Aotearoa Art Fair 2024 Photo: supplied
The Aotearoa Art Fair is the apex of the art market food chain. This weekend on the Tāmaki Makaurau waterfront, the public, 32 dealers and many curators from around Aotearoa come happily together at the fair for both the market and a champagne-charged party.
The aim, as the art fair’s 2024 slogan baldly states, “See Art! Love art!” and, most importantly, “Buy Art!”
This year, the Aotearoa Art Fair has seen some major changes. The fair is now under international ownership, run by the multinational organisers of a slew of international art fairs including Sydney Contemporary, Taipei Dangdai, and Tokyo Gendai. And it’s returned to an old venue: the Auckland Viaduct events Centre.
Aotearoa Art Fair 2024 Photo: supplied
It’s promised to be an ‘interactive programme’ including tarot card reading from Jonathan Smart Gallery/Emily Gardener Projects and artist Julia Morison, the chance to wear Korean artist Dung Hwan Bobby Park’s ceramic, bulletproof helmets and, on opening night, a live Champagne tower performance by Australian artist Michael Zavros, presented by gallery Starkwhite, in partnership with, naturally, Champagne Perrier-Jouët.
Glasses of champagne are synonymous with art fair opening nights and the latter performance had, to quote Taylor Swift, 'champagne problems'. The tower came crashing down before the performance even started, leavng RNZ's Culture 101 wondering if that was all a conceptual art strategy!
Yet this year, there’s also something going on that’s the antithesis of all the buying and selling - behold the Squiggla!
The Squiggla Making Space is about people of all ages getting hands on and playful with mark making on paper
Installation view, Squiggla Making Space, Te Uru, 2024. Photo: Te Uru
“There are no mistakes with Squiggla” says Squiggla’s co-director Sue Gardiner, “In the making process, you will begin to trust and relax, rather than judge and define”.
A Squiggla making space is also currently running daily until 12 May at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery.
Sue Gardiner has been a writer, patron and advocate for the arts for decades. A trustee and co-Director of the Chartwell Trust, which supports the visual arts and knowledge about the creative process, the Chartwell has one of the most significant collections of New Zealand and Australian contemporary art (held on long-term loan at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki). Sue Gardiner was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to the arts in 2019.
Installation view, Squiggla Making Space, Te Uru, 2024. Photo: Te Uru
The Chartwell Trust is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year, and with Squiggla is on a mission to support appreciation of the value and impact of creative visual thinking.
The Chartwell Trust’s 50th anniversary is also currently being celebrated with an exhibition at Waikato Museum, Decades Charted until 21 July. Kirikiriroa Hamilton is where the trust began, led by Sue’s father Rob Gardiner. Other events are to follow.
Started in 1974 in close dialogue with the Waikato Art Museum, the growing Collection was initially cared for by the Art Museum from 1974 to 1981. Then from 1982 to 1994, Chartwell ran it’s own independent public gallery, called the Centre for Contemporary Art and housed the collection there.
Sisters Karen Gardiner (left) and Sue Gardiner (right) at Decades Chartered, Waikato Museum, February 2024. Photo: Mike Walen
