Dr Rangihiroa Panoho has over two decades of experience as a curator and art historian specialising in Māori, Pacific, New Zealand and international indigenous art.

His book Māori Art: History, Architecture, Landscape and Theory has taken him as long to complete.  Māori Art is the result of his many years of publishing and lecturing, involvement in collective projects, exhibitions, presentations and his theses.

Dr Panoho uses Māori Art to ask how we see Māori art and it explores the connection between the traditional and contemporary, and where Māori art sits internationally. It provides a framework for looking at Maori art in a new way.

As described by academic and author, the late Professor Roger Neich, "It leads to thought-provoking criticism of current art historical approaches to Māori art and constitutes probably the first sustained critique of the modern development of Māori art from an authentic Maori point of view."

To connect the international journey Maori art has already taken with today’s Māori artists, Dr Panoho traces Māori ancestors from Asia and the Pacific through the discovery of language similarities, DNA and art i.e. pottery shards.  He then refers to the work of Colleen Waata Urlich and Manos Nathan, and of early colonial transactions within the Kaipara.

Dr Panoho discusses the work of many individual artists including the late carver and painter Pakariki Harrison and Ralph Hotere respectively, and the trend of young emerging Māori artists who are beginning their journey into the art world.  He also gives his strong opinion of others who have curated or commented on Māori art.

Māori Art is a representation of Dr Panoho’s professional life experiences in Māori, New Zealand and indigenous art to date.

Maori Art: History, Architecture, Landscape and Theory by Rangihiroa Panoho (Bateman $89.99)

References

Radio NZ

NZ Herald