My weekend snooping around Ōtautahi's most famous buildings
Alex Casey goes on an odyssey through some of the most important buildings in Christchurch.
Moving to Ōtautahi in the 2020s is a bit like starting a prestige TV show about five seasons in. The budget is massive, the production values slick and shiny, and the reviews are positive, but you still can't escape the fact that you've missed out on pivotal early character building and some truly enormous plot points. As a result, you're left hurriedly searching up things on Wikipedia at social events, nodding along sagely at mentions of vaguely familiar villains (Gerry Brownlee) and collecting morsels of lore like a magpie wherever you can.
Can you really ever understand a place if you missed the most galvanising moments in its recent history? And how do you go about backfilling that knowledge and those experiences? I've learned a lot already through telling stories of creativity and community here, be it the miniature rendering of the pre-quake city or the turtle rescuer still caring for quake refugees. But it was a recent deep dive into the Brutalist Timezone and the new stadium at Te Kaha that opened up another crucial (and screamingly obvious) portal to better understanding Christchurch: the buildings as central characters.
With that in mind, last weekend I toddled along to Open Christchurch, an architecture festival where the doors are swung open to some of the city's most significant buildings. Where the phrase 'architecture festival' may have previously left me retreating into one of those deep sleep chambers used by Matt Damon in Interstellar, I'd noticed there was a certain buzz around this festival for the past few years and it always seemed to sell out quickly. This year I managed to nab a powerful itinerary, and here is everything I learned from my snooping.
Saturday
My day began with a tour of College House in Riccarton, a place I had only ever driven past on the way to the airport and assumed, based on the aggro high white concrete walls, was some sort of boring sludge factory. But as we were welcomed in to stand by the crackling fire in the lounge of the student hall, I realised I could not have been more wrong. Deemed by architect Sir Miles Warren as his greatest creation when it opened in the 1960s, College House is still used as swanky University of Canterbury student accommodation to this day.
Architect Alec Bruce, who worked on the post-quake renovations, guided us through the courtyard to the Arthur Sims Library, which gave me a chilling bloodlust to study again (especially with texts on display such as Dan Carter's autobiography and 'Pizzas and Pastas'). Beneath rich warm wood panelling and spiral iron staircases, we gazed up at the centrepiece – an enormous web-like structure of dark beams and light fittings. 'Utterly gratuitous and utterly brilliant,' Bruce mused. 'And totally unexpected from the outside.'
Same goes for the College House chapel, which would be the first but not the last time I would hear about Gothic Revival (less spooky vibes, more high pitched roofing). Costing $3m to repair post-quake, the chapel was split into six pieces so the ground floor could be restored. 'This is not the sort of building an engineer would let you design post earthquake,' said Bruce. We ended the tour in the ornate art-filled dining hall, which used to have an original Bill Hammond plonked by the coffee machine until they realised how much it was worth.
From College House I zipped into the city for a tour of the Observatory Hotel in the Arts Centre, originally built in 1891 and home to the magical Townsend Teece telescope, one of the city's greatest objects. I'd written about the miraculous survival of the ' munched ' telescope during the quakes, but hadn't had the chance to nosey around its surrounds. The entire observatory tower collapsed in 2011 and was, as guide Shane Horgan told us, meticulously reconstructed with every piece of basalt stone numbered and put back in its original place like a jigsaw puzzle.
Inside the building, formerly the University of Canterbury's home of astronomy and physics, the original wooden staircase curled towards the heavens. It was still standing when everything collapsed around it, and was taken offsite and kept under a tarp at Christchurch Boys High. The stairs creaked in welcome as we ascended. 'That's a heritage feature,' laughed Horgan. 'Cost a lot of money, by the way.' After a peek at some of the rooms (very flash, very high ceilings) we ended the tour under the mighty telescope, still pointed skyward as it was over 130 years ago.
Back on the ground, I sprinted past punters on the river to Te Ara Pū Hā – yet another place I had no idea existed. Modelled on The High Line in New York, this is a four-block stretch of lush green planting that will one day form a forest corridor along the city's edge. Landscape architect Adrian Taylor and cultural advisor Te Marino Lenihan explained that the design was born out of a close working relationship with Ngai Tahu. 'The collaboration was powerful and should be done more often,' said Lenihan. 'This is the blueprint of true treaty partnership.'
That idea of treaty partnership was evident on the tour itself, which opened with Taylor doing his pepeha aloud for the very first time – Lenihan encouraging him to go off the cuff – and the group introducing themselves and where they were from. Along the way, Lenihan explained how the rebuild allowed for Ngāi Tahu to have a greater presence in the city. 'Before the quakes, Christchurch was known as the most English city outside of England,' he said. 'We were invisible as mana whenua, so the opportunity was there to put our fingerprints on the future.'
Those fingerprints could be found everywhere from the illuminated pounamu tiles to the angular stone seating inspired by purupuru. Wandering down four city blocks, we learned about the dozens of species of native plants on show, including edibles for foraging like pūha and horopito, as well as soon-to-be giants like kahikatea and harakeke. The tour ended with everyone cheersing with a 'mauri ora' before sampling a thimble of Taylor's own artisanal gin, infused with native botanicals from the very same walkway we had just strolled down.
