A clever extension of the recent The True Artist Helps the World by Asking for Trust show at Te Tuhi, this exhibition brings in two other Mokopōpaki art entities to make clearer aspects of that initial PᾹNiA! presentation. Many details of the work shown at Pakuranga are mirrored, but here too, the products of the three contributors are very cohesively interwoven, the different producers at times riffing off each other’s images and methods. The results are visually more elegant and more thematically complex than before.

The show’s title, The Dutch Embassy, beside alluding to PᾹNiA!’s Pakuranga Customs House / Attitude Arrival Lounge included earlier at Te Tuhi—and a smaller more portable version (Customs Authority & Passport Control, Central City Office) here—specifically references a famous Rem Koolhaas building in Berlin—the Dutch Embassy. The sibling couple Yllwbro use a found cube-shaped bar fridge as a model, sticking sheets of scaled elevation diagrams onto its sides with tape, and also cardboard terraces and protruding box forms that match Koolhaas’s sculptural design.

Yllwbro also exhibit a Ministry of Traction screenprint/relief sculpture as a ‘working drawing’, and PᾹNiA!, a cardboard model of the building on wheels (Honorary Consulate (Mobile Cardboard Detachment)). There is also a tabloid-format newspaper with a conversation between Yolo and Blu of Yllwbro about another Koolhaas project, the China Central Television building (Universal Modernisation Patent, Skyscraper Loop; also affectionately called ‘Bent Skyscraper’ or ‘Big Pants’) in Beijing, and the comparatively dull and unimaginative Auckland architectural environs.

Another Yllwbro work has two silkscreened images on an old section of pup tent. One shows the parliament beehive building and other the Māori ‘Tent Embassy’ set up after the 1975 Māori Land March led by Whina Cooper ended in Wellington, and which existed for ten weeks until Prime Minister Muldoon forcibly closed it down.

In PᾹNiA!’s You’ll Never Be a Kiwi, lined-up differently coloured sauce holders become symbols for cultural diversity and a reaction against the assumption in its advertising jingles that consuming (red packaged) Watties Tomato Sauce is a sure sign of ‘Kiwiness’.

In her Polder & Boulder, we also see a set of clever Duchampian puns on the use of the shower in the gallery space—where the tray on the floor is covered with fake grass and the sides reference the dikes in the Netherlands—Polder the word for the enclosed, sealed off, dry land, and Boulder for bolder.

Mashed Potato Cream Cheese Moon obviously inks to PᾹNiA!’s Te Tuhi moon film. Here though, the flat circular potato bread positioned on a Kleinian Blue field references an old Scottish nursery-rhyme where the bread becomes a membranous drum that is repeatedly hit by the adjacent ladle. The ladle and drum originally were seen merrily as male and female genitals: the crust a vagina, and ladle, erect penis and scrotum.

A.A.M. Bos, like PᾹNiA!, draws heavily on his Dutch heritage, and sometimes on his fourteen months as a young Dutch soldier serving in Lebanon as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force. The line up (on a shelf) of plastic oranges mounted on toy tanks—with flowers in their gun barrels—references aspirations for a better world, and PᾹNiA!’s Plastic Orange Band at Te Tuhi.

In two other works, Bos’s Dutch references become more historic and less contemporary. His duraprint, The Drapers’ Guild Sets Up Shop in Dusky Sound, uses a famous painting by Rembrandt of Amsterdam merchants taking a coffee break during a negotiating meeting. Strangely this is set in a wild landscape backdrop with a cascading torrent painted by William Hodges during Cook’s second voyage. Three mugs on the table repeat a detail from Rembrandt’s scene, as if recently purchased from a museum shop.

Another suite of seven photographs blends Dutch with Aotearoa images. Portraits of tūī are described as Dutch ambassadors within the Netherlands confederation of provinces, each emissary being an individual named after the state it represents. Suspended beneath each portrait is a unique bag of spice, alluding to the entrepreneurial reach of the Dutch East Indies Company with its vast range of cultivated products shipped from S.E. Asia and Africa, and its formation of the world’s very first stock exchange.

