Staging Post is an exceptional exhibition. It features major museum standard works such as the important A Black Union Jack (1989/90) by Ralph Hotere; the quintessential geometric Dibble masterpiece Moving Forwards, Looking Backwards (2000); the superb Ann Robinson Cactus Vase (Red) (2013).
There are wonderful new works by JS Parker, such as The Light Plain: The Wide Blue Yonder (2015); Simon Edwards Moraine is a startling evocation of light and dark contrasts, location, distance, the rhythms of line. Kate Woods’ new photographs talk across time, media and style. Mark Mitchell’s breath-taking development as a ceramist of national importance is again demonstrated in a resolute suite of works, where pattern and the delicacies of scale are continuously explored. Reuben Paterson adds to his acclaimed Aroma of Black series with the remarkably dexterous, beautiful, still-life Pungarehu (2016).
Robert Jahnke’s kauri peg and the mirrored surface of Ancestral Connection (2004) is an unmistakable, powerfully political work about land use and land confiscation. Chris Charteris’ Woven Kohatu (2015) and Forces of Land and Ocean 1 (2016) reveal the vagaries of stone and his unique collaboration with nature. Christine Cathie’s sequential development of a distinctive, increasingly calligraphic, visual language is shown in three new glass works, where the forms seem to float and be drawn in air.
There are also key works by Israel Birch, Jude Rae, Terry Stringer and Dick Frizzell.