As a non-drinker, I rode a light botanical buzz all the way to the Town Hall, chatting with a former architecture lecturer named Jonathan who had travelled from Napier for the festival. He showed me some of the sketches he had been doing around the city, and frequently stopped on the walk to point out how timber framing fire resistance works, or how the gold exterior of Tūranga looks like curtain being drawn open, or the provenance of the word 'keystone' as it relates to the arch on the Heritage hotel. My head was spinning, and not just from the 5ml of horopito gin.
We made it inside the Douglas Lillburn Auditorium, renowned for having some of the very best acoustics in the world. I walked onto the very same stage as the Vengaboys and clapped my hands. The sound reverberated powerfully around the entire hall, and I had to resist doing three more claps to the tune of 'Shalala Lala' in tribute to the Eurodance legends. I took a seat in the back row of the hall, exhausted, and watched a little kid in an All Blacks cap take the stage and belt a wobbly bit of the national anthem. Moved to tears, I knew it was time to go home.
Sunday
The day began with me racing through the labyrinth of fencing in the square to make it inside the Christ Church Cathedral for the 10am tour. Donning hard hats and fluro pink vests, a group of 50 of us were given a brief introduction outside by Carolyne Grant, director of the rebuild project team. 'This is the literal and figurative heart of the city,' she said. 'It took 40 years to build the first time, we hope it is not that long this time.' Widely reported as being 'mothballed' late last year due to a lack of funds, Grant rejected the use of that term.
'It's not mothballed yet: it's paused. And we will need to find a new way forward,' she said.
With a heartfelt warning that re-entering the cathedral can feel overwhelming, we quietly stepped inside. One woman instinctively put her hand over her heart as she looked around at the exposed wooden skeleton. Another muttered 'oh, it's so sad' to nobody in particular. People shared stories of the last time they had been inside, including a man who had climbed the steeple a few weeks before the quake, and a woman who had visited the flower show with her Nana just days before. A topiary elephant stood amongst the ruins for weeks, apparently.
I admired a large yellow Beyonce-style fan, positioned close to where the altar might have originally been. It constantly secretes a bubblegum-smelling vapour that keeps the pigeons away – the same who famously dropped two tonnes of poo over their decade of squatting. Grant also acknowledged the dozens of stray cats and kittens who lived in the derelict cathedral over the years, and assured us all that they had all been safely rehomed. Now, her attention is focussed on the future: 'we could lose the cathedral if we don't care for it,' she warned.
It was very difficult not to be stirred by the sheer scale, emotion and ambition of the cathedral restoration project, already $85 million deep and only one third of the way complete when it was put on ice. Should Christchurch cling on to salvaging the first cathedral ever built in this country? Or cut our losses, let the pigeons back in, and call it an overpriced aviary? I didn't know the answer and I didn't really have time to mull it over – across the square the mayor and Dame Adrienne Stewart were about to cut the ribbon on the brand new Court Theatre.
With dust from the cathedral still on my boots, I joined a heaving crowd of radio hosts, Court Jesters and Mark Hadlow, all chomping at the bit to get into the new theatre. 'There is no place like home, so welcome to our new home,' said Dame Stewart. We poured inside, marvelling at all the exposed light wood and rusted exterior, a nod to the temporary location – The Shed – where the Court has operated for over a decade. Kids were doing improv in the rehearsal space, we got to poke around the props (fake eggs! fake pizza!) and look at the costume workroom.
'People make costumes here for their job,' explained one mum to her daughter, whose jaw was on the floor at all the wigs and shiny fabrics. 'You could go to uni and study that.'
From the brand new home of theatre to a temporary home of worship, I trotted my dusty boots through Latimer Square to the Transitional 'cardboard' Cathedral. Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and opened in 2013 for just $7 million dollars, there really was quite a lot of cardboard happening everywhere. As I stared up at the 96 cardboard tubes, each weighing 500 kg, that lined the A-Frame building, guide Richard Parker told me that Ban kindly donated the design pro-bono to the city. 'He's an All Blacks supporter, which helps,' he smiled.
The very last stop on my tour was Chateau on the Park, a really buzzy hotel designed by Peter Beavan in the 1970s in time for the Commonwealth Games. Tucked away in the bush off Deans Ave – 'you can still walk to Ricky mall from here, but you really feel like you are somewhere else' said guide Ann McEwan – even my half-shut eyes could recognise the high pitched roof as Gothic Revival. There was also a fish-filled moat (?) and two enormous suspended functional cauldrons (?). 'Two of the most bizarre things you will ever find in Christchurch,' McKewan said.
As a smiling robot vacuum cleaner parted our tour group like the red sea, I felt like I was finally transcending all sense of time and space. In just 48 hours I had been inside late 1800s Gothic Revival relics, 1960s university halls, 2010s post-quake disaster architecture and a brand new 2020s theatre only a few hours old. I had also seen the future in a newly-planted greenway, the lush results of which none of us will even be around to see. I had sipped botanical gin, picked pūha, clapped on a stage, and learned a lot more about this place than a Wikipedia page could ever offer.
