Following the success of his 2020 exhibition Tai Moana Tai Tangata, which was shown at three public institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand, Brett Graham continues to gain career momentum. He is widely regarded as one this country's most significant contemporary sculptors and at the forefront of first nation contemporary practice. He is one of four nominated finalists for the 2023 Walters Prize – New Zealand’s most prestigious art award.
Graham’s selection by curator Adriano Pedrosa for participation in this year’s Foreigner’s Everywhere exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale is testament to his success and increasing international attention. His large-scale sculpture, Wasteland, conceptually relates to Maungārongo ki te Whenua, Maungārongo ki te Tangata, a pivotal work in the artist’s career that is now part of the permanent collection of the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art.
Like the earlier work Wasteland takes the form of a wagon but in the place of traditional carvings featured in the earlier work, it is covered with carved eels, a statement about a traditional food source that is rapidly disappearing. Of the work Graham notes "I have become interested in colonial foundation mythologies that privilege pastural lands over wetlands. Traditional indigenous food sources such as eels were replaced by cattle and sheep, and wetlands described as ‘wastelands’.
Wasteland is a homage to nature and expresses a Te Ao Māori/indigenous proximity to the natural world.
The Biennale runs from 24 April - 24 November 2024; visit Biennale Art 2024 website for furrther infromation.
