ArtMahi toi

The mysterious gaze of Edward McKnight Kauffer

Who is this man with this mysterious gaze? Curator Lizzie Bisley unpacks Raymond McIntyre’s portrait of Edward McKnight Kauffer.

Watch: Raewyn Atkinson, clay artist

Raewyn Atkinson filmed ‘I too am in Paradise II’ over 10 months, recording the life cycle of an organic installation made in her Wellington garden.

Watch: Natalie Robertson, Ngāti Porou photographer

Natalie Robertson describes the photographs in her series, ‘Tātara e maru ana – The sacred rain cape of Waiapu’ as visual documentation, but they’re also poetic and lyrical.

Watch: Mataaho Collective discuss their monumental installation Takapau

Takapau is the centrepiece of Mataaho Collective’s show Te Puni Aroaro, a showcase the ever-changing nature of customary textile practices.

Watch: Matthew McIntyre-Wilson, Māori artist

Hīnaki are skilfully made forms used as eel traps. They are baited and then placed in a river’s current, or weighted down on the riverbed where the eels enter the inverted openings and can’t escape. Wellington artist Matthew McIntyre-Wilson talks to Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa about learning from the hīnaki in our collection.

Watch: Matt Pine, Māori artist

This video is the last recording made with senior Māori artist Matt Pine a few months before his death in 2021.

Watch: Dane Mitchell talks about ‘Iris, Iris, Iris’

Artist Dane Mitchell explains the role of the intriguing elements in his installation ‘Iris, Iris, Iris’.

Immersive stories: Rita Angus paintings on Google Arts and Culture

Immerse yourself in ten stories about Rita Angus and some of her paintings from our collection on Google Arts and Culture. Learn about her life and thoughts while she was painting in locations around Aotearoa New Zealand.

A Painter’s Journey: Rita Angus’s Central Otago

This film celebrates Rita Angus’s artistic practice – diving into her painting Central Otago (1953–56/1969).

Watch: Robin White – The making of ‘That Vase’

In 2019, Dame Robin White invited a small team from Te Papa to visit her on location in Lautoka Fiji as she completed That Vase, a masi (Fijian tapa) made with her collaborator Tamari Cabeikanacea.

Watch: Rita by Quentin Angus

Quentin Angus is a composer based in New York, and the great-nephew of celebrated painter Rita Angus. Watch and listen to a performance of Quentin’s composition, Rita, inspired by the artist’s life, values, and her outstanding and diverse body of work.

Studio portrait photography in Aotearoa New Zealand

Studio portraits taken in a professional photographer’s studio – often making use of backdrops or props – were for formal, posed portraits, as well as informal, candid photographs of people, and sometimes their pets.

Paris Collage Collective Surrealist Dreams showcase

Enter other realms through a selection of highlights from the Paris Collage Collective Surrealist Dreams collage challenge.

How to make a dadaist poem

Is of a fish! Have fun with words: follow these instructions to create your own dadaist poem, using things you are likely to have at home.

‘Finale: Bouquet’

Explore Nike Savvas’ ‘Finale: Bouquet’, where confetti is caught mid fall in a celebration that never ends.

‘Finales represent an end, and as such tend to be celebratory in tone’ – Nike Savvas on ‘Finale: Bouquet’

Nike Savvas talks to Curator Contemporary Art Nina Tonga about her work, Finale: Bouquet, on display in Toi Art until Jan 2020.

All About ‘Eve’: Rodin’s masterpiece

Hear the story of Auguste Rodin’s “Eve”, and the conservation work that went into making her ready for display, to tour New Zealand in 2019.

Art and wellbeing with Tiffany Singh, Ella Brewer, Catherine Spence, and Martin Awa Clarke Langdon

Panellists from science, health, education, and arts backgrounds explore how the relationship between the arts and health can offer diverse and dynamic settings for expressive restorative, educational, and therapeutic benefits.

A child’s interpretation of Frank Craig’s ‘Goblin market’

What does a child see when they look closely at Frank Craig’s ‘Goblin market’?

“The themes in his work always have a place in society”: Wellington High School’s Aroha Millar on Tony Fomison

“The themes in his work always have a place in society – especially today where so many people are outcasts from their own countries.”

“There is nowhere to go if something’s inside of you”: Wellington High School’s Elijah Neilson on Tony Fomison

“I think much of what he paints is an expression of feelings too big for your body. He makes these things that impress upon you from the outside. That can feel better than something emerging from the inside, because there is nowhere to go if something’s inside of you.”

“I really enjoy the way that they make me think”: Wellington High School’s Rose Wallington on Tony Fomison

“I still kinda hate the way that they look, but I really enjoy the way that they make me think.”

Dark desires: Female sexuality in art

What does female sexuality look like in art? Here, it looks like monsters, mermaids, and minotaurs…

Watch: Tony Fomison at work

See rare footage of Tony Fomison at work, captured on glorious Super 8 by New Zealand experimental film-maker Martin Rumsby.

