''Te Maori'' (sometimes ''Te Māori'' in modern sources) was a watershed exhibition of

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

art in 1984 (later continued to 1985, 1986 and 1987). It is notable as the first occasion on which Māori art had been exhibited by Māori, and also the first occasion on which Māori art was shown internationally as art. In retrospect it is seen as a milestone in the

Māori Renaissance The Māori renaissance is the revival in fortunes of the Māori of New Zealand beginning in the 1970s. Until 1914, and possibly later, the perception of the Māori race, although dying out, was capable and worthy of saving, but only within a Europ ...

History

The Te Māori exhibition was driven by Secretary for Maori Affairs,

Kara Puketapu Ihakara Porutu "Kara" Puketapu (26 February 1934 – 7 July 2023) was a New Zealand public servant and Māori leader. He served as Secretary of Maori Affairs and was later chair of Te Āti Awa based in Waiwhetū, Lower Hutt. Early life and ed ...

, under the auspices of the

Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government, investing in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes and developing markets ...

with funding from

Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...

. Prominent Māori leader

Hirini Moko Mead Sir "Sidney" Hirini Moko Haerewa Mead (born 8 January 1927) is a New Zealand anthropologist, historian, artist, teacher, writer and prominent Māori leader. Initially training as a teacher and artist, Mead taught in many schools in the East Co ...

was co-curator of the exhibition. The exhibition was ten years in the planning. The exhibition featured 174 customary carved Māori art items from the collections of 12 museums in New Zealand. The largest contributor was the

Auckland War Memorial Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira (or simply the Auckland Museum) is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its collections concentrate on New Zealand history (and especially the history of the Aucklan ...

, who loaned 51 pieces. The exhibition started at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(the Met) in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

on 10 September 1984 and was also presented at

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, Mi ...

(February–May 1985), the

M. H. de Young Memorial Museum ( ; ; pl. ; ; 1512, from Middle French , literally "my lord") is an honorific title that was used to refer to or address the eldest living brother of the king in the French royal court. It has now become the customary French title of resp ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

(July–September 1985), and the

Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

(March–June 1986). Part of the exhibition was carefully held practices and values guided by Māori tikanga. This included a dawn ceremony, traditional

karakia Karakia are Māori incantations and prayers, used to invoke spiritual guidance and protection. With the nineteenth-century introduction of Christianity to New Zealand, Māori adopted (or wrote new) karakia to acknowledge the new faith. Moder ...

, speeches in the

Māori language Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...

, waiata and

kapa haka Kapa haka is the term for Māori action songs and the groups who perform them. It literally means 'group' () and 'dance' (). Kapa haka is an important avenue for Māori people to express and showcase their heritage and cultural Polynesian identi ...

. Mead described the effect at the prestigious institution of the Met, "It did much to make tikanga Māori more acceptable not only to the population at large of Aotearoa but, more importantly, among our own people." ''Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai'', the New Zealand leg of the exhibition, toured

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, and finally ended in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

on 10 September 1987, three years to the day after opening at the Met.

Artworks

*The gateway of Pukeroa Pa *Patetonga lintel *Te Kaha pātaka carvings

Legacy and reception

The exhibition was very well received, both at home and abroad. It was very popular in New Zealand with the intuitions that hosted the exhibiting experiencing 'unprecedent audience' numbers. The impact of the exhibition is described by the late museum ethnologist Robert Neich:

The effect of ''Te Māori'' has been so pervasive that its influence cannot be avoided. (Robert Neich 1985)

The process of dialogue shared decision making and connection alongside the artwork as it was exhibited with iwi Māori (tribal authorities) left a legacy for indigenous communities and museums bringing an institutional shift. Part of the consultation was that iwi had to give permission for the artworks to be included in the exhibition highlighting the difference between museum ownership and authority. This was seen as an outcome of political and cultural advocacy by Māori since the 1960s. The objects displayed were called ''

taonga ''Taonga'' or ''taoka'' (in South Island Māori) is a Maori-language word that refers to a treasured possession in Māori culture. It lacks a direct translation into English, making its use in the Treaty of Waitangi significant. The current d ...

'' by the institutes acknowledging more meaning than the term 'artwork'.

The model it established—one that favors the participation of indigenous communities in the interpretation and display of their art—has evolved as an international standard of practice for museums with holdings of Māori and Pacific art. (Maia Nuku, Curator of Oceanic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2021))

The international response to the exhibition influenced New Zealand media to pay attention to Māori art. It also made concrete changes to museums in New Zealand imbedding a bicultural approach to 'consultation, planning, presentation' and audience engagement with taonga. It also influenced the new building of the national museum of New Zealand

Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring fr ...

. The exhibition was criticised for what it excluded, which was toi raranga (fibre art / weaving) mostly created by women and contemporary Māori art. This was addressed in a new touring exhibition '' Te Waka Toi: contemporary Māori art from New Zealand'' which went around the United States over 1992 and 1993.

References

External links

Te Māori
at

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade may refer to: * Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade (Jamaica) * Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand) * Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (South Korea) South Korea's Ministry of ...

Te Māori and its impact
at

Te Ara ''Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' is an online encyclopedia established in 2001 by the New Zealand Government's Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The web-based content was developed in stages over the next several years; the first s ...

{{Metropolitan Museum of Art Indigenous art Māori art 1984 in New Zealand Art exhibitions in the United States Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions Art exhibitions in New Zealand 1984 in New York City 1985 in Missouri 1980s in St. Louis 1985 in San Francisco 1980s in Chicago 1986 in Illinois 1980s in Manhattan

History

Artworks

Legacy and reception

References

Further reading

External links