This is a nice looking show where you can delve into the copious explanations and footnotes in the Mokopōpaki catalogue if you wish, or just enjoy the sensuality (especially the colour) and imagination-prodding free associations for themselves. You don’t have to get caught up in the wordiness of this gallery’s PR—informatively interesting as it may be. These objects often have a poppy exuberance and humour that is pure pleasure anyway.

John Hurrell, Ambassadorial Preoccupations (EyeContact, 21 June, 2019)

In partnership with Mokopōpaki on Karangahape Road, Te Tuhi is holding a solo exhibition by PĀNiA!, known as ‘the anonymous and enigmatic but always interesting über-cool-girl, artist-about-town’. The title of her exhibition at Te Tuhi is derived from American artist Bruce Nauman’s iconic wall sign, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) (1967) in which a pair of parallel neon red tubes form a spiral frame encasing the words in the title in neon blue.

In PĀNiA!’s version, the True Artist is all about trust. Pakuranga Customs House or Attitude Arrival Lounge (2019) transforms the exhibition space at Te Tuhi into an immigration and border control office, made up of transparent, walk-through walls, which 'represent the change of heart necessary for trust, allowing visitors access to the unexpected realm of PĀNiA!’ Once through, viewers encounter works such as Cloakroom Motukiore Māori School (2019), a wall installation of a row of neon orange beanies on coat hooks, and Portrait of the Artist as Bruce Nauman (After Bruce Nauman) (2019), a black-and-white image of a seated figure with her face blocked out by an orange dot.

On the first day of the Fair, PĀNiA! launches the second part of her solo show, The True Artist Helps the World by Asking for Trust, at Te Tuhi in Mokopōpaki’s exhibition room known for its unconventional brown walls. In association with Yllwbro, the anonymous sister-and-brother artist duo, and A.A.M. Bos., PĀNiA! is to display works that explore the relationship between people and place. Together, they entertain an alternate scenario to James Cook’s landing at Poverty Bay in 1769 in favour of Abel Janszoon Tasman’s, the first recorded European to have sighted Aotearoa in 1642. Works in the exhibition include Yllwbro’s Internal Circulation Klosterstraβe 50 (2019), a drawing depicting a white line work of a complex, building-like compartment on tank wheels, with an orange sitting at its heart, against a black background.

Sherry Paik, Shows to See in Auckland: The Lowdown (Ocula, 27 April, 2019)

Jacob Raniera is an associate director and front person of Mokopōpaki, an unusual small dealer gallery on Karangahape Road. Named after his Māori grandfather, Mokopōpaki is unusual in that the walls and ceiling in the more formal back gallery are brown and deliberately kept that way—while those in the front introductory space are grey and blue.

Raniera comes from a background in architecture and art, and work in dealer galleries. A confident talker, through kōrero he emphasises the first person-plural pronoun, a signal that rather than indicating a royal Eurocentric prerogative, he is a representative and spokesperson of many others and their communities with whom he has constant dialogue. At the time of writing, since March 2017 when it opened, Mokopōpaki has presented 14 shows. The venue itself is alcohol free. Tea and cake provide an alternative.

Raniera’s interest in promoting a Māori sensibility is expressed through the exhibition space rather than artist identity. He also flies the flag for conceptual art (literally: a gallery flag hangs in the street above the entrance when the venue is open), and curiously, folk art and found objects. Ongoing conversations he has with friends like established artists, Billy Apple and p.mule, and emerging artists such as Yllwbro, Ursula Christel, A.A.M. Bos, Carole Prentice, PĀNiA!, John Hodgson and Roman Mitch, feed into the gallery overview and art practice, while a distinct political agenda provides the narrow — but welcoming space with a culturally loaded colour code.

Raniera’s te reo presentations — of himself and other artists, often collectives, often with pseudonyms, often unknown, showing a range of ages, that include friends and whānau — fill the walls. Emotional bonds, loyalties and trust play a key role. His critique of the traditional white cube gallery at Mokopōpaki, in the specific context of Aotearoa, is refreshingly audacious.

