Feb 19, 2025 Metro Arts
Kia ora, hello, and welcome to the renewed, revived, refreshed, restarted, and rebirthed Metro Arts newsletter. You may remember this from the arts editorship of Lana Lopesi or her successor, Tendai Mutambu. You may have been waiting a long time for this email, or you may have forgotten about it entirely. Or perhaps you’re receiving this as a subscriber to our wonderful food newsletter, Pot Luck by Charlotte Muru-Lanning (in which case, we hope you’ll subscribe here too).
However we’ve found you, we hope this newsletter will grow to become your trusted fortnightly guide to the arts and culture of Tāmaki Makaurau. Exhibition openings, indie bands, stadium pop acts, poetry readings, string quartets, comedy galas, rap battles, must-watch television, grief-stricken one-person shows — we’ll have it all. Well, not all all — there’s no way we could claim to be so comprehensive — but rather, just the stuff we either like, think we’ll like, think you might like, or are simply curious about.
Look, we love making a quarterly magazine — we see it as our raison d’être, the best expression of the kind of publication we want to see in the world — but publishing 250-something pages every three months means we inevitably miss a lot. If it’s too far in the future or too far in the past, there’s a good chance we won’t be able to cover it. But here, in this Metro Arts newsletter, we will. Whether it’s reviews, interviews, ponderings, takes, or, of course, listings of the arts and cultural events we’re most excited about in Auckland, we’ve got you covered.
Thanks for reading (and subscribing, sharing with your friends, etc.)!
Henry
Editor
What’s On
The Curious Ball
Auckland Art Gallery
SATURDAY 1st MARCH
Auckland Art Gallery’s annual ball returns in 2025 to celebrate their major summer exhibition, Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey. Dust off your most astonishing duds and take in a classical soprano performance by Te Ohorere Williams and an exclusive performance by Atamira Dance Company, all underneath the mesmerising light of Under the weather in the Gallery’s Te Ātea (North Atrium). After your first dose of magic, and some timely refreshments, you get another dose of the arcane with exclusive after-hours entry to the Your curious journey exhibition. Intriguing.
Sunreturn Primer.
with Leonard Powell, Preacher, Louisa Nicklin And Green Grove
605 Morningside Drinkery
SATURDAY 22ND FEBRUARY
We love what Sunreturn are doing. The records they’re putting out and the shows they’re putting on. Not just because the line-ups are always thoughtful, but they start early (6PM), they finish early (8PM) and they give you the set times. Very civilised stuff.
Some homework: Listen to Leonard Powell’s debut, Preacher’s Day Dreamer (recorded at Storage King, as many great records are) and watch Louisa Nicklin live on RNZ last year.
Mā
Q Theatre
TUESDAY 25TH FEBRUARY – SATURDAY 1ST MARCH
There are so many things to see at Auckland Pride. One that’s caught our eye is Mā, which is pitched as a theatre and performance poetry work which digs into intertwined themes of chosen family, motherhood, and identity. That’s all set against the backdrop of diasporic Samoan life as an ode of affirmation to all trans fa’afafine living in Aotearoa. It sounds beautiful and poignant and it begins next week.
Brahms, Symphony No. 3
Auckland Philharmonia
Town Hall
THURSDAY 27TH FEBRUARY
If you’re looking for some particularly romantic music to extend the magic of a successful Valentine’s Day, may we suggest going to see the Auckland Philharmonia (recently rebranded from the APO) perform Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. If you need a little convincing, try lying on the floor in the dark, headphones on, and listening to the third movement. Recommended recordings include Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonic, which can easily be found on streaming services. There’s a high chance you’ll swoon like you haven’t swooned in a long, long time.
On Display
Photosynthesisers: Women and the lens
Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
ON NOW – TUESDAY 25TH MAY
Ponch Hawkes, Untitled (Lesbians are lovely), 1973, courtesy of the artist and Te Uru.
Photographs tell us a lot — consciously and unconsciously. From the mundanity of who was where and when, to the deeper social and political realities that happened to bring those threads together. In the spirit of discovery, we’re looking forward to hearing, or more correctly, seeing, some new stories at soon to open Photosynthesisers: Women and lens at Te Uru. In the gallery’s own words, Photosynthesisers is:
an exhibition of photographs and videos by 41 women artists and collectives from Aotearoa and Australia, including fa`afafine1, queer, and trans women, and those with ancestral ties to Aboriginal, Māori, and diasporic communities. Produced between the 1960s and 2024 by four generations of artists, exhibited works collectively offer cross-cultural and intergenerational perspectives on the social, political, and cultural conditions that impelled their capture.
While you’re in the area, we can highly recommend a reflective walk at the under-utilised Lower Nihotupu Reservoir, space to breathe and let it all sink in.
Prompts
Artspace Aotearoa
ON NOW – 17TH APRIL
This year, Artspace is delving into the perhaps unanswerable question, Is language large enough? (Perhaps Betteridge’s law of headlines — “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no” — is appropriate here.) First up is Prompts, an exhibition of early works by illustrious local Michael Parekōwhai and Turner Prize-winning UK artist Lubaina Himid. If nothing else, go see it for Parekōwhai’s 1990 breakthrough work The Indefinite Article.
Into Ocean & Ice
Edmiston Gallery, New Zealand Maritime Museum
ON NOW – 31ST AUGUST
Next time you’re down by the waterfront, why not cool off with a free trip to Antarctica courtesy of Into Ocean & Ice. The exhibition is the sum of five artists’ interpretation of the bottom of the bottom of the world, in the wake of the centenary of Ernest Shackleton’s final bite at the frozen cherry as well as the ever-present climate crisis facing our civilisation. Featuring emerging Aotearoa artists, Tegan Allpress (Rongowhakaata), Peregrin Hyde (Ngāti Maniapoto), Rose Lasham, and Charlie Thomas and the large-scale paintings of Paola Folicaldi Suh (Italy). We can’t help but look at the waterfront a little differently afterwards.
