(intimate friend of the same sex)
A brief look at the Auckland Art Gallery
29 March, 2023 | Auckland, New Zealand
In keeping with my general lack of planning I did not know what to expect from Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. As it turned out, it might be my favorite thing in the city.
First off: it is free. I found this to be the case in every museum and art gallery in Sydney as well, with a traveling or temporary special exhibit costing a nominal fee. This is one of the many things I think Seattle and the US in general should emulate.
Second, many of the exhibits on the first floor had both a standard description and what amounts to a queer interpretation based on some either obvious subtext or direct context that would - in my experience - not necessarily be covered in another gallery.
The entire first floor is this kind of work with both a standard and LGBTQ framing, usually by indigenous artists and interpreters. It was awesome. I’ll include just one more that reminds me of my late 20s:
This wasn’t even my favorite part. Allow me to introduce you to the entire second floor:
I tried to be respectful here and only photograph like half of the exhibits. I implore you to go take a look for yourself, but here are my favorites:
Finally, this isn’t an art but I love that the Catholic Church flirted with hornin’ Christ up during the Counter-Reformation. It honestly isn’t a bad approach when increasingly your major opponents are a bunch of insanely worked up repressed Calvinists.
Last thing - the final (third) floor has a nice cafe and small sculpture garden. It’s not particularly notable except this work caught me like a deer in headlights: it looks exactly how I felt after my flight in.
