After seven long years of planning, the Whangarei Art Museum is exhibiting 25 years of creative art by one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s leading Pacific artists. In this exhibition, John Ioane stands tall as one of the country and the region’s most compelling and accomplished contemporary artists. Bringing together his painting, sculpture, music, film, performance, body adornment and oratory, the exhibition is the first public viewing of John’s R18 installation “Polly Wants A Cracker”. The installation questions current Pacific values of sensuality and sexual identity. Also exhibited will be two body-cast sculptures of a Polynesian male and female, fabricated in sugar crystals and encased in Perspex vitrines. Commissioned by the Whangarei Art Museum, this new work exposes the deadly ravages of diabetes in Pacific Island communities. This installation will be filmed on-line as it is gradually devoured by ants which are allowed into the cases through Perspex feeder tubes into the floor to the ground below. The slow process of disintegration will be a poignant metaphor for the nascent obesity epidemic which is attacking Pacific Island people. The exhibition runs from 31 August to 26 October 2009.
(John Ioane, “Celebrate Pasifika”, Auckland Museum, 2005)
[...] Pacific Starmap » Blog Archive » Whangarei Celebrates 25 years of John Ioane’s Art http://www.pacificstarmap.com/2009/08/whangarei-celebrates-25-years-of-john-ioane%E2%80%99s-art – view page – cached After seven long years of planning, the Whangarei Art Museum is exhibiting 25 years of creative art by one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s leading Pacific artists. In this exhibition, John Ioane stands tall as one of the country and the region’s most compelling and accomplished contemporary artists. — From the page [...]