A new landmark book celebrating Māori art has clocked up a couple of impressive firsts: not only is it the most comprehensive account of creative work by Indigenous New Zealanders ever published, it is also the first wide-ranging art history written entirely by Māori scholars.
Not only does the book celebrate the breadth of Māori art and unearth new discoveries in the process, it upends traditional western approaches to art history in favour of one that is Māori.
The second, te kete-tuauri, the basket of darkness or the unknown, “looks at that time when new materials, new ideas and new people were coming in from other parts of the world and how that both changed and challenged Māori art”, Brown says.
“But we have always been clear that customary Māori art is also contemporary Māori art too – we’ve got makers from the deep past into the present.”.
For many others it will serve as a celebration of Māori art and its makers – one that reveals the many different ways Māori artists are expressing their indigeneity, Ellis says.
