In a first for Wellington, Lisa Reihana will be showing in a dealer gallery in the capital. Lisa Reihana: a resolute search will come to Page Galleries in Wellington, in February 2022 and include a series of portraits derived from one of the artist’s most famous offerings, in Pursuit of Venus [infected], which premiered at Auckland Art Gallery in 2015.
Exhibited around the world, the panoramic video spans 26 metres and runs for 32 minutes.
It’s a reimagining of Joseph Dufour’s 1804 wallpaper panorama Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. The living subjects act out encounters between Polynesians and Europeans that stand in contrast to the Enlightenment myth Dufour and his designer Jean-Gabriel Charvet envisaged; of pleasing, noble savages living in an uncharted paradise.
In Lisa Reihana: a resolute search, characters in the video work have been made into portraits which will be available for purchase, along with other works.
Director of Page Galleries, Marcia Page, said that the showing had “all come together quite quickly”, and noted the serendipity with Reihana’s role of Artist in Focus for the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
“This is the first time her work will be available in a commercial context in Wellington and this news has created a lot of excitement. We are thrilled to be working with Lisa.”