When photographer Larence Shustak moved to Christchurch from the United States in 1973, he found what he called "a city full of eccentrics", and for that reason he felt right at home! He immediately established the Photography Department of the University of Canterbury's School of Fine Arts.
This month the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū hosts an exhibition of Shustak's vivid portraits and street photography - images of New York City in the Nineteen Sixties and a Christchurch that in many ways no longer exists.
Simon Morris talks to co-curator, and former pupil of Larence Shustak, Stuart Page, and first asked him about the title - air gun?
The exhibition opens at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from Saturday 20 February as part of the Gallery's All Art All Summer season. And next month the award-winning 2009 documentary Shustak will screen at the Gallery.
