Te Maori

Te Maori (sometimes Te Māori in modern sources) was a watershed exhibition of Māori art (taonga) that toured the United States from 1984 to 1986, and New Zealand from 1986 to 1987 as Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai ("the return home"). It was the first time Māori art was shown internationally as art instead of ethnographic collections, and the involvement of iwi impacted museum practice in New Zealand and globally. It is considered a milestone in the Māori Renaissance.

Te Maori

Background

From the time contact was first made between Māori and Europeans, Māori social and cultural objects were collected for inclusion in private collections and museums, as were human remains.

These objects were collected, catalogued and displayed ethnographically, treating Māori as a part of natural history rather than creators of culture that might be exhibited in an artistic context.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira holds a significant collection of Māori material culture. For much of its history, the museum acquired and displayed these materials without consultation with Māori or regard for their values.

One such example was its display of ‘mokamokai’ (now referred to as toi moko; preserved heads of Māori, whose faces had been adorned with tā moko tattoos), which Māori found both ‘disappointing’ and ‘culturally insensitive.’

In contrast, the Kakahu Fashion Project (organised by Māori activist Hana Te Hemara), which debuted at the museum in 1971, was considered to be a more humanising display and celebration of Māori culture.

Exhibition development

The idea of a major exhibition of Māori artworks that would tour the United States was first raised in 1973 by Douglas Newton, Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A Friede from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paul Cotton, the New Zealand Consul General in New York. Though the idea was well-received, including by New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk, delays were caused by Kirk's passing and the lack of funding.

In 1979 Douglas Newton and Wilder Green of the American Federation of Arts raised the idea again, and in 1981 the New Zealand Cabinet approved the exhibition in principle. The Nga Mangai o Te Maori management committee was formed in April 1981 to organise the exhibition. Members of that committee included Sidney Moko Mead, Mina McKenzie and Piri Sciascia.

The exhibition was supported by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council with funding from Mobil Oil.

Hirini Moko Mead was co-curator of the exhibition.

Unlike previous exhibitions of Māori work, iwi had to give permission for the artworks to be included, highlighting the difference between museum ownership and authority. This was seen as an outcome of political and cultural advocacy by Māori since the 1960s.

During the planning process, the objects displayed were called 'taonga' by the involved institutions, acknowledging more meaning than the term 'artwork'.

Works included

Te Maori included 174 taonga, most being whakairo (carved wood) or carved pounamu (greenstone). Most came from the collections of 12 New Zealand institutions, 51 loaned by Auckland Institute and Museum, 38 from the National Museum. One came from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Artists whose work featured in the exhibition included:

• Mike Mason – greenstone (pounamu) carver

One carving, Uenuku was almost not included in the expedition because it was too fragile however Maori Queen Te Atairangikaahu decided it needed to be included.

Display of taonga

The change from ethnographic treatment of the works was reflected in how they were displayed, giving them individual focus through space and lighting more like that used in art galleries.

The National Museum trialled this method of display in 1983, exhibiting the taonga from their collections that would be shown in Te Maori at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Inclusion of Māori cultural practices

Part of the exhibition was carefully held practices and values guided by Māori tikanga. This included dawn ceremonies, traditional karakia, speeches in the Māori language, waiata and kapa haka, during which some warriors had moko on their faces. Accompanying the taonga with these practices was described as 'the complete package' by Piri Sciascia, making it clear that the objects were part of a living culture, and that Māori were both the artistic and spiritual guardians on their own culture.

This is significant because for Maori carving involves important cultural ideas around identity and mana.

Mead described the effect at the prestigious institution of the Met: "It did much to make tikanga Māori more acceptable not only to the population at large of Aotearoa but, more importantly, among our own people."

Groups of Māori from several iwi travelled with the exhibition to supervise installation and care of the taonga, perform ceremonies, and participate in events.

The tour

Te Maori opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York on 10 September 1984 and was also presented at Saint Louis Art Museum (February–May 1985), the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (July–September 1985), and the Field Museum in Chicago (March–June 1986).

During the tour the Māori participants connected with First Nations communities. In San Francisco their taonga were welcomed by baskets by Pomo, Yokuts, Hupa, Yurok and Karok creators.

