Current Exhibitions

Several degrees of attention features four curatorial projects, each one departing from a work or group of works in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Collection.

In the 1940s Lye’s politics placed the artist amongst a group of figures concerned with questions of freedom, peace and the idea of global community. Atomic Power tells that story.

Alternatively known as Wall Serpent or Wall Motion Sculpture, Convolutions is among Len Lye’s most intriguing large-scale kinetic sculptures, closer in spirit to the organic forms of his experimental film Tusalava (1929) and his biomorphic paintings of the 1930s than his typical kinetic sculpture of the 1960s.

Ko Te Kihikihi acknowledges Taranaki history, particularly the Land Wars which saw armed conflict over land ownership and sovereignty between Iwi and the New Zealand government from March 1860 to March 1861.

Ko Te Kihikihi Taku Ingoa is a major new installation by Shona Rapira Davies (Ngāti Wai ki Aotea, Aotearoa, New Zealand) that responds to histories distinct to Taranaki and to the ‘cathedral-like’ space of the gallery.

Made up of a series of soft sculptures, based on the form of carved wooden Mandarin ducks often gifted in pairs at Korean wedding ceremonies. Mandarin ducks mate for life, and will mourn for their partner after their passing. As a gift, the ducks contain wishes of wealth, health, fidelity and fertility.

Three new performance-based projects will unfold at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and in public sites around Ngāmotu between August and November 2022.

A site-specific artwork by Taranaki artist WharehokaSmith, commissioned to rest at the heart of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.