How to design an exhibition for teens? Co-create it with them

‘Tony Fomison: Lost in the Dark’ is co-created with students from Wellington High School, which involved working together across a number of creative sessions. Here, Experience Designer Chloe Johnston channels her inner teen.

On the necessity for architecture: The manifesto of the Architecture Group

Read the Group Architects published manifesto reproduced here.

Children’s Guide to Lisa Walker

How does a child view the jewellery of Lisa Walker?

The secrets found on the backs of paintings

Conservator Paintings Linda Waters writes about what the back of a painting can tell you.

Behind the scenes of Toi Art under construction

Take a peek at how the galleries were built.

Stories behind the portraits – in New Zealand Sign Language

Curator Historical New Zealand Art Rebecca Rice and Curator Mātauranga Māori Matariki Williams tell NZSL Presenter Theresa Cooper about four of the artworks on the portrait wall in Tūrangawaewae: Art and New Zealand.

Watch: How to sign art words

New Zealand Sign Language Presenter Theresa Cooper signs some helpful words to know when you’re talking about art.

‘I’ve never seen the gallery like this before’: Experiencing Toi Art through dance

Transfixed by BodyCartography Project’s ‘Walk with me’ tour of Toi Art, Head of Exhibition Renewal Frith Williams wrote down her thoughts in the middle of the night, “so I could remember it later.” Here’s what she wrote.

Lisa Walker, New Zealand’s jeweller provocateur

It’s 30 years since Lisa Walker set off on her journey in jewellery. Te Papa marks this achievement with the survey exhibition Lisa Walker: I want to go to my bedroom but I can’t be bothered.

‘A mix of control and accident’ – Helen Calder in her own words

Watch: Ngā Tai Whakarongorua | Encounters timelapse

This portrait wall forms part of the Toi Art exhibition ‘Tūrangawaewae: Art & New Zealand’, which spans historical portraiture to contemporary practice, with art works that inspire and provoke, question and console.

Space, body, and movement: An interview with BodyCartography Project’s Olive Bieringa

“There’s a long tradition of dance in the museum, but I think in terms of dance history and in this larger critical discourse around art history, dance has not been a part of that conversation.”

Lisa Walker, a career in pictures

Lisa Walker has always questioned what jewellery can mean and be. Trace the career of this important New Zealand contemporary artist.

Art I’m Into: Nina Tonga, Curator Pacific Art

“When installed and backlit, the work casts thousands of shadows that envelop the viewer.”

Art I’m Into: Charlotte Davy, Head of Art

“When I first unpacked this work from its travelling crate an uncontrollable shiver went up my spine.”

Art I’m Into: Justine Olsen, Curator Decorative Art and Design

“In an ideal world I would wear this necklace to a party.”

The photographs of Marti Friedlander (1928–2016)

Friedlander was particularly renowned for her portraits of artists in the 1960s and 1970s, and for her images of the last Māori women to have received the chin moko in a customary manner.

Is LEGO art?

Art curator Mark Stocker interviews LEGO professional Ryan McNaught. They discuss the contentious subject of whether LEGO can be seen as art.

Five things you never knew about Rodin

Art curator Mark Stocker highlights five fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Listen: Rodin – France’s Greatest Sculptor

Dr Mark Stocker's lecture explores Rodin's slow – even painful – rise to fame, the controversies he sparked, and some of his most renowned works, including The Thinker and The Kiss.

Audio and video about New Zealand painter Rita Angus

The life, work, and relationships of Rita Angus.

Standing on the shoulders of giants: Megan Dunn interviews Andrew McLeod

‘People don’t always know how to respond to art, they don’t know if they have to read the text or not.’

Watch: Interviews with four New Zealand jewellers

Jewellers Lisa Walker, John Edgar, Warwick Freeman, and Alan Preston discuss their work and inspiration.

‘It’s before meaning’: Bill Culbert on ‘VOID’

Curator Sarah Farrar talks with Bill Culbert about his work VOID, 2006, made in collaboration with the late artist Ralph Hotere, and commissioned for Te Papa.

Watch: Bill Culbert installing ‘Daylight flotsam Venice’ (2013) and ‘Drop’ (2013)

Artist Bill Culbert created 'Daylight flotsam Venice' (2013) and 'Drop' (2013) as part of his exhibition at the Venice Biennale, where he represented New Zealand in 2013. Here, he installs the work for their first exhibition in New Zealand at Te Papa.

Watch: Lisa Reihana: Wog Features

In in Pursuit of Venus [infected], Lisa Reihana uses costume carefully to construct the encounters between European and Pacific cultures. She has been exploring how costume creates character throughout her artistic career. One of the earliest examples is Wog Features (1990). Watch an excerpt here.