Absence, the newest exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, argues that sometimes the most compelling thing is what isn’t there.

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Petrus van der Velden Burial in the Winter on the Island of Marken [also known as The Dutch Funeral] 1872. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, gift of Henry Charles Drury van Asch, 1932

Running from 6 May to 20 August 2023, Absence brings together works from artists working across diverse mediums and eras. All connect with that central theme – from things that have been and gone to those we think may soon arrive. Covering a wide spectrum that includes the mournful and the mischievous, the monumental and the hardly-there-at-all, Absence invites viewers to fill in the gaps.

The wide range of works includes:

• One of the Gallery’s best-loved paintings, Petrus van der Velden’s Burial in the Winter on the Island of Marken [also known as The Dutch Funeral] from 1872, alongside works by Aotearoa artists such as Rita Angus, Ralph Hotere, Colin McCahon, Séraphine Pick, Shane Cotton and Bill Hammond.
• Saying goodbye to Florence, a sombre and personal suite of 12 prints by Robin White that marked the death of her mother.
• A lithograph depicting death as a cloaked figure that was completed in Berlin in 1934 by Käthe Kollwitz, one of the foremost artists of social protest in the 20th century.
• Katharina Jaeger’s 2008 sculpture Pracht, assembled from discarded furniture parts found in an Ōtautahi Christchurch junk shop.
• A photograph by Tim Veling documenting part of Ōtautahi’s former residential red zone, where the vestiges of domestic gardens recall the lives of those who were forced to leave.
• A stained glass window recovered from the Barbadoes Street Cemetery Chapel, depicting Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James at the empty tomb of Christ.
• An unexpected portrait of the celebrated writer Margaret Mahy taken by Marti Friedlander in 2008.
• Ghost, a 2022 painting by Claudia Kogachi that recreates the much-parodied pottery scene from the 1990 film – without either Patrick Swayze or Demi Moore.

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