Toi Koru a survey of Sandy Adsett’s 60-year career: Toni MacKinnon

Sandy Adsett's Reia No.4, 2024.

Toni MacKinnon is MTG’s art curator.

OPINION

When Western abstractionism emerged just over a century ago, artists were exploring visual languages they had seen in ancient Middle Eastern, African, Asian, and Oceanic art.

While European artists were exploring abstraction on a formal level, considering shape, colour and texture, non-European artists had been for centuries, blending customary practices with contemporary influences, reflecting a continuity of cultural and spiritual significance through abstract art forms.

Last night MTG Hawkes Bay, Tai Ahuriri opened a new exhibition, by artist Sandy Adsett. Toi Koru is a survey of Adsett’s work from his 60-year career, central to which is the abstract art form of kowhaiwhai.

Exhibition curator Reuben Friend explains, “Kowhaiwhai has a history that originated from Te-Moana-a-Kiwa over a thousand years ago, developing into a complex visual art form that is unique to Aotearoa. [Adsett’s] accomplishments have brought mana to this art form that was once considered to be supplementary to the celebrated art of whakairo. Sandy [Adsett] set the benchmark, providing a platform for subsequent generations of artists to uncover new directions in contemporary art and painting.”

Art historian, Elizabeth Ellis says about Adsett’s work “These customary art forms are the visual abstractions that record the whakapapa and mātauranga of the physical and spiritual realms. Adsett has reinterpreted and reinvigorated traditional practices in his art, introducing new colours to the marae, with new forms, textures, materials, and combinations of light and dark. He has inspired generations of Māori to take the art further with a sense of pride as he carried kowhaiwhai from the marae to the world beyond.”

Now in their 80s, Adsett and his contemporaries have seen more than one new generation emerge. A widely known and respected group of artists who pushed boundaries, “Young Guns” Shane Cotton, Lisa Reihana, Peter Robinson and the like, emerged in the 1990s. Their work further challenged tradition, bringing humour and irreverence into the mix.

Robinson’s use of bold slogans about selling out and making money, painted in black, white, and red, made for uncomfortable commentary on the art world’s fascination with contemporary Māori Art.

More recently Robinson has been making large-scale sculptures based on the koru. His most extensive body of them to date is currently on show at Whangārei Art Museum. Physically imposing, Robinson’s aluminium and wood veneer sculptures fill the gallery space, making for an uncompromising presence.

In these koru forms, Robinson is asking the viewer to consider the objects and allow inferences to gradually reveal themselves. Whangārei Art Museum explains, Robinson is saying, “See how the wood veneer cracks and buckles when I fold the metal, how quickly illusion is dispelled yet how resilient the underlying matter actually is.”

Adsett and Robinson’s works are a manifestation of the idea that Māori tradition is one of innovation. In unravelling the ancestry of this aspect of mahi toi, Ellis says, “Adsett would pay homage to Pine Taiapa, tohunga whakairo, the link between the traditional and contemporary in Māori art.” Ellis points out the anomaly that though hugely influential, Taiapa lacks visibility within leading art institutions in Aotearoa.

Historically kowhaiwhai is found in the recesses of the wharenui, yet in the work of Adsett and Robinson, the koru is brought out as a taonga of significance. Here the vitalism of kowhaiwhai is not only in the fact of its presence but in its endless capacity to express new ideas.

Toi Koru is on at MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri until March 2, 2025. This touring exhibition has been hugely popular at art institutions all around Aotearoa. MTG is thrilled to be hosts of Toi Koru here in Kahungunu, Adsett’s tūrangawaewae.