Wunderrūma: New Zealand Jewellery

WunderrÅ«ma binds the German word wunder (wonder) with the Māori word rÅ«ma (room). The title evokes ‘Wunderkammer’, or a cabinet of curiosities – massed collections of objects including artworks, cultural artefacts, natural history samples and more.

Combining work created by contemporary New Zealand artists, Māori taonga (treasures), and Pacific and historical European jewellery, WunderrÅ«ma: New Zealand Jewellery encapsulates the treasures that leading jewellers, and the exhibition’s curators, Warwick Freeman and Karl Fritsch found in their exploration of adornment in Aotearoa New Zealand. The exhibition resulting from their investigation – eclectic wonder rooms of carefully selected things – has contemporary jewellery as its core and includes historical, customary, fine art and industrial items of influence.

In 2014, the exhibition was shown at Galerie Handwerk in Munich, Germany asWunderrūma: Schmuck aus Neuseeland before returning to New Zealand for its presentation at The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt.

Reworking the original exhibition, this iteration draws from Auckland Art Gallery’s extensive collections of historical, modern and contemporary New Zealand and international art to expand on the original themes with artworks that share direct or metaphorical relationships with the jewellery pieces.

Includes Niki Hastings-McFall and Chris Charteris

18 July – 1 November 2015

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Cnr Kitchener and Wellesley Streets, Auckland