Sunday, July 22, 2018

Miniatures at the museum

I visited The Parental Units over Easter, and we took the opportunity to check out Toi Art, the new art gallery at Te Papa.

As we entered the first room I spotted this in the corner of a large, blank wall and had to investigate further.
Large and empty room with a miniature lit storefront embedded into one corner of it.
Large and empty room with a miniature lit storefront embedded into one corner of it.
Inside the storefront was a piece of moon rock, a New Zealand flag and a sign explaining how a piece of moon rock came to be in New Zealand (if not inside a miniature storefront in an art gallery in New Zealand)...
Piece of rock on a wall plaque. Underneath it is a sign saying'This fragment is a portion of a rock from the Tourus Littrow Valley of th eMoon. It is given as a symbol of the unity of human endeavor and carries with it the hope of the American people for a world of peace. Under the sign is a New Zealand flag.
 And to confuse matters further, across the gallery there was a technical drawing of the store front, by Christo.
Technical drawing of a storefront window, the same one as is seen in the photographs above.
There was a booklet explaining the artworks, but alas this wasn't allowed to leave the gallery (which I suppose made sense, but I was surprised that there weren't copies available for purchase at the gallery shop: I know I would have bought two...). And I've just discovered that there's also a mobile app that we could have accessed on our phones at the time (although perhaps it wasn't available in April?)

So it wasn't until I got home that I was able to research the artworks and discover that the model in the wall was The shortcut gallery by Michael Parekowhai, informed by Christo's Storefront series (created in the 1960s). And the Christo drawing was Pink Store Front (project). The whole thing is described nicely in Article magazine.

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