The out-going director of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Rhana Devenport is leaving New Zealand to make history in Australia. In October Rhana will be the first woman to take charge of Adelaide's Art Gallery of South Australia in its 137 year history.
It's the next move in an impressive career, which started with her first exhibition at only twelve years old, and includes reinventing New Plymouth's Govett-Brewster gallery with the Len Lye Centre, curating critically acclaimed exhibitions in Auckland and bringing more people through gallery doors in uncertain and challenging financial times.
The Corsini Collection: A Window on Renaissance Florence (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2017
The Corsini Collection - first time this collection has toured outside Italy and the first time a Florentine private collection was displayed in New Zealand.
Lisa Reihana’s In Pusuit of Venus [Infected] (2015) had largest visitation for solo exhibition of living NZ artist with 49,000 visits, was also seen by estimated 1,000 people a day at the 2017 Venice Biennale
Lisa Reihana, In Pusuit of Venus [Infected] (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2015
Yayoi Kusama, The obliteration room (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2017
150,000 visitors to Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room between December 2017 – April 2018
The Māori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2016
99,000 people visited the Gallery’s The Māori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand in 2016/17, further 155,000 saw the exhibition in Europe in 2015/16 and 99,000 saw the exhibition in San Francisco in 2018.
On now until 4 November, Gordon Walters: New Vision – a major retrospective of one of New Zealand’s most important and influential modern artists.
Gordon Walters: New Vision (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2018
Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, Whol Why Wurld, 2017/2018, Walters Prize 2018 (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2018
Rhana’s last major exhibition with us (on now) Walters Prize 2018, opened 18 August, on until 28 January.
Len Lye Firebush sculpture. Photo Glenn Jeffrey smaller