John Hurrell, Mokopōpaki (Art Collector, No. 87, 2019), pp. 189–191

This is the second Billy Apple® show in Mokopōpaki’s Brown Room, one that came about when Jacob Raniera, the front person for Mokopōpaki, organised a conversation (via email) between the art entity Yllwbro (whom he represents) and Apple®. This involved looking at two paintings designed to present a newly minted Māori identity, te reo versions of the artist’s English Christian name, surname and registered logo; a second painting (on the right) responding to the first painting (on the left). With this statement and response format, it had affinities with the first exhibition.

Yllwbro rejected the idea of a simple Māori correlation/translation of ‘Billy Apple’ such as ‘Piri Āporo’. It was too obvious, too predictable-especially the ‘Āporo.’ The surname’s chosen replacement—‘Poho’—mirrors ‘Piri’ by way of starting with a ‘p’, and having one letter used twice that flanks the third letter on both sides.

‘Piri’ as a te reo ‘Billy’ also means (when a verb) to adhere or cling, while the juxtaposed ‘poho’ as a single word means chest, bosom or seat of affections. Attached to ‘piri’, the new word ‘piripoho’ means precious or treasured. It can also mean maternal love, referring to breastfeeding and parental bodily proximity.

The chosen colours are extremely important too—beyond their formal beauty and subtle softness. The brown of the gallery walls and background fields of the two canvases is obvious in its political significance, while the white of the letters in both paintings and the field surrounding the apple shape is not starkwhite but bone, a super pale—slightly warm and brown—gray. The te reo word for that colour is ‘iwi’ which of course means tribe and a particular collective community identity. Note also that in the doorway is a piece of nailed up Thar bone that Jacob, early on in the gallery’s history, installed as his own kind of mezuzah, a Jewish container for a tightly scrolled sacred text. Another unexpected resonance.

Of interest also are the two fonts, nuanced branding devices which Mokopōpaki and Apple® have swapped over in the two canvases so that sans serif Futura is on the right and tilted-seriffed Phinney Jenson on the left. The sense of togetherness or clinging between the two is accentuated.

With all this semantic layering you do wonder if the project is being a little over-determined, too controlled, too densely articulated, too obsessed with adding on meaning—and if the paintings can develop a life of their own, collaborating osmotically with the viewer, not the artists. Yet the bodily experience in the immersive brown space, with the occasional bone coloured field, is viscerally rewarding. Tertiary mixtures like dark brown are unusual for gallery or domestic walls. As part of a narrow space, they provide pleasantly strange sensations to walk into.

In the outer Grey Room, there are works by Apple®, Yllwbro and PĀNiA!. The Apple® study for a national flag uses tonal values to correlate Māori population statistics (via a percentage) with the national figures. Yllwbro focuses on the room next door, lining up a suspended Granny Smith apple—hanging from a brown string-with the brown Apple® logo as sort of target, and nodding to PĀNiA!’s toy horticultural tractor—placed near the Brown Room—on which the affectionate term ‘Piripoho’ is painted. Yllwbro also has a canvas wedge (painted brown) on the wall pointedly opposite the Apple® flag. Its tapered cross-section alludes to Māori population increases, the inevitable gaining of political power, and the eroding of Eurocentric hegemony within Aotearoa.

Two rooms: Grey and Brown: fierce and friendly—shrewdly juxtaposed.

John Hurrell, Cultural Transmutation (EyeContact, 26 July, 2018)

The focal point of the Brown Room in the narrow dealer gallery is a digital photograph of a sparrow (a nod to Michael Parekowhai) by A.A.M. Bos, which connects to the artist’s mother whose home-town in the Netherlands was so destroyed during WWII that not even sparrows were left. The colours of the sparrow are referenced in Yllwbro’s bird whare that hangs from the ceiling, providing a meeting place for conversation between Europeans and Māori. Stories of past conflict, family and messages of peaceful resolution are also evident in Yllwbro’s scallop shells with tā moko that allude to the incredible story of Tarore, who learned to read the Gospel of Luke in te reo Māori and whose murder led to peace, rather than further bloodshed.

