1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

6 Selwyn Murupaenga and Robyn Kahukiwa are, in a sense, among McCahon’s artistic progeny. Without Maori representation, the imaging of New Zealand’s identity and culture, at home and abroad, would now be considered devoid of credibility or authenticity. Ironically, however, Maori artists have discovered, in common with their Australian counterparts, that our art makes a far stronger international impact without “colonial” representation, and servq^ what Professor Ranginui Walker has described as “deeply felt needs for the maintenance of culture, assertion of identity, and resistance to assimilation”.10 A comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Maori art touring the United States of America at f present under the auspices of Te Waka Toi - the Maori Arts Council^ What is contemporary Maori art? The 1966 survey effectively defined it as^work produced by young Maori who were venturing out from their cultural base into the international, i.e. the western, art world. In recent years, however, there has been a palpable shift, a venturing back into tradition and into the past from a vastly widened bicultural base. In 1984 TeMaori packaged and marketed its treasures as though they had little connection with the present. But Taonga Maori: Treasures of the New Zealand Maori People, an exhibition shown in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane from 1989 to 1990, expanded on Te Maori’ s repertoire of traditional carving by men to include examples of traditional fibre arts by women, and works by contemporary sculptors and painters (including Robyn Kahukiwa). At a stroke, the history of Maori artmaking was relocated within a timeframe of fifty to sixty generations, reconstituted as 10 Ranginui J. Walker, A Place to Stand, in Te Ao Hurihuri: Aspcts of Maoritanga, ed. Michael King (Auckland, 1992), 25.