Christchurch Art Gallery

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu opened in 2003 behind a wall of undulating glass that bends the street back at you, and it costs nothing to walk into. The 2011 earthquake closed it for almost five years, and its reopening in 2015 became a marker in the city's slow rebuild. The collection is strongest on Canterbury and New Zealand art, with Bill Hammond's bird figures, Colin McCahon and a steady rotation of contemporary work, and the gallery's commissions spill out into car parks and blank walls around the central city. From 2016 to 2019 Ronnie van Hout's Quasi, a five-metre hand carrying the artist's face, stood on the roof while the city argued about it; it has since moved on to Wellington and then Hobart.

History

The city's previous public gallery, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Botanic Gardens, opened on 16 June 1932 and closed on 16 June 2002. The council bought the present site in 1996 and launched a design competition in 1998, and the new gallery opened on 10 May 2003 (Wikipedia, Christchurch Art Gallery).

Highlights

• The glass facade - the curved front that distorts reflections of the street and the hills beyond.
• The Canterbury collection - Bill Hammond, McCahon and regional painting from the last century.
• The glass front - the undulating wall of glass that bends the street back at you.
• Commissions around the centre - gallery-run artworks on walls and empty sites across the rebuilt blocks.

When to go

Free entry and long weekday hours make it an easy fill for a wet afternoon, and a weekly late opening draws a different crowd. Weekends are busier but still calm by big-city standards. Exhibitions change often, so look at what is on rather than planning around a particular work. An hour or two covers it comfortably.

What to expect

The amount of permanent collection on show is modest, and much of the space goes to temporary exhibitions that vary a lot in interest. The long closure after the earthquake still shapes how locals talk about the place. Around it, blocks of the central city remain patchy, with car parks where buildings stood.

Nearby

The Botanic Gardens, Hagley Park and the Riverside Market are all within a ten-minute walk.

Key facts