A group of Māori artists who have travelled to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to mark the 41st anniversary of the revolutionary Te Māori exhibition is hoping for greater recognition of contemporary – and living – Māori art on the global stage.
Tā moko artist Hohua Mohi told Te Karere there’s more to Māori art than pieces left on display.
“Kia kite i te toi Māori e ora ana, ka kite i te moko e oreore ana, ka kite i ngā kairāranga e mahi nei i a rātou mahi, ka kite i ngā kaiwhakairo, i ngā kaioroi, i ngā kaimahi uku e mahi ana.
(To see living Māori art is to see moko on faces, to see weavers weaving, to see carvers and clay artists working their craft.)
“E kite ai hoki mātou i te manawa ora kia kite anō mātou i te toi ora e ora ana, kaua e noho rotu ana.”
(We also see the beating heart of our art when the living art lives, as opposed to waning [on a shelf].)
Mohi is part of a group that visited The Met on the 41st anniversary of Te Māori, the exhibition that marked a turning point for Māori arts on the world stage. It was the first time an international museum worked with Māori.
Dr Sylvia Cockburn, senior research associate for Oceania at The Met said the impact of that collaboration continued to be felt by the museum to this day.
“The Te Māori exhibition was really a paradigm shifting exhibition here at The Met as well, in terms of thinking how we frame and think about the art that’s in our collection.
“It allowed audiences here in New York, and elsewhere in the United States where it travelled, to see these collections, not just as art objects, but as ancestors.”
The museum’s newly installed Arts of Oceania galleries was opened by a special dawn ceremony led by Māori, and other indigenous cultures in May.
“Te Māori opened through a dawn ceremony here at the met 41 years ago and when we reopened our galleries just a few months ago here, we wanted to really honour that ceremony by, in a way, recreating it,” said Cockburn.
The Oceania galleries included both traditional and contemporary Māori artwork, signalling the museum’s ongoing intention.
“In terms of ways that the collection is growing and changing into the future,” said Cockburn, “one of the areas that we’re doing that is more of a focus on collecting works by contemporary Māori artists.”
Something Mohi appreciated: “Kātahi nei te waimaria a tāua te Māori ki te kite i wēnei taonga ātaahua e iri ana i te taha o ngā kurutongarerewa o iwi kē atu.”
(We’re fortunate to see these beautiful Māori art pieces among some of those treasured from other cultures.)