In 1978, Matt Pine installed Placement Projects at the Auckland Art Gallery and other Auckland locations. He used everyday materials like aluminium pipe and black tape to create minimalist, site-specific works that explored a sense of place.

Pine, like pioneering Maori artist Ralph Hotere, attended art school in London in the 1960s. There, he was influenced by minimalist sculptors such as Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt, whose work eliminated all non-essential features to find a subject’s very essence. From the 1970s, Pine’s work extended these ideas by referencing Māori and Pacific cultural forms, particularly architecture.

Te Papa invited Pine to revisit Placement Projects and create new installations in response to our current exhibition Māori minimalism and international influence. His works in both locations respond to the precise shapes and limited colours in Ralph Hotere’s and Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings.

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