Timelapse of the installation of the portrait wall at Te Papa.

A pūtātara (conch shell) that once belonged to a Tūhoe chief dating back to the 1600s is the oldest taonga going on display as part of Te Papa's grand opening of its refurbished art gallery.

After a year of drastic restructure that used steel equal to the weight of 467 rugby players, the new gallery space is finally opening on levels 4 and 5 and is the equivalent size of 15 tennis courts.

From 10am this Saturday, the public can discover Toi Art, with four major art exhibitions that span four centuries of New Zealand art from the 17th to the 21st – from a Tūhoe pūtātara thought to be last used near the New Zealand land wars, to challenging jewellery made of soft fabrics by Lisa Walker.



Te Papa's head of art Charlotte Davy said there was a real sense of variety and breadth.

Vivienne Haldane. Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists Niwhai Tupaea, Central Church, Beresford Square, Auckland, 1993.

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"We are trying to show a big swag of the collection and show how diverse the collection is in a number of ways," she said

"We've got 4000 square metres of refurbished gallery space, so it's a lot of room to bring important works out of the collection for, but also some works that haven't been out for a while too."

TE PAPA/Michael O'Neill Tūrangawaewae: Art and New Zealand is one of four major exhibitions opening in Te Papa's Toi Art this weekend.

The four main exhibitions include Tūrangawaewae Art and New Zealand, Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists, Lisa Walker: I want to go to my bedroom but I can't be bothered and Kaleidoscope: Abstract Aotearoa.

Tūrangawaewae Art and New Zealand will see two pieces finally come to the public eye after undergoing a major conservation treatment ahead of the exhibition.

George Dawe's Duke of Wellington, from about 1829, was gifted to the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in 1936 by the artist's nephew James Prendergast, who travelled to New Zealand with it in 1862.

Prendergast went on to become New Zealand's chief justice.

It is the first time Duke of Wellington has been on exhibition at Te Papa, much like Māori girl, by German artist Wilhelm Dittmer, from about 1904, which also underwent significant treatment for it premier appearance.

The oldest pieces in the exhibition include Tūhoe's pūtātara Te Umukohukohu, dating back to the 1600s, and Mrs Humphrey Devereux, an oil painting by the renowned American artist, John S. Copley, made in 1771

﻿Other beloved works from the national collection will also be on show, including paintings by C.F. Goldie, Gottfried Lindauer, Rita Angus, Ralph Hotere, Colin McCahon, Gordon Walters and Robyn Kahukiwa.

"This is an exhibition that really explores the idea of what is art and what is New Zealand. It's looking at a sense of identity in New Zealand and the sort of cross-cultural conversations that position New Zealand in the Pacific," Davy said.

"It's a really beautiful show in that it contains really much-loved work in our collection. It's a really beautiful survey of the collection and some of our most important works. I think people will find that quite a breathtaking and uplifting exhibition with regards to what New Zealand art is and what it means to be a New Zealander."

Meanwhile, Pacific Sisters: Fashion Activists, will profile the garments and performance used by eight Māori and Pacific women from the 1990s.

Pacific and Māori artists Lisa Reihana, Rosanna Raymond, Ani O'Neill, Suzanne Tamaki, Selina Haami, Niwhai Tupaea, Henzart @ Henry Ah-Foo Taripo, Feeonaa Wall and Jaunnie 'Ilolahiam once described themselves as the Polynesian version of Andy Warhol's Factory, using fashion, art and music as platforms of activism.

"Some of the photography that happened around their work started to make its way into mainstream publications in the forms of fashion editorial," Davy said.

"They were using young Pacifica and Māori people that they would grab off the street as models and created these beautiful fashion shoots which was very cutting-edge at the time because Māori and Pacific people weren't really seen in fashion magazines at all in that period.

"It's a very vibrant exhibition, with beautiful moving images of some of the performances, together with some of the costumes."

In another part of the gallery, Island Bay artist Lisa Walker will display a collection of her works which spans the last 30 years.

The world-renowned New Zealand jeweller trained in Dunedin and then went to Munich to create jewellery that questioned the sense of value.

"She doesn't use precious metal, for example, she uses found materials. Her most famous works are made from soft toys – there's a very fabulous squirrel on a skateboard. It can be very funny and very challenging in terms of its wearability," Davy said.

Toi Art opens on Saturday, March 17 from 10am. Entry is free.