Peter Robinson and Sara Hughes at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand
Peter Robinson’s sculpture Universe (2001) and and Sara Hughes painting RAM (2004) are included in the forthcoming landmark exhibition Generation X: 50 Artworks from the Chartwell Collection. Organised by the City Gallery Wellington | Te Whare Toi, the exhibition will be presented at Te Papa as a part of the Chartwell 50th Anniversary special programming.
Described as a “big noisy group show featuring contemporary art made by Gen X artists”, the exhibition draws from one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant contemporary art collections, the Chartwell Collection, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Featuring a diverse range of national and international artworks, made during the 90s and early 2000s, the exhibition spans painting, sculpture, installation, sound and video. The artists included address concerns ranging from globalisation, capitalism and the culture wars to identity politics, third-wave feminism, and the commodification of art schools.
Generation X: 50 Artworks from the Chartwell Collection Te Papa Tongarewa | Museum of New Zealand 27 July – 20 October 2024
Sara Hughes ‘Glass Canopy’ re-installed at the New Zealand International Convention Centre
The largest ever public art installation in New Zealand has been reinstalled following damage to the facade of the building during the 2019 Auckland fires.
Sara Hughes designed a “glass forest” to enwrap the facade of the NZICC, Auckland for an installation that strives to reflect the unique New Zealand ecosystem, bringing the experience of the sublime natural environment to the urban landscape. The work clads the top level of the iconic building, consisting of 2,400 sq. meters of glass and comprising of over 550 panels in 60 different colour tones.
On the inspiration behind the installation, Hughes explained that the visual effect rendered by the work “reflects the experience of walking through the New Zealand bush and looking up through a canopy of trees to see the unique light and colour of the forest.”
Sara Hughes has created an immersive new artwork for the Willow St bus shelter in Tauranga, New Zealand. Comprising 96 individual panels of glass together creating a total of 260sq m, the artwork is suspended above the former Willow St bus shelter and wraps around the wall and front of Tauranga Art Gallery to Wharf St creating a beautiful corridor of coloured light for central city-dwellers. It is the largest integrated public artwork in New Zealand.
‘Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia’ by Anne Marsh
Doing Feminism represents over 220 artists and groups including Catherine Bell, Kate Beynon, Vivienne Binns, Anne Ferran, Elizabeth Gower, Sara Hughes, Helen Johnson, Laresa Kosloff, Lindy Lee, Rosslynd Piggott, Nusra Latif Qureshi and Jane Trengove, with 370 colour illustrations punctuated by extracts from artists’ statements, curatorial writing and critique.
Tracking networks of art practice, exhibitions, protest and critical thought over several generations, Marsh demonstrates the innovation and power of women’s art and the ways in which it has influenced and changed the contemporary art landscape in Australia and internationally.
Sara Hughes new interactive installation is on show at Whirinaki Whare Taonga New Zealand from 17 April – 27 June 2021. Hughes has created an interactive installation, based on the idea of the building block: it’s an artwork you can build with. Especially popular with families, visitors can build their own cityscape using hundreds of wooden blocks which are modelled on the local architecture and landscape. Focused on experimenting with colour, composition, shape and pattern this is a site specific work celebrating the city of Upper Hutt.