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Scoop
04-06-2025
- Scoop
Dick Frizzell's Hastings & Studio International Revisited In Wellington
'International Modernism hit ILAM like a meteorite in 1961, and I was directly in the path of it … We suspected that something bigger was going on in the world thanks to ancient copies of the 'studio international' magazine but could never grasp the whole picture, such was the communication hole we seemed to be stuck in.' – Dick Frizzell. 'Everywhere and everyone other than our national museum seems to have noticed Dick Frizzell and his singular contribution to the art of Aotearoa. C'mon Te Papa – give Dick the retrospective he deserves!' – Mark Stocker, art historian and collaborator with / friend of the artist. Full Disclaimer: This article contains revised and updated material previously published in SCOOP in Feb 2017 to plug not only the recent publication of Frizzell's charming, frothy, and fascinating memoir, Hastings, A Boy's Own Adventure, but also his latest show at Wellington's Page Gallery which runs until June 14. With a range of works dating from the 1990s through to the present, Dick Frizzell's current exhibition at Wellington's Page Gallery, studio international, includes a number of his archetypal homages to great twentieth-century artists such as sculptor Alexander Calder, painter and sculptor Fernand Léger, painter Juan Gris, and sculptor Jean Tinguely. It's as though he's revisited their 'Greatest Hits' and recorded a number of quirky and intriguing 'cover' versions, some of which are fairly rough copies, while others play mischievously with the originals. All, however, are quite charming and beautifully framed. The show takes its title from the international art magazine founded in London in 1964, the lavishly illustrated pages of which offered young and hungry artists in Aotearoa a rare insight into what was happening in the rest of the world – including the young Frizzell, who was studying at the University of Canterbury at the time and recalled its influence on his early artistic evolution – ' International Modernism hit ILAM like a meteorite in 1961, and I was directly in the path of it. This major extinction event happened in my first year, in the middle of a tepid diet of polite early British Modernism hedged with a touch of Synthetic cubism. Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens, Paul Nash, William Scott … all great and I love them … but where were Peter Blake, Edward Ruscha, Jasper Johns? These guys were all warming up their primary colours while we were still stuck in the tertiaries! We suspected that something bigger was going on in the world thanks to ancient copies of the Studio International magazine but could never grasp the whole picture such was the communication hole we seemed to be stuck in. Then it was our turn to host the Universities Arts Festival. ELAM sent down a crate of paintings as their contribution to the Exhibition. And here's the meteorite: I was half-heartedly scumbling away with my neutral halftones when Murray Grimsdale burst into the studio and said, 'Come and have a look at this!' I followed him down the corridor to the sculpture department where they were crowbarring open a large crate by the loading bay. The first painting to be partially revealed … the one that got Murray in such a lather … was a large composition of what looked like a slice through a hardboiled egg. Concentric ellipses of high-keyed oranges, yellows and red. We couldn't believe it! They were teaching this at an art school? At Elam? The artist was John Perry and the teacher was Robert Ellis, brought out from England to teach design, but 'secretly' spreading the Mid 20th century gospel to any student hip enough to dig it. And that was pretty much it … a new world opened … and I visit it as often as I can! ' * * * Now recognised as one of the most influential and celebrated contemporary Pop artists in Aotearoa, Dick Frizzell (Tāmaki Makaurau) has often slipped like an eel through the nets of traditional critical definition. His popular appeal and commercial success, however, may well be due precisely to the dramatic swerves and diversions he has made between different styles and genres. His work is characterised by a highly skilled handling of paint and an endlessly inventive range of subject matter and styles, ranging from faux-naive New Zealand landscapes, figurative still-life, comic book characters, and witty parodies of modernist abstraction. Never content with adhering to any one particular style, his taste is conveniently broad and he has a penchant for fondly remembered and well-worn clichés. His work possesses a sense of exuberance, irony, and nostalgia that subverts traditional hierarchies of 'high' and 'low' art and pokes fun at the existential angst of much New Zealand painting in the art culture of his youth. Born in Auckland in 1943, Frizzell trained at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury from 1960-63, studying under Rudi Gopas and Russell Clark. Like Warhol, he went on to work in advertising for several years, where he gained a deep appreciation for the characters he later incorporated into his art work, before becoming a full-time painter in 1995. His commercial work taught him all about how to blur categories with his later paintings often appearing as a pastiche of images drawing on modern art