Te Hokinga Mai: The return home

Main article: Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai

Te Maori continued once the taonga returned to New Zealand in August 1986 as Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai ("The return home"). Starting at the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington, it travelled to Otago Museum in Dunedin, Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch, finishing at the Auckland City Art Gallery.

Te Hokinga Mai closed on 10 September 1987, three years to the day after opening at the Met.

Reception

Te Maori was very well received, both at home and abroad. The New Zealand institutions saw 'unprecedented' visitor numbers.

American press carried the messages that Māori were a living people, and that taonga held spiritual value.

When the Te Maori cultural group performed at the American Museum of Natural History there was no doubt something had happened. The audience was already won over even before the performance began. What they wanted was to touch Maori culture and Maori people to learn more and more and more. They were reaching out to us in a way that is difficult to describe.

In 1998 Amiria Salmond acknowledged the success of the exhibition for "the beauty of the pieces on display, and for the way in which indigenous and Euro-American traditions were woven together in fertile co-operation between Maori scholar Sidney Moko Mead and curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The objects were treated at once as pieces of fine art, aesthetically refined and masterly in their execution, and as ancestors, material embodiments of relationships between people and the land."

The exhibition was criticised for what it excluded, including toi raranga (fibre art / weaving, mostly created by women, as opposed to carving, mostly done by men), and contemporary Māori art.

Some, including Hone Harawira, saw Te Maori as presenting an outdated view of Māori life, or too constrained to the past.

Legacy

Te Maori raised the profile of Māori culture in New Zealand significantly. Māori used the increased respect afforded to their culture to push for further changes.

The international response to the exhibition influenced New Zealand media to pay attention to Māori art. In 1984 a Television New Zealand programme Koha – Te Māori, a Cloak of Words by Ray Waru and Ernie Leonard covered the exhibition and featured the kapa haka at the pōwhiri (opening ceremony) lead by Pita Sharples. Two films on Māori art were produced in 1985: Te Māori – A Celebration of the People and their Art by Māori film maker Don Selwyn and Koha – Te Māori Guard, New York. Waru also made a film Te Māori – Te Hokinga Mai.

Museum practice changed to involve Māori in the interpretation and display of their cultural heritage. Museums began embedding a bicultural approach to 'consultation, planning, presentation' and audience engagement with taonga. The museum sector overall started to understand that taonga were more than isolated objects.

This model has become an international standard of practice among museums that hold Māori and Pacific works, and has influenced institutions with holdings from other Indigenous communities.

More Māori started working in museums, and training in specialisations like conservation and curation. Funding for this training with the profits of the exhibition was recommended by the Te Maori management committee.

It also influenced the new building of the national museum of New Zealand Te Papa.

Major exhibitions influenced by Te Maori include:

• Tangata Maori (1986) – an exhibition of the human form in Māori art held at the National Art Gallery which was part of the International Festival of the Arts

• Taonga Maori (1989–1990)
• Treasures and Landmarks (1990)
• Te Waka Toi: contemporary Māori art from New Zealand (1992–1993)

Mobil, who sponsored Te Maori, also sponsored the Pegasus Prize for literature to promote the works of authors from other countries which would not normally be read by Americans. The exhibition prompted Mobil to focus on Māori authors and in 1984 a panel of New Zealand judges was set up to select a work to be put forward for the Prize. The winner of the Prize in 1985 was Keri Hulme's The Bone People.

Further reading

• Gathercole, Peter (2002). "'Te Maori' in the Longer View". In Herle, Anita; Stanley, Nick; Stevenson, Karen; Welsch, Robert L. (eds.). Pacific Art: Persistence, Change, and Meaning. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. pp. 271–279. ISBN 0-8248-2556-X.
• Mead, Sidney Moko, ed. (1984). Te Maori: Maori Art from New Zealand Collections. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1344-5.
• Nuku, Maia (2021). "'Te Maori': New Precedents for Indigenous Art at The Met". Metropolitan Museum Journal. 56: 32–50. doi:10.1086/718034. S2CID 245010880.
• O'Biso, Carol (1987). First light: a magical journey. New York: Paragon House. ISBN 978-1-55778-207-6.

External links

• Te Māori at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Te Māori and its impact at Te Ara