Michael Parekowhai

Lot 16 Michael Parekowhai Etaples c-type colour photograph, from an edition of 8 inscribed in printed lettering Michael Parekowhai, Etaples 2001, c-type colour photograph, ed. of 8, 1500 x 1250, image 1550mm x 1250mm Frame on Michael Lett Gallery label verso 1500mm x 1250mm $16,500 - $22,000 Reference: Michael Parekowhai, Michael Lett Publishing, 2007, pp. 295 Note: From the series The Consolation of Philosophy Piko nei te matenga 2001

Lot 11 Michael Parekowhai Poorman, Beggarman, Thief(Poorman) fibreglass mannequin, dinner suit, inscribed name badge, on standfrom a suite of three 1850mm x 765mm x 585mm $100,000 - $120,000 Exhibited: Paradise Now; Contemporary Art from the Pacific, AsiaSociety Museum, Feb 18 - May 9, 2004. Illustrated: Paradise Now?;Contemporary Art from the Pacific, Asia Society Museum, New York,2004 p.17 and p.73. Michael Lett and Ryan Moore, MichaelParekowhai, Michael Lett Publishing 2007 p.384 p.422 p.516 Consisting of three life-sized fibreglass mannequins, MichaelParekowhai’’s installation Poorman, Beggarman, Thief was originallyset up within an art gallery space. Posing as well-to-do members ofa discerning and sophisticated art-buying clique, the mannequinswere attired in immaculate tuxedos complete with bow ties, glossywigs and brightly polished shoes. The physical appearance of thefigures visually jars with the disparaging titles of the works andsuccessfully draws attention to commonplace culturalstereotypes. Poorman, Beggarman, Thief initially comprised Parekowhai’’scontribution to Paradise Now? Contemporary Art from the Pacific,exhibited in New York in 2004. The show was intended to questionwhether the Pacific was indeed a Paradise and, if it was, thenwhose Paradise was it? Therefore, Parekowhai’’s work, which islargely concerned with the racial stereotyping of minorities in NewZealand and with issues of identity, was well suited to the show.Produced in 1996 and modelled on his father, Parekowhai’’s mannequinPoorman stands casually at ease with legs slightly apart, hisweight resting on his back foot and arms crossed over hisbody. The title of the work, Poorman, Beggarman, Thief boldly states thatMaori are too often thought of, and labelled as, a generalised bodyof people rather than as individuals. The piece coolly offers threebroad and somewhat pejorative labels to refer to Maori en masse asbeing either poverty stricken or criminals. Parekowhai reinforcedthis by fixing his mannequins with name tags which introduced themwith the ironic line “Hello, my name is HORI”. The term ‘Hori’’ is ageneric and derogatory term used historically by Pakeha to refer toMaori people. It is simultaneously the name of Michael Parekowhai’’sfather and the Maori translation of the English name ‘George’’.Thus, Parekowhai’’s work operates on a number of levels by beingwitty and personally relevant while concurrently inviting theviewer to reconsider culturally damning typecasts. Parekowhai callsnegative New Zealand assumptions about the ‘collective’’ Maori intoquestion with a rare finesse which is equally apparent in his laterwork from 2003, Kapa Haka, (Puhina) one of the figures from whichcan be seen on pages 36-37 of the current catalogue. Standing in the time-honoured contrapposto pose, Poorman returnsthe viewer’’s gaze and, in doing so, challenges the spectator toengage with the work and to consider its physical presence as wellas the issues and concerns that Parekowhai has skilfully addressedin its creation. By completing the work on a life-sized scale,Parekowhai has ensured that the mannequins are abruptly confrontingand yet curiously alluring. JEMMA FIELD