and graphic design. Many of Frizzell's prints and paintings are inspired by comic books, advertising trademarks, Maori iconography, and rural road signs, addressing issues around cultural (mis)appropriation, bicultural cross-fertilisation, art as design, and the politicisation of New Zealand art. Given the rapid and complex social changes that have occurred in New Zealand over the last thirty years, questions about Kiwi cultural identity are highly relevant to his work and Frizzell has eagerly investigates and reflects on them, underscoring his commitment not only to exploring a genuinely antipodean Pop sensibility, but also its commercial potential. Like Lichtenstein, Frizell consciously adopts unfashionable styles of painting and some of his best-known work plays with the 'Four Square Man,' an advertising character for the Four Square grocery chain. He is most notorious for his appropriation of kitsch Kiwiana icons, which he often incorporates into cartoon-like paintings and lithographs, which got him into trouble over the lithograph Mickey to Tiki which portrayed a cartoon Mickey Mouse evolving in stages into a Tiki and became a best-selling print and popular T-shirt. The major retrospective Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste of 1997 also attracted some controversy over Grocer with Moko (1992), which offended some viewers by depicting the Four Square man with facial moko. Frizzell has licensed designs to the Esther Diamond linen company, released a number of varieties of Frizzell Wines, and designed the cover and several illustrations for The Great New Zealand Songbook (2009). In the same year, he published the eponymously titled Dick Frizzell: The Painter, with a foreword by Hamish Keith, and in 2012 completed a series of paintings relating to poems by Sam Hunt. At their opening exhibition, Frizzell said that he and Hunt had committed the 'ultimate sin of being understood' in their respective media. Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow described his approach in Contemporary New Zealand Art 2 – 'It was while working in the environment of commercial advertising that Frizzell began to pluck familiar objects from their usual context and turn them into arresting images. Several products that were 'household' names to New Zealanders in the late 1970's became icons in Frizzell's hands. From sources as varied as canned fish wrappers, corner shop signage and junk mail, he turned images into paintings, giving titles that introduced unexpected associations.' Michael Dunn, in his Contemporary Painting in New Zealand, noted that Frizzell's work often exhibits 'an eclectic quality, brought about by the variety of styles he has borrowed, pastiched or commented on in his art. In much of his imagery, no line is drawn between low art sources such as comic book illustrations or packaging and the high art references with which his painting is freely sprinkled.' Not all of Frizzell's reviews have been as adulatory. In relation to his Rugby World Cup-related work, (including the T-shirts), art commentator Janet McAllister accused him of being a paid cheerleader and labelled him an adman – 'While Frizzell's work in the past could be interpreted as ironic commentary on cultural ownership, his RWC range includes a tiki made out of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union logo … In Frizzell's earlier work, Mickey to Tiki tu Meke, Mickey Mouse's face morphed into a tiki. It turns out this was less a questioning of (mis)appropriation and more a blueprint for advertising. Just change Mickey to the NZRFU logo and voila!' – while Metro magazine asked its readers whether there is anything he won't 'whore' himself out to. In an October 2011 interview for The NZ Herald, Greg Dixon provided a more nuanced assessment of Frizell's achievements – 'Alone among his contemporaries, Frizzell has turned himself into a multimedia business, the output of which – whether it's on canvas or an Esther Diamond cushion or a T-shirt or a wine bottle – is almost incidental to the creator's signature. A Frizzell is a Frizzell whether you hang it on the wall, pour it into a glass or wear it on your body. However, the central fact of Frizzell Inc is this: it's about the image, both the ones he creates with paint and ink and the one the man in the corduroy suit has created for himself. And both would seem to be the product of a puckish (and possibly contrary) mind that has been shaped by an atypical artist's life.' * * * Frizzell is represented in many public collections, including Christchurch Art Gallery, The Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, and Te Papa. His prints and paintings are held in many public, corporate, and private collections throughout New Zealand, and major commissions include works for Sky City Casino and painting an Ansett New Zealand aeroplane for Starship Children's Hospital. He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts in 2004. Exhibition highlights include the major travelling retrospective Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste (1997) and a residency in Antarctica as part of the Invitational Artist Programme (2005). He has also published numerous books including the monograph Dick Frizzell: The Painter (2009); It's All About the Image (2011); and Me, According to the History of Art (2020); and Hastings, A Boy's Own Adventure, A Mamoir (2025).
