Rauru

de Nicholas Thomas, Adams, Mark

"As part of the Auckland Festival of Photography Two Rooms presents new large scale colour photographs by Mark Adams. The exhibition celebrates the work of carver Tene Waitere and additionally launches the accompanying book, Ruaru, published by Otago University Press. The book is a collaboration between Mark Adams and anthropologist Professor Nicholas Thomas from Cambridge University. Tene Waitere (1854-1931) was one of the greatest Maori carvers of the colonial period. Waitere was the first Ngati Tarawhai artist to produce a major corpus of material for European clients ... The book takes its title from Rauru, the meeting house named after the creator of the art of carving in Te Arawa and some other tribal traditions, which arguably incorporates Tene's greatest work. Carved with Anaha te Rahui and Neke Kapua for the Rotorua hotel manager C. E. Nelson over 1897-1900, the whare whakairo is renowned for its figurative representation of major elements of Maori myth, but is innovative and adventurous in many ways, full of mana, and consistently assured in the flawless and dynamic character of its carving. Nelson sold the house to the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Hamburg, in 1904, and it has remained in that museum - renowned for great Oceanic collections, mainly associated with German expeditions and colonies in the Pacific - ever since"--Two Rooms Gallery.