Lot 15 Michael Parekowhai Rainbow Servant Dreaming two-pot automotive paint on polyurethane 2005 640mm x 240mm x 150mm $10,000 - $15,000 Illustrated: Michael Lett and Ryan Moore, Michael Parekowhai, Michael Lett Publishing 2007 pg 428-429. (Click image to see full size) Back In 2005, Michael Parekowhai held an exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 in Sydney. The large gallery space was populated with fiberglass figures consisting of security guards, ballerinas and small grey men. This surreal exhibition carried the title Rainbow Servant Dreaming, the title of the lot we have on offer. For many Australians the term ‘dreaming’ is one with which they are intimately familiar. It is an Aboriginal term used to explain the journey and the actions of ancestors who created the natural world, and dreaming stories are repeated from generation to generation maintaining a link between the past and the present. For Parekowhai, the title is not so much a retelling as a repeating. Three very different figurative sculptures were repeated throughout the space. They all shared the highly glossed finish of automotive paint on fibreglass, which is slick and impervious to the elements. The imposing, unreceptive Kapa Haka security guard is based on the artist’s brother, Paratene. Flat–footed and burly, he stands arms crossed in defiance, holding us at bay and denying us entrance. The Song of the Frog, in contrast, is an elegant ballerina, lying supine and attenuated on the floor, eyes peacefully closed, and blissfully unaware of the viewer. The little grey men also imposing and aloof, though on a much smaller scale, are cold and upright. En masse across the wall, facing in and facing out, they mimic the busy city men based on the figures depicted in René Magritte’s famous surrealist masterpiece Golconda. Nameless, expressionless, cloned men who ‘work in the city’ fall from the sky like rain. Some face out, striding forward drone-like into the room, while the others, such as this example, turn their back and abut the wall, as though refusing to acknowledge their surroundings or environment. They wear the uniform of city men: bowler hat and long overcoat; they carry their accoutrements: umbrella and briefcase. In Parekowhai’s version, the addition of gloss grey paint further highlights their sameness, and emphasises their very anonymity, their ‘greyness’. Parekowhai has effectively extended the surrealist imagery of the Belgian master, and made it real.Emma Fox

Back to catalogue 020 Michael Parekowhai Craig Keller/Neil Keller type C photographs, diptych (2000) 1265 x 1035mm: each 1265 x 2070mm: overall Exhibited: 'Nine Lives: The 2003 Chartwell Exhibition', New Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki, 13 September - 23 November 2003. Illustrated: Robert Leonard and Michael Gifkins (eds), Nine Lives: The 2003 Chartwell Exhibition (Auckland, 2003), pp. 42 - 43. $18 000 - $26 000

- MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI NEW ZEALANDER, B. 1968 DESCRIPTION Automotive paint on fibreglass Executed in 2003 PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney The Austcorp Group Limited Art Collection; purchased from the above Kapa Haka, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 2003 Rainbow Servant Dreaming, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 28 April - 21 May 2005, cat. 2 CATALOGUE NOTE Michael Parekowhai is one of New Zealand's most highly-regarded contemporary artists. Over the past 15 years he has shown widely in New Zealand, Australia and beyond, being included in such imortant exhibitions as the first Auckland Triennial (2001), the Biennales of Sydney (2002), Guangju and São Paulo (2004), and in the Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (2006). His work is held in major public collections across the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe. Parekowhai is a Maori of Nga Ariki/Ngati Whakaronga descent, and the major themes of his sculpture and photography are those of postcolonial artists worldwide. Neither naïve nor cynical, he plays with the tragicomic mismatches of imperialism: introduced peoples, introduced species, introduced cultures and the associated personal, familial, ethnic and national alienation. Equally central is an ironic fondness for the images and finishes of (American) popular and commercial culture, and his sculptures have all the hubristic scale and high gloss of advertising and point of sale display, the same aesthetic of shiny gigantism found in, say, a pop artist like Claes Oldenburg, or the post-pop Jeff Koons. The present work also illustrates one of the artist's secondary preoccupations: serial-collective sociality, the idea of camaraderie, of the 'band of brothers.' It is in fact one of a set of 15 near-identical sculptures (a full rugby team, in fact) of white-shirted, black-trousered, big-bellied, arms-folded security guards. The burly Polynesian bouncer is a familiar figure in pubs, clubs, shopping centres and public spaces both in Australia and New Zealand, and through this sculpture Parekowhai directly announces the social and economic marginalisation of Pacific peoples. At the same time, it is more than a glib, disinterested identity art one-liner; it is personal. The figure was modelled on the artist's elder brother, who actually works in the security industry. Finally, Parekowhai takes racial-political protest or resistance to the point where it becomes, quite simply, funny: the name of the work is te reo Maori for a traditional dance performance group, while each individual sculpture is named after a colour, and has that colour written (again in the Maori language) on its security swipe card. In this case the word is whero, meaning red, though when used as a noun, whero also means backside. Originally commissioned for the landmark exhibition Paradise Now? Contemporary art from the Pacific held at the Asia Society Galleries, New York in 2004, the Kapa haka has since enjoyed an extended half-life, both in the exhibition and sale of its component figures and in a re-casting in bronze shown at the Auckland Art Fair in May of this year.