Peter Wood, Silver Centrepiece
Photograph: Sam Hartnett
Vanished Delft: Handmade Material Culture at The Pah Homestead
March 14 - May 14, 2017
Main Galleries
Vanished Delft: Handmade Material Culture at The Pah Homestead is an exhibition of contemporary objectmaking within rooms that were once home to one of New Zealand’s most extravagant collections of furniture and fittings, the palatial residence known as ‘Williamson’s Castle’. Today, this late 19th Century Italianate mansion is again home to a collection: the Trust’s extensive holdings of contemporary New Zealand art.
For the period of the exhibition, the finely carved marble mantelpieces of the Ballroom and Drawing Room will be populated with domestic accouterments. The Wallace Arts Trust’s Collection of Arts and Crafts furniture will be pressed into service to plinth an extensive display of handmade material culture of a contemporary kind, exhibiting a renewed interest in applied arts, usefulness, and in some cases, uselessness.
Curator Anna Miles says, “In addition to championing the importance of design and craftsmanship in the face of increasing industrialisation, the Arts and Crafts movement pursued a social programme. I am interested in contemplating the contemporary role of object making and its social consequences.”
The exhibition encompasses embroidery, carpets, ceramics, curtains, cocktail chairs, cabinets, doorstops, plastic mats, teapots, tea towels and an eiderdown.
This exhibition will be presented as part of the Auckland Arts Festival 2017.
