Modern Maori artists modify traditional practices and tapus

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 19

Modern Maori artists modify traditional practices and tapus

The opening images and sound of “From Stone Adze to Chainsaw” (10 p.m. on One) set the theme immediately: a traditional stone adze taptaps on a tree trunk, and is quickly displaced by the roar of a hydraulic chisel, which in turn gives way to a chainsaw as it easily slices a plank. Then there is the slap of clay being caressed and moulded into human forms. The way that Maori art is being crafted today has changed dramatically from traditional times. Just how much can be seen on “From Stone Adze to Chainsaw," a locally produced arts programme with a difference. The producer, director and presenter of the programme is Selwyn Muru, a well known radio and television broadcaster, sculptor, painter and playwright. He was determined to avoid “artists being turned into edifices rather than just getting on with their art.” To achieve this, Muru visits the artists and lets them and their individual art take over the programme, even if that involves a trip to the

rubbish tip. Muru visits a traditional carver and four modern Maori sculptors where they live and work, speaking first with Tuti Tukaokao (Ngati Ranginui/Ngai Tamarawaho), master canoe and meeting house carver in the Ngapuhi style. Straight away the message begins to come through that traditional practices and tapus have to be modified in the modern world. “In ancient times, a carver was supported by the village, but nowadays, who will feed my children and make my living?” asks Tuti Tukaokao, acknowledging his debt to power tools. Still in the north, Muru drops in on Shona RapiraDavies (Ngati Wai) current holder of the Frances Hodgkins fellowship, who is still reeling from the creative shock of turning from painting to sculpture.

This artist’s group of life-sized terracotta female figures caused a stir at the National Art Gallery for the uncompromising slogans painted on their clothes. “From Stone Adze to Chainsaw” also travels to

a rubbish tip in Hastings. Artist Para Matchitt (Te Whanau-a-Apanui/Ngati Porou) demonstrates that all the raw materials needed for sculpture are right there. By salvaging scraps from the burnt-out Hastings Intermediate School,

he is able to create “a phoenix rising from the ashes!’

The programme moves from iron to wood, when Fred Graham, of Ngati Koroki, makes wood "talk” by letting its natural grain dictate form.

Back in Auckland, Arnold Manaaki Wilson (Te Arawa/Tuhoe), the first Maori to ■ graduate in sculpture from the Elam School of Art, explains why his present wood sculpture is so simplified in form. Each of these five artists is given time to reveal him or herself, and justify their artistic stance to Maori people in general and to their own kaumatua in particular. There are philosophical discussions at the rubbish dump, inside barns and in Skyline garages about how there is no going back to rigid forms of the past.