Scoop
04-06-2025
- Scoop
Dick Frizzell's Hastings & Studio International Revisited In Wellington
'International Modernism hit ILAM like a meteorite in 1961, and I was directly in the path of it ... We suspected that something bigger was going on in the world thanks to ancient copies of the 'studio international' magazine but could never grasp the whole picture, such was the communication hole we seemed to be stuck in.' - Dick Frizzell. 'Everywhere and everyone other than our national museum seems to have noticed Dick Frizzell and his singular contribution to the art of Aotearoa. C'mon Te Papa - give Dick the retrospective he deserves!' - Mark Stocker, art historian and collaborator with / friend of the artist. Full Disclaimer: This article contains revised and updated material previously published in SCOOP in Feb 2017 to plug not only the recent publication of Frizzell's charming, frothy, and fascinating memoir, Hastings, A Boy's Own Adventure, but also his latest show at Wellington's Page Gallery which runs until June 14. With a range of works dating from the 1990s through to the present, Dick Frizzell's current exhibition at Wellington's Page Gallery, studio international, includes a number of his archetypal homages to great twentieth-century artists such as sculptor Alexander Calder, painter and sculptor Fernand Léger, painter Juan Gris, and sculptor Jean Tinguely. It's as though he's revisited their 'Greatest Hits' and recorded a number of quirky and intriguing 'cover' versions, some of which are fairly rough copies, while others play mischievously with the originals. All, however, are quite charming and beautifully framed. The show takes its title from the international art magazine founded in London in 1964, the lavishly illustrated pages of which offered young and hungry artists in Aotearoa a rare insight into what was happening in the rest of the world - including the young Frizzell, who was studying at the University of Canterbury at the time and recalled its influence on his early artistic evolution - ' International Modernism hit ILAM like a meteorite in 1961, and I was directly in the path of it. This major extinction event happened in my first year, in the middle of a tepid diet of polite early British Modernism hedged with a touch of Synthetic cubism. Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens, Paul Nash, William Scott … all great and I love them … but where were Peter Blake, Edward Ruscha, Jasper Johns? These guys were all warming up their primary colours while we were still stuck in the tertiaries! We suspected that something bigger was going on in the world thanks to ancient copies of the Studio International magazine but could never grasp the whole picture such was the communication hole we seemed to be stuck in. Then it was our turn to host the Universities Arts Festival. ELAM sent down a crate of paintings as their contribution to the Exhibition. And here's the meteorite: I was half-heartedly scumbling away with my neutral halftones when Murray Grimsdale burst into the studio and said, 'Come and have a look at this!' I followed him down the corridor to the sculpture department where they were crowbarring open a large crate by the loading bay. The first painting to be partially revealed … the one that got Murray in such a lather … was a large composition of what looked like a slice through a hardboiled egg. Concentric ellipses of high-keyed oranges, yellows and red. We couldn't believe it! They were teaching this at an art school? At Elam? The artist was John Perry and the teacher was Robert Ellis, brought out from England to teach design, but 'secretly' spreading the Mid 20th century gospel to any student hip enough to dig it. And that was pretty much it … a new world opened … and I visit it as often as I can! ' * * * Now recognised as one of the most influential and celebrated contemporary Pop artists in Aotearoa, Dick Frizzell (Tāmaki Makaurau) has often slipped like an eel through the nets of traditional critical definition. His popular appeal and commercial success, however, may well be due precisely to the dramatic swerves and diversions he has made between different styles and genres. His work is characterised by a highly skilled handling of paint and an endlessly inventive range of subject matter and styles, ranging from faux-naive New Zealand landscapes, figurative still-life, comic book characters, and witty parodies of modernist abstraction. Never content with adhering to any one particular style, his taste is conveniently broad and he has a penchant for fondly remembered and well-worn clichés. His work possesses a sense of exuberance, irony, and nostalgia that subverts traditional hierarchies of 'high' and 'low' art and pokes fun at the existential angst of much New Zealand painting in the art culture of his youth. Born in Auckland in 1943, Frizzell trained at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury from 1960-63, studying under Rudi Gopas and Russell Clark. Like Warhol, he went on to work in advertising for several years, where he gained a deep appreciation for the characters he later incorporated into his art work, before becoming a full-time painter in 1995. His commercial work taught him all about how to blur categories with his later paintings often appearing as a pastiche of images drawing on modern art and graphic design. Many of Frizzell's prints and paintings are inspired by comic books, advertising trademarks, Maori iconography, and rural road signs, addressing issues around cultural (mis)appropriation, bicultural cross-fertilisation, art as design, and the politicisation of New Zealand art. Given the rapid and complex social changes that have occurred in New Zealand over the last thirty years, questions about Kiwi cultural identity are highly relevant to his work and Frizzell has eagerly investigates and reflects on them, underscoring his commitment not only to exploring a genuinely antipodean Pop sensibility, but also its commercial potential. Like Lichtenstein, Frizell consciously adopts unfashionable styles of painting and some of his best-known work plays with the 'Four Square Man,' an advertising character for the Four Square grocery chain. He is most notorious for his appropriation of kitsch Kiwiana icons, which he often incorporates into cartoon-like paintings and lithographs, which got him into trouble over the lithograph Mickey to Tiki which portrayed a cartoon Mickey Mouse evolving in stages into a Tiki and became a best-selling print and popular T-shirt. The major retrospective Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste of 1997 also attracted some controversy over Grocer with Moko (1992), which offended some viewers by depicting the Four Square man with facial moko. Frizzell has licensed designs to the Esther Diamond linen company, released a number of varieties of Frizzell Wines, and designed the cover and several illustrations for The Great New Zealand Songbook (2009). In the same year, he published the eponymously titled Dick Frizzell: The Painter, with a foreword by Hamish Keith, and in 2012 completed a series of paintings relating to poems by Sam Hunt. At their opening exhibition, Frizzell said that he and Hunt had committed the "ultimate sin of being understood" in their respective media. Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow described his approach in Contemporary New Zealand Art 2 - 'It was while working in the environment of commercial advertising that Frizzell began to pluck familiar objects from their usual context and turn them into arresting images. Several products that were 'household' names to New Zealanders in the late 1970's became icons in Frizzell's hands. From sources as varied as canned fish wrappers, corner shop signage and junk mail, he turned images into paintings, giving titles that introduced unexpected associations.' Michael Dunn, in his Contemporary Painting in New Zealand, noted that Frizzell's work often exhibits 'an eclectic quality, brought about by the variety of styles he has borrowed, pastiched or commented on in his art. In much of his imagery, no line is drawn between low art sources such as comic book illustrations or packaging and the high art references with which his painting is freely sprinkled.' Not all of Frizzell's reviews have been as adulatory. In relation to his Rugby World Cup-related work, (including the T-shirts), art commentator Janet McAllister accused him of being a paid cheerleader and labelled him an adman - "While Frizzell's work in the past could be interpreted as ironic commentary on cultural ownership, his RWC range includes a tiki made out of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union logo … In Frizzell's earlier work, Mickey to Tiki tu Meke, Mickey Mouse's face morphed into a tiki. It turns out this was less a questioning of (mis)appropriation and more a blueprint for advertising. Just change Mickey to the NZRFU logo and voila!" - while Metro magazine asked its readers whether there is anything he won't "whore" himself out to. In an October 2011 interview for The NZ Herald, Greg Dixon provided a more nuanced assessment of Frizell's achievements - "Alone among his contemporaries, Frizzell has turned himself into a multimedia business, the output of which - whether it's on canvas or an Esther Diamond cushion or a T-shirt or a wine bottle - is almost incidental to the creator's signature. A Frizzell is a Frizzell whether you hang it on the wall, pour it into a glass or wear it on your body. However, the central fact of Frizzell Inc is this: it's about the image, both the ones he creates with paint and ink and the one the man in the corduroy suit has created for himself. And both would seem to be the product of a puckish (and possibly contrary) mind that has been shaped by an atypical artist's life." * * * Frizzell is represented in many public collections, including Christchurch Art Gallery, The Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, and Te Papa. His prints and paintings are held in many public, corporate, and private collections throughout New Zealand, and major commissions include works for Sky City Casino and painting an Ansett New Zealand aeroplane for Starship Children's Hospital. He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts in 2004. Exhibition highlights include the major travelling retrospective Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste (1997) and a residency in Antarctica as part of the Invitational Artist Programme (2005). He has also published numerous books including the monograph Dick Frizzell: The Painter (2009); It's All About the Image (2011); and Me, According to the History of Art (2020); and Hastings, A Boy's Own Adventure, A Mamoir (2025).
Scoop
27-05-2025
- Scoop
The Amici Ensemble Provide A Master Class In Françaix, Fauré, & Brahms
Formed in 1988, the Amici Ensemble has been part of Aotearoa's classical music scene for over thirty-five years. Now under the magisterial leadership of NZSO Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong, its membership changes each year depending on the works being performed. Previously Principal Second Violin of the Denmark's Tivoli Sinfoniorkester, Concertmaster of the French Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, and Music Director of the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, Armstrong plays a 1754 Nicolò Gagliano violin. This year the Ensemble includes Monique Lapins, Second Violinist of the NZ String Quartet and a Lecturer at Victoria University's School of Music. She tours with the Ghost Piano Trio, performs regularly with leading orchestras and her delightful 2024 album, Notes From a Journey II, won Best Classical Artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards. Lapins played viola in this concert. Robert Ibell played cello in the NZSO from 1993 to 2019 and now teaches and performs widely across Aotearoa, also collaborating in the Aroha Quartet, the Papaioea Piano Trio, and Hammers & Horsehair. A Yale DMA graduate, Jian Liu is an internationally acclaimed pianist, chamber musician, and educator. He has performed at New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and has recorded extensively. He is currently Programme Director of Classical Performance and Head of Piano Studies at Victoria University's School of Music. Last Sunday at St Andrew's, this formidable combination of top-flight musicians provided a master class in filigree technique with the three challenging chamber pieces. Aided and abetted by the intimate acoustics, their attentive and appreciative audience were treated to a superb recital tinged with virtuoso elements of stunning colouration and dynamic shading. It's a struggle to find sufficient superlatives to describe their performance. Full Disclosure: The following detailed analysis is intended largely for the edification of amateurs, students, and musical pedants. Others should probably skim or omit it entirely. It is indebted to Armstrong's insightful program notes, from which it was drawn, adapted, and expanded, with the invaluable assistance of Wikipedia. Working in reverse chronological order, the proceedings began with an effervescent rendition of Jean Françaix's String Trio. Françaix (1912-97) was a French neoclassical composer whose prolific output and vibrant style was at home in a wide variety of genres. Since he was also a virtuoso pianist, many of his most enduring scores consist of chamber pieces for piano. Maurice