Auckland Art Gallery’s Devenport pins hopes on Ardern

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki is the custodian of the world’s best collection of old and new Maori art.

The striking exterior of the expanded Auckland Art Gallery.

When Jacinda Ardern became New Zealand’s Prime Minister last October, many in the country’s arts sector breathed a sigh of relief. Not only had Ardern opted to take on the arts, culture and heritage portfolio — as her hero and predecessor Helen Clark did — but she seemed genuinely interested in the sector.

“We are all very hopeful,” says Rhana Devenport, director of the Auckland Art Gallery. “She is a frequent visitor here at the gallery, she’s starting up think tanks, asking questions and is very committed to education and culture.”

Born in Brisbane, Devenport appears to be every bit as dynamic as Ardern, who recently ­announced she will juggle her prime ministerial job with parenthood, with the birth of her first child expected in June. Devenport ran Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia-Pacific Triennial for 10 years ­before moving across the Tasman to head New Zealand’s Govett-Brewster Gallery in the North ­Island town of New Plymouth. Devenport’s legacy was to oversee the building of the gallery’s Len Lye Centre, a striking ripple-sided glass building that houses a stunning contemporary art and experimental film collection.

She moved four years ago to her present job in an even more arrestingly beautiful building, the refurbished Auckland Art Gallery.

Founded in 1888 as a gift from New Zealand governor Sir George Grey, the Victorian-era buildings sit adjacent to huge old trees — many planted by Grey himself — in Albert Park. But it’s the beauty of the gallery’s glass, steel and wood extension, which won World Building of the Year in 2013, that has attracted big crowds to the largest collection of New Zealand art.

Soaring columns hold aloft a series of kauri wood canopies that resemble the hull of a ship. It’s a culturally fitting design for an ­island nation whose best shipwrights and Maori carvers created the canopy and three carved poles that represent Rangi the sky-­father, Papa the earth-mother and their offspring, Tane Mahuta.

The gallery extension greatly increased public and exhibition spaces, a timely response to Auckland’s expanded “supercity” status with a population of 1.5 million.

“There’s now a beautiful relationship with the park and city, and between the historical part of the gallery and the new section,” Devenport says.

Last year brought in 550,000 patrons, nearly 20 per cent ­higher than the predicted level of visits. ­Notably, 75 per cent of visitors are under 35. “We’re located between two universities,” Devenport ­explains, “but overseas visitors make up a surprisingly high 60 per cent of all gallery visitors.”

Auckland Art Gallery Director Rhana Devenport.

Another good sign is that 6000 new gallery members signed up in a single year, boding well for its target of 10,000 within three years.

But the gallery has a problem that Devenport hopes Ardern will fix — a lack of tax deductibility for people donating artworks. “It would make a tremendous difference for us and smaller galleries if she’d bring it in.”

Another problem is operating funds. Owned and run by Auckland Council, the gallery ­operates on a budget of $6.9 million, which is 25 per cent less than it received in 2012. By contrast, Auckland Museum receives $30m a year as a result of an act of parliament that sets its income as a percentage of the city’s growing rates revenue.

“We went through a massive reconstruction which doubled the gallery space and increased public space by 80 per cent. But our funding has reduced. That’s the problem,” Devenport says.

She swiftly returns to the gallery’s strengths. One is the vast collection of Maori portraits by emigre Czech artist Gottfried Lindauer, who painted life-size portraits of Maori chiefs, warriors, their wives and children, recording details of their facial tattoos, clothing, ornaments and weapons.

“We interviewed descendants of the sitters for a major show and we had terrific young Maori guides leading people around,” says ­Devenport.

The gallery’s full name is Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, ­reflecting its custodianship of the world’s best collection of old and new Maori art. “In the 1970s and 80s there was a Maori renaissance where artists were supported New Zealand-wide. Their work has ­become a very important part of modernism in this country,” Deven­port says.

Lindauer’s Maori Portraits are now displayed in San Francisco’s de Young Museum and will travel on to Tokyo. It is one of six shows that Auckland Art Gallery is now touring; last year Devenport ­curated a hit exhibition at the Venice ­Biennale, now on show in Australia, featuring Maori artist Lisa Reihana’s panoramic video In Pursuit of Venus [infected].

When The Australian visited the gallery in December, on display were paintings by New Zealand artists Rita Angus and Leo Bensemann, a cutting-edge installation by Michael Stevenson that will be shown at the Sydney Biennale, New Zealand feminist poster art and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s interactive show The Obliteration Room.

“We did 29 exhibitions last year in the gallery, and we are taking New Zealand to the world,” says Devenport. “We behave a little like a national gallery although we’re funded by the people of Auckland so we have a duty to service them.”

Also on display was the Corsini Collection, Renaissance masterpieces that have never before left Italy. Owned privately by the Florence-based Corsini family, the 60 works will also go on show later this month at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

The exhibition is a partnership between the two galleries. Auckland’s senior curator Mary Kisler, a Renaissance art specialist, ­befriended the Corsini family, ­curated the show and led a ­research team that shed light on several undocumented paintings. “We can afford to do a show that looks at connoisseurship and scholarship,” Devenport says.

She says AGWA’s director Stefano Carboni, who is Italian, ­readily agreed to co-host the Corsini Collection.

Such trans-Tasman partnerships are valuable, Devenport says. “We had a very successful partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW over an exhibition of nudes from Britain’s Tate galleries, which we called The Body Laid Bare. It included many of the most famous artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. We haven’t had a visiting show of such size and status for a very long time, and it worked well for both our galleries.

“I’m very conscious of what’s going on in Australia, and we benchmark ourselves against similar-sized galleries like Western Australia and South Australia,” she adds.

The sharing of an Italian ­Renaissance show between Auckland and Perth begs the question: what about direct exchanges that draw on each gallery’s exclusive assets? For example, Maori art could be swapped for work by West Australian artists from the remote Kimberley and Pilbara, or even hung side by side in a co-­curated show.

Devenport agrees that such ideas are tempting and potentially rewarding for audiences. She cites the example of My Country: Contemporary Art from Black Australia,which came to Auckland in 2014 from Queensland Art Gallery. Devenport’s predecessor at the Auckland Art Gallery, Chris Saines, took over as director of the Queensland Art Gallery in 2013.

“Visitors loved the show, partly because it was a revelation to many New Zealanders,” she says. “In this country there has been a treaty with Maori nations since 1840, it’s a bicultural society and all our signage is in two languages. People didn’t know how vastly different the situation was for indigenous Australians.”

This weekend in Review: inside the remarkable Corsini Collection, saved from the Nazis in World War II, which has left Italy for the first time.