Art catalogues

I read with interest Kim Knight’s article (Weekend Herald, June 5) backgrounding the lack of documentation on Ralph Hotere’s recent Dunedin exhibition, Atete. ¯

For artists of equivalent major status like Frances Hodgkins and Gordon Walters, their recent exhibitions have been accompanied by informed, insightful commentary in books/catalogues. These are also critically important when the exhibition itself is over, becoming the key records of such significant events.

Though reasons for the Hotere case may differ from those pertinent to other exhibitions; I noticed that two other major exhibitions, also by M¯aori artists, the Auckland Art Gallery’s Toi T¯u Toi Ora and Brett Graham’s Tai Moana, Tai Tangata at the GovettBrewster in New Plymouth, also did without.

These publications are central to how Aotearoa/New Zealand’s art history is constructed, meaning that the artists, ideas and issues associated with these three critically important exhibitions will lose out. Elizabeth Eastmond, Waiheke Island.