Mark Adams has worked since the late 1970s on the strangeness and singularity, natural and cross-cultural, of the Te Arawa environment. Over the last ten years, in collaboration with anthropologist and historian Nicholas Thomas, he has tracked the carvings of Tene Waitere (1854-1931), one of the most innovative Maori artists of his time, to sites dispersed around New Zealand, Germany, and Britain.
This exhibition at Two Rooms coincides with the launch of Adams and Thomas's Rauru: Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History, an innovative collaborative book featuring interviews with the carver's great-great grandson, James Schuster, and contemporary artists Lyonel Grant.
Nicholas Thomas will speak at the opening function.
