City Gallery Wellington facts for kids

Quick facts for kids City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi
A trapeze outside the City Gallery
Former names	Wellington Public Library
General information
Type	Art Gallery
Architectural style	Art Deco
Location	8 Mercer Street, Wellington, New Zealand
Coordinates	41°17′19″S 174°46′38″E / 41.288518°S 174.777270°E / -41.288518; 174.777270
Current tenants	City Gallery
Construction started	1935
Completed	1940
Technical details
Structural system	reinforced concrete frame
Floor count	2
Floor area	3,900 square metres
Design and construction
Architect	Gummer and Ford
Other designers	Stuart Gardyne (refurbishment architect)
Awards and prizes	NZIA National Award 1994

City Gallery Te Whare Toi is a public art gallery in Wellington, New Zealand.

History

City Gallery Te Whare Toi began its life as the Wellington City Art Gallery on 23 September 1980 in a former office block located at 65 Victoria Street, now the site of Wellington Central Library. The first exhibition was a group show of Wellington artists. In 1989, as work began on the new Wellington Library and Civic Centre, the gallery relocated to the other side of Victoria Street to occupy the old Chews Lane Post Office for four years until 1993 when it was rebranded as City Gallery and moved to its present location on the north-eastern side of Civic Square. Since 1995, City Gallery has been managed on behalf of the Wellington City Council by the Wellington Museums Trust which now trades as Experience Wellington.

The current building

City Gallery currently occupies the former Wellington Central Library building. Built in 1940 in an Art Deco style, this building replaced the original red brick City Library of 1893. When the Wellington Central Library relocated to its new Ian Athfield-designed building in 1991, the building underwent a major refurbishment so it could meet the needs of a contemporary art gallery. The Gallery's window installation was installed in 1994. Fault is by Bill Culbert and Ralph Hotere and consists of two strips of neon light cutting diagonally across the building. A significant addition built in 2008-2009 added two new galleries for emerging Wellington, Maori and Pacific art along with a 135-seat auditorium.

Directors

City Gallery covered in dots during the Yayoi Kusama exhibition.

The first Director was Seddon Bennington, who went on to be the second Chief Executive of Te Papa. He was followed in 1982 by Ann Philbin who described the challenge of the Gallery's cramped quarters on Victoria Street, "When you work from a gallery that is not beautiful or grand—that does not even have a fridge or public toilets for functions—you have to sell your ideas." Philbin was followed by John Leuthart in1985 who appointed the Gallery's first curator Gregory Burke two years later. Paula Savage became Director in 1990 and oversaw the Gallery's move to the current location and its rebranding as City Gallery. The rebranding cemented a long-term relationship with the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi resulting in a number of award-winning ads. In 2009 Savage was responsible for one of the Gallery's most popular exhibitions: Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years with an attendance of 88,155. The same year she appointed City Gallery's first Curator of Māori and Pacific Art Reuben Friend. Elizabeth Caldwell followed Savage who left the Gallery in 2011 after twenty-two years as its director.

Exhibitions

1982 Greer Twiss: a Survey 1959 – 1981 curated by the Director Seddon Bennington was the first major touring exhibition instituted by the Gallery.

1986 David Hockney: Hockney's Photographs was the first of many popular international exhibitions and City Gallery's first fee-paying show. To accommodate it, the Gallery was required to install air conditioning to meet international conservation standards.

1986 Karanga Karanga was the first public art museum exhibition in New Zealand of collaborative works by wāhine artists. Listener reviewer Georgina Kamiria Kirby described it as, "An exhibition done by Māori women, about Māori women, for Māori women"

1990 Now See Hear! Art, Language and Translation was the most ambitious exhibition attempted by City Gallery up to that time. Curated by Gregory Burke and Ian Wedde to mark 150 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi,  it featured 236 New Zealand and international artists.

1993 Rosemarie Trockel  was the first exhibition City Gallery toured outside New Zealand when it travelled to the MCA in Sydney. It was curated by Gregory Burke and opened City Gallery's new building in Civic Square. Alongside the Rosemarie Trockel exhibition were four shows of women artists: Alter/Image, Te Whare Puanga, and Jacqueline Fraser's project He Tohu: The New Zealand Room. Alter/Image surveyed twenty years of work by New Zealand women artists.

In 1998 City Gallery worked with the acclaimed Dutch curator Rudi Fuchs to present The Exhibition of the Century: Modern Masters from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam which included artists ranging from Vincent van Gogh to Jeff Koons. In 2006 a major exhibition by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini attracted a record audience for the time of 120,000.

Since opening at its current location in 1993, City Gallery has also hosted monographic exhibitions of many other major international artists including Tracey Emin, Keith Haring, Rosalie Gascoigne, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Tracey Moffatt, Sidney Nolan, Bridget Riley, Sam Taylor Wood, Salla Tykkä, Stanley Spencer, Wim Wenders as well as New Zealand's own Laurence Aberhart, Rita Angus, Shane Cotton, Tony Fomison, Bill Hammond, Ralph Hotere, Ronnie van Hout, Melvin Day, Martin Thompson, and Boyd Webb.

A full list of exhibitions, catalogues and relevant commentary is hosted on City Gallery's Past Exhibitions page.