It is difficult to sum up Wary – A Survey in so short a piece as this. The show is filled with the kinds of details and references that I have come to love in the work of Mokopōpaki artists: visual puns, humour, enigmatic and charismatic characters, Māori histories and perspectives, layered references to other artworks in the space, artists and personal histories. In particular, it is the artists’ interrogations of identity that continue to feel unique and necessary in the ways they seek to challenge the unfaltering status quo.

Eloise Callister-Baker, The Unmissables: Four Exhibitions to see in June (The Pantograph Punch, 1 June, 2018)

When Auckland Art Fair relaunched in 2016 under new ownership, directors Hayley White and Stephanie Post set out to craft an event that would celebrate the art of Aotearoa New Zealand in all its variety and help forge connections with artists and galleries from further afield. In addition to featuring galleries from Australia, Chile, and the Cook Islands, the rebooted Fair incorporated a robust Projects Programme, which included work by less familiar and more experimental artists who would not otherwise have been present.  

2018 sees the Fair grow still more diverse. New galleries have been added, from China, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. A new section – dubbed Piki Mai: Up Here ^^ by anonymous artist duo Yllwbro – has been developed, featuring displays from art schools and artist-run spaces from Aotearoa, Australia, and China. The section is supported by the boutique accessories brand Deadly Ponies, which has also commissioned a work from Hannah Valentine, a recent graduate of the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts.

…Anonymous artist PĀNiA! picks up on the ‘avenue’ layout of the 2018 Fair, creating a series of Sticky Tape Tāniko signs that direct visitors up to Piki Mai and her presentation there with dealer Mokopōpaki.

Francis McWhannell, Projects 2018 at Auckland Art Fair (New York: Artsy, 11 May, 2018)

Can you tell us a bit about Piki Mai: Up here ^^. What will it bring to the fair?

In the words of the artists Yllwbro, who developed the identity, “Piki Mai: Up Here^^ is shamelessly attention-seeking much like the fresh perspective and change in elevation offered by a young, forward-looking generation with the energy and inclination to confront the future.”

Located on the mezzanine of The Cloud, this new section and initiative will feature a small number of young galleries, artist-run-spaces and art schools (Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University and Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne). Separate from the main section on the ground floor, Piki Mai: Up here ^^ will offer a snapshot of artists whose work could appear in future fairs around the region.

Alongside the art schools, galleries in this section will include Auckland’s Mokopōpaki and Interlude from Sydney, plus a stand showing the work of recent graduates of Chinese Arts Academies.

Katie Milton, Q&A with Hayley White, Auckland Art Fair Co-Director (Art Collector, February, 2018)

In the seventies and eighties, when I was much younger and living in Christchurch, I saw almost every artwork Billy Apple made in that city when he passed through on his national tours (he lived in New York then), and sometimes (with various friends like Paul Johns, Shaun Rowse and Michael Thomas) I was lucky enough to help him execute his plans. Billy was always convivial (as he is now) and keen to talk through his ideas-and various options—with other much younger artists. They learnt a great deal helping him put his shows together.

Two ‘makeover’ exhibitions of his that I assisted in then, that I remember well, were in the Brooke-Gifford and Robinson/Brooker Galleries. One involved removing inconsistent skirting boards, an unsightly door panel and a square of tatty raffia matting, and then sanding the wooden floor underneath and restaining it (B-G); the other involved removing and rolling up a long length of thick grey carpet, to reveal the underlying concrete floor (BR).

I mention all this because of his current exhibition at Mokopōpaki, a comparatively new dealer gallery under and adjacent to the stairs leading up to the old K’ Rd sites of Teststrip and Gambia Castle. Mokopōpaki is run by Jacob Terre; the gallery’s name comes from his Māori grandfather. The venue sees itself as an inclusive but critically collaborative place—Terre was a member of Terror Internationale—with the formal space known as ‘The Brown Room’ aiming to repudiate the culturally dominant Pākehā ethos via a confident and smart Māori perspective.