Ravel told the young musician's parents, "Among the child's gifts I observe above all the most fruitful an artist can possess, that of curiosity: you must not stifle these precious gifts now or ever, or risk letting this young sensibility wither.' Fortunately, they did not. Françaix went on to compose over two hundred pieces for nearly every orchestral instrument, including the saxophone. His arrangements are distinguished not only by their lightness and wit, but also by a conversational interplay between musical lines that changed little throughout his long career. Inspired by Stravinsky, Ravel, and Poulenc, he integrated their influence into his own extensive aesthetic palette of tone colours, while remaining an avowed neoclassicist who drew from literature for many of his vocal settings, rejected atonality and formless wanderings, and wrote ten movie scores for film director Sacha Guitry. Written in 1933 when he was just twenty-one, his String Trio sparkles with playful and elegant restraint, infusing classical forms with a distinctly modern sense of humour and rhythmic vitality. Armstrong's describes the opening Presto as a 'quicksilver movement that danced through shifting textures.' Françaix's interplay between the instruments was reminiscent of a lively café conversation - witty and mischievous, yet always graceful. The central Scherzo is puckish and ironic, its off-kilter rhythms and whimsical melodic lines highlighting his talent for inverting traditional dance forms and creating an irresistible atmosphere of charming surprise. The final Andante Rondo - Vivo, as rendered by the Ensemble, certainly went off with a burst of fizzing, frothy energy. Though not as frequently performed as his wind works, the String Trio displayed Françaix' exceptionally mature degree of melodic invention. Although it demands huge technical skill, its distinctively French neoclassical accent is impeccably bright, intricately clever, and gracefully crafted. Françaix himself commented, 'I am always told that my works are easy. Whoever says that has probably not played them.' Nevertheless, the Amici Ensemble's vivacious rendition made it seem almost effortless. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a transitional figure in modern French music, spanning Romanticism to the kind of Fauvist colourations much favoured in the early twentieth century. Composed in 1885-86, his Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor displays not only the elegance of Impressionism, but also Fauré's own refined musical language and poetic inspiration. Written during a time of personal turmoil that included a broken engagement and increasing deafness, yet at the height of his lyrical powers, his second Piano Quartet has a rich emotional depth that ranges from restless yearning to radiant beauty. Following the German Romantic influence of Schumann's and Brahms' Piano Quartets, Fauré became intrigued by the possibilities of a piano quartet in the classical four-movement structure - an opening Allegro, followed by a Scherzo, a slow movement, and the Finale. Jean-Michel Nectoux proposed that Fauré's adoption of this unusual form demonstrated not only a desire to break new ground, but also a commercial motivation because the classical repertory contained so few top-flight piano quartets (with the exception of those composed by Mozart). A work of great emotional complexity, subtle beauty, and refined craftsmanship, it premiered in January 1887. I and remains one of Fauré's finest achievements in chamber music. The first movement, Allegro molto moderato, is in classical sonata form and opens with a unison string melody accompanied by relentless piano figuration, providing a sweeping theme that sets a high level of emotional intensity. Fauré's distinctive harmonic language infuses the music with a sense of longing and movement with the piano weaving in and out of the strings' lyrical lines, creating an intimate, molto tranquillamente texture. The fleet-footed Scherzo in C minor is the shortest of the four movements and provides a delightful contrast. As Armstrong observed, its mellifluous piano runs and quicksilver strings contain a shadow of melancholy that lingers just below the surface, showcasing Fauré's preternatural gift for balancing delicacy with rhythmic energy. It assumes a rapid 6/8 metre with a syncopated piano theme, as melodic material from the first movement is transformed into a rondo. Cross-rhythms of 3/4 in a broad string melody give way to another smooth theme which constitutes a sort of interlude, although the perpetuum mobile of the main Scherzo material continues behind it and gently carries the movement to its conclusion. Fauré's delicate unfolding of one of his most poignant slow movements, the Adagio non troppo, provides the emotional fulcrum of the piece. A simple, hymn-like theme in the strings evokes a reflective tenderness in E-flat major. Fauré described the gentle undulating piano figure with which it opens as "a vague reverie,' inspired by the memory of evening church bells in the village of Cadirac near his childhood home. The viola solo that follows is a rhythmically modified version of the second subject from the first movement, transformed into a gently oscillating siciliano. At the start of the middle section, the bell figure is played on the strings in a mixture of arco and pizzicato as the movement slowly builds to a fortissimo climax before it returns, guiding the music back to pastoral quiet. This bell theme returns again in the coda, fleshed out by the elaborate piano accompaniment to a cello melody, before the piece ends quietly in the home key of E flat major. Nectoux suggested that "The sense of space it creates, rapt and profound within a narrow range of notes, marks it out as being truly the music of silence.' The Allegro molto Finale returned to the dramatic intensity of the opening section's driving rhythms and sweeping melodies, with moments of lush lyricism and grace tempering the storm, and leading to a resolute conclusion. The movement sets off in fast triple time, with an insistent rising string melody together with piano triplets. The second subject, derived from the molto tranquillamente theme of the first movement, is a vigorous waltz-like theme succeeded by a melody for viola and cello that relates to the trio section of the Scherzo. Critic Stephen Johnson observed, "Passion and violence are again let loose … The relentless forward drive of this movement is quite unlike anything else in Fauré.' In his biography of Fauré, musicologist Robert Orledge remarked that the Second Piano Quartet"announces his full artistic maturity' and 'marks a significant advance on the First Quartet in the force of its expression, the