Brett Graham is a really nice guy who was willing to sponsor me (Maria) as a Fulbright scholar while he was head of the Toi Maori programme at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland New Zealand. In 2005 he earner his Doctorate from the Univeristy of Auckland, the same year I earned my MFA. Unlike me, Brett is a world-reknowned sculptor whose work, “embraces Maori and other indigenous peoples’ histories, critiquing and exploring issues relating to cultural inequities of the past and present within New Zealand and the wider Pacific.”

Of course he is Indigenous! Otherwise NAICA wouldn’t be interested.

Anyway, Brett is of Ngati Koroki Kahukura and Pakeha (European) descent. He’s an awesome guy who answers random emails from strange Puerto Rican girls. I’ve wanted to do a huge piece on his work and that of Ralph Hotere for many years. Perhapos one day soon we will get to screen Merata Mita’s documentary on Hotere and have an in-depth interview with Dr. Graham in which he gives NAICA readers a much needed primer on contemporary Maori art practice as well as what’s going on in the South Pacific art world. Let me tell you there is a alot going on, but it’d be better for someone from there to tell you. Instead of me coming off as a know it all (I almost do, but not quite!).

What I can tell you is that Dr. Graham was invited by International director/curator Rob Storr to show a colloaborative installation piece during the Venice Biennale. Read the press release for further details and check out out his website: www.brettgraham.co.nz

NZ ARTISTS, DR BRETT GRAHAM AND RACHAEL RAKENA, MAKE HISTORY IN ITALY AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2007

New Zealand may not be formally represented at the world’s leading art event the Venice Biennale, which opens this week, but an exhibition of New Zealand art opens in the collateral events section of the Biennale on Friday.

The sculptural and video installation, Aniwaniwa, was personally selected by the Biennale’s 2007 International Director-Curator, Robert Storr from hundreds of proposals from around the world. It is the first time in New Zealand history that New Zealand artists will exhibit in the collateral events section. This exciting venture may open doors for other New Zealand artists to exhibit in this section of the Biennale.

Artists Dr Brett Graham and Rachael Rakena, along with a small support team, are in the process of installing Aniwaniwa in a building they say could have been purpose designed for the exhibition. The venue, Magazzini del Sale, is situated on the edge of the canal and is of a perfect scale to hold the five carved vessels ‘wakahuia’ each 2.5 metres wide. The vessels, containing large video screens and speakers, fill the space – visitors to the exhibition will be immersed in the audio-visual installation viewing the work from mattresses laid out on the floor like a marae.

The video, which tells the story of Horahora, a village on the Waikato River where Brett Graham’s father was born, was submerged under water when the Karapiro Dam was formed in 1947. It is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring two of Maoridom’s most established and celebrated singers, Whirimako Black and Deborah Wai Kapohe, alongside renowned electronic musician, Paddy Free. Whirimako Black is to sing at the formal launching of the exhibition on Friday.

Contemporary Maori artists Graham and Rakena are well positioned to represent New Zealand at Venice. Both have solid international exhibition track records and they represented New Zealand in the Sydney Biennale in 2006, with another work UFOB – which was highly acclaimed and popular when shown at the recent survey exhibition of contemporary art at City Gallery Wellington.

The artists and the curators are excited about the scale, theme and nature of Aniwaniwa with the Italian curators saying that the work will touch and engage both Italians and the international audience. While it is a specific local story, it has broad global, cultural and environmental references. Exploring the idea of submersion as a metaphor for cultural loss, it examines themes highly pertinent to both the slowly sinking Italian city of Venice and atolls in the Pacific endangered by global warming and environmental change

The wakahuia are covered in a coral pattern referencing both the reef islands of the Pacific the legend of Tangaroa as the originator of carving. According to legend the hero Ruatepupuke had to travel underwater to retrieve the art of whakairo from Tangaroa’s house.

The Venice Biennale is the world’s oldest and most prestigious art exhibition, founded in 1895, it attracts the international art press, collectors, critics, artists, and curators in a way no other similar arts event does. The involvement of the two respected Italian co-curators, and in particular the Venice based curator Camilla Seibezzi has provided direct connections to the influential art market and an ability to leverage local contacts to generate maximum interest and attendance.

The launch of the exhibition on Friday will mark the culmination of a year’s work and six months of tough fund-raising. In addition to a grant for research given by Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, the National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement, Massey University and Te Wananga o Aotearoa have contributed to the development of the work and the staging of the exhibition. Creative New Zealand recently gave a grant towards the project and other significant support has come from Sir Paul Reeves as patron, Te Puni Kokiri, and Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts and his wife Rowena, have contributed financially as well as providing creative marketing support to the project team. Sponsorship has been raised in Italy for the wine and from leading Italian fashion house Byblos. Some $40,000 has also been raised through public donations and the sale of digital prints from the video. Many essential design, legal and media services have been provided.

A publication about the project featuring essays by academic media expert Sean Cubitt and Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, Director of Art and Collection Services at Te Papa, will also be launched at the opening. Mane-Wheoki describes Aniwaniwa as “a visual and aural lament, a multi-layered entity that speaks of forced migration, of cultural loss, of memory and nostalgia”. In his essay he also draws attention to the links between Maori and the people of Venice which date back to the Second World War.

New Zealanders who would like to support the project are invited to purchase a still print from the video available at a special price or to make a donation to MANGOROA-ANIWANIWA Project Trustees Limited – either by direct debit to account 12-3209-0210731-00 or send a cheque to PO Box 6357, Wellington. The video stills can be viewed online at www.bartleyandcompanyart.co.nz.

Aniwaniwa is officially listed on the Biennale website: http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/en/76188.html

Another site documents the project and has images of the work arriving in Venice and the beautiful location:
http://aniwaniwa.blogspot.com/