As you might expect, this work is very different from the various Apple ‘subtractions’ of thirty-eight years earlier. In the late seventies when Apple was doing his The Given as an Art Political Statement series of gallery alternations, after the alterations were completed, he saw it as an opportunity for dialogue about the quality of the exhibiting space, and who controlled the material variables of that quality. The work architecturally inserted into the white cube was usually a critique of some kind and he expected a response, hoping the proprietors would fix the ‘problem.’ He was offended if the elements he put in place or painted bright red, were just ignored or repainted white.

So what happens when Apple puts a Pākehā work into a brown, not a white, room—a space specially devised to suit post-colonial political content, engineered to confront all those who enter the space. He exposes the kauri planks of the floor by removing a vinyl covering, and that new base takes on an indigenous symbolism. Mokopōpaki in turn replies—in a printed statement that is presented alongside Apple’s own proposal—saying in Te Reo that here is a verse from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah (40:4) that ought to be thought about. Why is that?

Amongst Bibles, there are many English translations from the Latin Vulgate now available, but the third attempt to translate—the King James Version (1611)—is the one that here is retranslated into Māori. While it talks about the lifting up of valleys and the levelling of mountains that is common to other variations, it also says that ‘the crooked shall be made straight’—something found in this translation only. Amongst the warning images describing the violence of God’s power, seen in a dramatically altered landscape, those words imply not only a path that leads away from the Israelites’ (read: Māori) oppressors towards God, but also a moral promise emphasising justice and a new type of ethos.

Yet there is an ambiguity built into this installation: two white square islands (texts from Apple and Mokopōpaki) surrounded by a sea of brown; pale alien elements in a dark chocolate field. The statements empathise with the space, while also never feeling totally comfortable. The two resonate together uneasily, an architectural sans serif Futura font juxtaposed with the seriffed Phinny Jenson that has a rippling waterlike energy.

This enables nice contrasts to present themselves, internally and externally. European art and European religion on a Māori wall.

John Hurrell, Beyond the Brown Cube (EyeContact, 7 August, 2017) 

Critics Francis McWhannell and Lana Lopesi discuss a multifaceted exhibition showcasing some of Aotearoa’s most exciting new talent.

Artspace’s current exhibition, New Perspectives, features the work of more than 20 artists whose work has begun to make ripples in the local scene. Produced in collaboration with Berlin-based New Zealand artist Simon Denny, the show encompasses an impressive range of material, including eye-wateringly fine paper-based works by Motoko Kikkawa, visceral poems by Owen Connors (printed intransigently in black on black), and dollar coins faked by Matilda Fraser. It’s an ambitious exhibition, and essential viewing for all Aucklanders with an interest in art. Francis McWhannell and Lana Lopesi sat down to share some of their thoughts.

…LL: I think actually I have similar reservations when it comes to Quishile’s work, where I really think the text work on fabric had the same qualities as the larger work hanging from the ceiling. I don’t think the work needed that scale. Should we talk about the works we thought weren’t so successful for a moment?

FM: Yes, absolutely. I was immediately attracted to the idea of Yllwbro, two anonymous siblings who produce work together. It’s still quite rare to encounter avowedly collaborative works in contemporary art galleries, and it’s even rarer to encounter works made by unknown persons. Their Flowers of the Field (2016) was installed by an intermediary, Ursula Cranmer. I thought the text/story component of the work had some strong moments, and I was interested by the apparent confluence of Māori and Celtic references. But the presentation as a whole didn’t work for me. It felt simultaneously overcomplicated and a bit underdeveloped. The various visual and symbolic elements didn’t quite coalesce. I had difficulty with nicofood (2016) by Dominique Nicolau, or nico, for similar reasons.

Francis McWhannell and Lana Lopesi, Two Perspectives on ‘New Perspectives’, (The Pantograph Punch, 11 October, 2016)