymaker Series I-V
2012
acrylic on linen canvas
5 panels @ 2400 x 1800 cm each; 2400 x 9000 mm overall
Collections of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, with funding from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society, and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. Jointly purchased 2015.
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Ralph Hotere
February, May and the Birds of Ice. The Moon Drowns in its Voices of Water.
1970
pigment dyes on alkyd resin on canvas
Set of 4 panels each: 3050 x 1525 mm
Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1974 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.
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Don’t forget to visit the exhibition curated by fashion forward Tim Pollock, the Gallery’s commercial development manager, of internationally acclaimed Dunedin-based fashion designer Margarita Robertson’s work which exquisite in itself, is accompanied by large video projection (in series) showing Paris Dunedin Tokyo cityscapes in riveting detail.
Margarita Robertson 3.33.12
18 Mar 2016 – 17 Apr 2016
Celebrates the personal style of Margarita Robertson with a curated display of 12 looks drawn from her private wardrobe. As an international buyer and designer Margarita Robertson has, for 33 years, played an integral part in influencing what fashion-literate, well-dressed men and women in the South Island of New Zealand wear. This exhibition focuses on 12 key fashion choices she has made personally over this period, elevating them by way of a scaffold-like structure in the centre of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s McMillan Gallery (first floor). more
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Also showing on the first floor an extensive and intriguing look at the work of visiting Glasgow-based New Zealand artist Kate Davis, The Unswept Floor. Subtlety and craft of a clear thinking contemporary art compositor and renderer of feminisms…. and so much more.
DPAG (in April) will be as critical and fair an explore of aesthetic nationhood you could hope to invent, discursively, curatorially – compared to the failed and shallow flag-branding design competition.
Elizabeth – had a look at their publicity No.28 for March – May and still couldn’t see much in the way of classical works to be displayed from our great collection stored downstairs!!!
‘Classical’ or historical works are included in the lower ground floor gallery areas together with notable 20th and 21st century works from the DPAG permanent collection, thereby fulfilling established exhibition policy.
What is in the DPAG Collection?
“Recognised as one of New Zealand’s premier collections, the Gallery houses an excellent collection of New Zealand works and has significant holdings of European art, Japanese prints and decorative arts.”
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If you are a regular visitor to DPAG you will remember some of the following exhibitions (a small selection noted here) and the associated free public events – by all means take some tours and attend speaking events on offer each month to learn more.
From the Dunedin Public Art Gallery website dunedin.art.museum:
BELONGING: Works From The DPAG
1 October 2015 – 1 March 2016
This exhibition delves into the Gallery’s holdings to showcase a rich range of popular European masterpieces, rarely seen treasures and a sampling of more contemporary artworks. A gallery’s collection often reflects a sense of communal identity and place for its audience, which this exhibition teases out through some of its most highly regarded and well known items.
WANDERINGS : Works from the Collection
22 Aug 2015 – 1 Nov 2015
Travel can be a mind-altering experience – exhilarating, confronting, disorientating, liberating. How we navigate the unfamiliar, process our experiences, or understand our own identity all become pressing concerns. Drawing together works from the collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, this exhibition reflects on how travel has shaped or informed a range of artistic practices. From 19th century surveyor drawings through to contemporary art, these works give a glimpse of how experiencing the world can reshape ideas, record cultures, and fuel the soul. Includes works by Ani O’Neill, Francis Upritchard, John Reynolds and Julian Dashper.
MYTHOS : Curated by Aaron Kreisler
8 Nov 2014 – 1 Mar 2015
A boutique exhibition of some of the finest prints from the Gallery’s holdings. Mythos draws out a series of fantastical, dramatic and otherworldly studies from Greek and Roman mythology from the likes of Stefano Della Bella, Annibale Carracci, Jean Le Pautre, Martin de Vos, Master of the Die and Sidney Nolan. Mythos provides a further insight into the Gallery’s significant holdings of European master prints. This collection snap-shot, is as much a testament to a cache of benefactors who sought out these exquisite artworks, as it is indicative of how accessible and distributable this form of practice has and continues to be.
GIFTED : Recent gifts
8 Feb 2014 – 30 Mar 2014
Gifted brings together an eclectic snapshot of works given to the Gallery over the last few decades. These works, that are part of the Gallery’s permanent collection, are donated through a variety of kind and generous sources – artists, individual supporters, major collectors and government organisations. Ultimately, Gifted is about the act of giving itself, simultaneously celebrating both this significant gesture and the gifted artists within the collection.
THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE : Collecting and Collectors
13 Oct 2012 – 22 Sep 2013
The Pleasure Principle presents a selection of favourite works from the Gallery’s collection, combining them with a handful of recent and significant new additions, and utilising objects from across a range of collection genres. Like living beings, collections of this sort are not static, but growing, and the works within them speak to one another. Stretching across a number of rooms, this exhibition sets out to explore an approach that, with an aesthetic and sensualist intelligence, provides a sense of grandeur and joie de vivre. It is unashamedly a celebration of beautiful objects, decorative wonders and fabulous spectacle, using works assembled by collectors and enabled by benefactors, whose taste and generosity has transformed this Gallery’s collection over the last 128 years.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : At a Glance
17 Dec 2011 – 22 Jan 2012
This boutique exhibition titled ‘Ladies and Gentleman: At a Glance’, gathers together some of the portrait paintings that have come into the collection recently, in one way or another. In addition, and to extend the life-world of the paintings and the people they depict, a selection of items associated in some way with the individuals or the paintings of them, has been chosen and presented in the exhibition like a cabinet of curiosities, or a series of still-life assemblages. Some of the links between the objects and the paintings, are immediate and direct, while others are more abstract. Acknowledging the loan of works from Otago Settlers Museum; Private Collection, Dunedin; Jim Barr and Mary Barr; Angela Vickers Loan Collection, Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
PAINTINGS FROM THE COLLECTION : Colourbox: New Zealand
30 Mar 2012 – 22 Apr 2012
Colourbox is a collection based exhibition that unashamedly celebrates the wild, vibrant and fantastical flourishes of a group of New Zealand painters, who have tested the material and expressive limits of paint. Moving through a vast spectrum of emotional and aesthetic states Colourbox includes works by Philip Trusttum, Pat Hanly, Alan Pearson, Gretchen Albrecht and Jeffrey Harris.
BELOVED : Works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
12 Dec 2009 – 1 Apr 2012
Winner of the New Zealand Museums Awards 2011, Excellence in Exhibition (Art) Award and organised to celebrate the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s 125th year, Beloved showcases a selection of the historical and contemporary gems from the collection. The exhibition and accompanying publication honour the history of the collection, paying particular attention to some of the better known and favourite works. Spanning a timeframe of more than 600 years, this rich body of work is both diverse in its content and in the range of media it brings together including painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, installation and the decorative arts.
Brilliant News
Fri, 8 Apr 2016
ODT: ‘Significant’ works given to gallery
A gift of eight art works, described as “by far the biggest” offering from collectors Mary and Jim Barr, was announced last night at an exhibition opening at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. The eight pieces were worth in the six-figure range, although the works were yet to be officially valued, gallery director Cam McCracken said.