greater rhythmic drive and complexity of its themes, and its deliberately unified conception.' Nectoux found the second theme "rather on the heavy side" and a later section "unusually for Fauré, lacking in imagination,' while Aaron Copland thought it showed the composer "less carefree, less happy, more serious, more profound" than before. For Copland, the Adagio was "the crowning movement of the quartet … a long sigh of infinite tenderness, a long moment of quiet melancholy and nostalgic charm. Its beauty is a truly classic one if we define classicism as 'intensity on a background of calm'." Joannes Brahms (1833-97) began composing his Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor during a strained and unrequited romantic liaison with Clara Schumann, whose brother Robert was struggling with mental illness. Revising and completing it almost twenty-years later in 1875, the music possesses profound emotional depth and richness, earning its nickname the Werther Quartet in referrence to Goethe's tormented and lovesick hero. Sending the completed work to his publisher, Brahms wrote, 'You may place a picture on the title page, namely a head - with a pistol in front of it. This will give you some idea of the music.' It's now regarded as one of his most profound chamber music statements, infused not only with a profound sense of longing and despair, but also defiant resilience as it seemingly transmutes darkness into light. Its structure is both fascinating and extremely complex. The first movement, Allegro non troppo, is in C minor in triple meter, opening with a dark, restless theme in which the interplay between piano and strings demonstrates Brahms' complete mastery of variation and development as he explores the movement's emotional extremes. Beginning with the piano playing bare octaves on C, the violin, viola, and cello then cover the first theme, consisting of two 'sighing' gestures of a descending minor second, followed by a descending theme. Some have speculated that this 'sighing' motif is a musical utterance of the name 'Clara.' More obvious is Brahms' transposed version of Schumann's 'Clara Theme,' first detected by Eric Sams - 'The first sentence of that autobiographical work is doubly expressive of Clara. Furthermore, there is direct evidence that this melodic form actually embodied her, for Brahms as for Schumann.' The opening section ends on a dominant pedal on G, with the violin and viola playing pizzicato octaves that turn the key to E minor., with chromatic descent employed to bring the music to a half-cadence on D and leading to the second theme in G major. The second movement consists of a short, tempestuous C minor Scherzo in compound duple meter that bursts forth with ferociously jagged rhythms, sharp accents, and pulsating energy, in contrast to the fragile Allegro Andante, where a serene cello melody offers some respite from the sonic assault. This gently lyrical movement reflects Brahms' lingering affection for Clara, a brief glimpse of warmth and calm amid the Quartet 's otherwise overcast environment. Donald Francis Tovey argued that Brahms used the same key as the first movement because the latter did not sufficiently stabilise its own tonic and needed the second movement to furnish 'the tonal balance unprovided for by the end of the first movement." The third movement, marked Andante, is in a modified ternary form, beginning with a luscious cello melody played in its upper register with only the piano providing accompaniment that was inspired by Schumann's Piano Quartet. In a gesture Brahms frequently employed, the opening thematic material of this melody is a sequence of descending thirds. The coda explores the remote key of E major, introduced by a new chord progression in the first tutti idea and a solo cello line, and concluding with a pianissimo affirmation of the tonic. The Finale: Allegro comodo in C minor is in cut time with a secondary subject in E flat major and returns to the quartet's brooding core, revisiting earlier themes with renewed intensity and culminating in a cathartic, yet ambiguous ending. Brahms incorporates multiple levels of reference and quotation, with the piano accompaniment for the first theme derived from the opening piano line of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in C Minor, which also features a quotation of a chorale melody taken from a sixteenth-century Genevan psalter. Vincent C. K. Cheung observed that the opening G-E flat transition in the violin, coupled with the piano part, refers to the 'Fate Theme' in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Austrian musicologist Karl Geiringer thought Brahms had "for once overshot the mark,' pointing out that the next section is inserted "in order to mitigate the excessive conciseness of this movement,' and that later insertions were atypical of Brahms because of his "striving after compression.' The coda opens with the piano loudly declaring the homo-rhythmic theme alternating with the strings and eventually subsiding into a tranquillo section in which the inversion of the violin theme first stated in the exposition is sequenced across all strings, while the piano continues to develop its initial theme. The violin theme begins in C major, but soon shifts back to C minor as the four-note idea from the development section returns, this time with its first note removed. The violin and cello eventually manage to sustain the tonic C, while the piano and viola lean toward the tonic major. All instruments continue to die down as the piano plays one last descending chromatic scale, while the violin and viola combine the piano's initial theme with the quarter note rhythm and the cello sustains a low C. As the piano and strings reach their final notes, a pianissimo C major chord is held briefly, as though shining out of the mist. Two loud and abrupt C major chords complete the Quartet with a resounding flourish that suggests a both a mature acceptance of loss and a sense of triumphant resolution. Wellington Chamber Music was formed in 1945 and has been presenting Sunday Concerts since 1982. The concerts feature top NZ artists and most concerts are recorded by RNZ Concert for later broadcast, often in the 1-3 pm slot on RNZ Concert. Ticket prices are modest as the organisers are unpaid volunteers, though the artists receive professional fees. Next Concert: John Chen (piano), Sunday 15 June. Francis Poulenc Three Novelettes; Henri Duparc Four Melodies; César Franck Prelude Chorale and Fugue; Gabriel Fauré Theme and Variations Op 73; Camille Saint-Saëns 6 Etudes Op 111. For more information see or Eventfinda for bookings. Tickets are $40 or $10 for those under 26, while school students are free if accompanied by an adult.
