Tairawhiti Museum and Creative Tairawhiti present this informal but informative series of lectures that bring Tairawhiti artwork, exhibitions, and collections closer to you.
Entertaining, controversial, stimulating and thought provoking, the lecture series will offer a range of interesting art topics presented by Damian Skinner. Take a tour with Damian and enjoy some of the highlights from Tairawhiti Museum’s art collection and exhibitions.
Skinner is a highly regarded art historian and curator based in Gisborne. He has curated exhibitions for museums and galleries throughout New Zealand and published widely on the history of New Zealand art. His most recent book is ‘The Carver and the Artist’, a history of Maori art in the 20th century.
Damian will be joined by a panel of local artists who will comment about the artworks on show. It’s guaranteed to be lively, surprising and maybe even a bit challenging; a perfect match to the art. Come along and contribute to the discussion.
The Damian Skinner Lecture Series:
Led by Dr Damian Skinner, each session features a panel of local and imported experts who will nut out the complex, controversial and critical issues for contemporary art.
We want to see more art in our local environment; we want to promote what is unique about Tairawhiti through the arts; and discussion is as good a place as any to start the ball rolling.
This series is about many things: It’s about growing the audience for art; it’s about the opportunity to meet others in the community with similar interests; it’s about developing
visual literacy, learning another language - the visual language; and quite simply, it’s both motivational and inspirational. The Skinner Lecture series is great value entertainment, with the power to lift your mood from weary to warm. So what are you waiting for?
Winter Series 2009
with Damian Skinner
The Friends of the Tairawhiti Museum are following up the very successful series of events held last year with a new programme of talks over the winter months of 2009. Join us for your opportunity to get up close with the treasures of the Tairawhiti Museum, and to learn more about the wide world of art and culture that your local museum represents.
Over the coming months you will have the opportunity to tour the museum’s changing series of exhibitions, and hear a wide range of local and visiting speakers. From the value of bad art, to the challenges of teaching art, from the many forms of contemporary Pacific art, to the role of ornament in local architecture, the Winter Series 2009 is guaranteed to generate just the right amount of cultural heat and light to keep you warm as the days grow colder and shorter.
Fancy facades: an ornamental history of Gisborne buildings
5.30pm, Wednesday 12 August
An architectural historian invites you to look again at Gisborne buildings.
Our Winter Series continues with an illustrated lecture by architectural historian Jeremy Salmond related to the museum’s new exhibition
Ornament: The Art of Pleasure
. Join architectural historian and practicing architect Jeremy Salmond, who will speak about the role of ornament in Gisborne’s heritage buildings. From the ornate street frontages of Victorian public and commercial buildings, to the lighter and more spacious, adventurous and imaginative facades of Edwardian architecture, Gisborne’s city centre is a record of ornament’s important role in buildings of the past.
Cost: Free to members of Creative Tairawhiti and Friends of the Museum, or $5 per talk for the general public. Gold coin admission for Students/Pace. Bookings are essential, call the museum, or email: lrattray@tairawhitimuseum.org.nz
Museum Director’s Comment
Nationally renowned art historian Dr Damian Skinner has conceived and hosted two series of lectures at Tairawhiti Museum in recent months. The lectures were funded by Creative Tairawhiti and the Friends of Tairawhiti Museum and hosted by Tairawhiti Museum. Audiences have responded enthusiastically to Damian’s scholarly introductions to a wide range of topics and his enthusiasm for engendering discussion and debate about the history and politics of art. Guest speakers, some from beyond Tairawhiti, have contributed their perspectives as artists, curators and arts administrators. There can be no doubt that Dr Skinner’s lecture series have stimulated public interest in the museum’s art collection and in a range of contemporary art issues.
That the museum has an art collection that can form the basis of such a series of lectures is a testimony to the foresight of those friends of the museum who have gifted art works to the collection since its establishment in the 1950s. It is important that the museum continues to collect and make accessible art works created by Tairawhiti artists.
Damian Skinner has acknowledged the significance of the museum’s art collection by including a number of these art works, both historical and contemporary, in the Tairawhiti history exhibition he is currently curating for the museum.
David Butts
Go to previous lectures...click here.....
Creative Tairawhiti are delighted to be partnering with the Tairawhiti Museum to present the Damian Skinner Lecture Series. The public are encouraged to come along to these talks and take advantage of some brilliant art resources. More information at www.skinnerlectures.tairawhitiarts.net .
Andy Warhol has enjoyed a lot more than 15 minutes of fame. It has to be because he was an absolute genius at thinking and communicating in the language of art - his ideas still resonate today. I hope to see some new faces at these lectures, in what is a most enjoyable and rewarding partnership with the Tairawhiti Museum. Thank you to everyone involved, and especially to our audience, who haven’t been afraid to speak their minds!
Tania Short
Creative Tairawhiti
This series is funded with the support of Regional Strengths Maurangi Toi & CLANZ.
