VIDEO
Robert Jahnke speaks to Contemporary HUM about his work Te Wepu MMXXIII, which is featured in the 7th edition of Personal Structures in Venice. In this layered and historically ranging conversation, Jahnke highlights a formal whakapapa (genealogy) between the Māori prophet, Te Kooti and the Pai Mārire movement iconography, to contemporary uses of such iconography, including by the late sculptor and painter Paratene Matchitt.
In this episode of the Wallace Arts Channel Video Series, Bob Jahnke, paramount winner of the Wallace Arts Award, discusses recent work at the Pah Homestead. Jahnke’s works are defined through their questioning and challenging of the established Eurocentric narration of New Zealand’s history; he promotes and champions the Māori experience within his considered contemporary metaphor. Jahnke’s work is also part of the Wallace Arts Trust Collection.
Sydney Contemporary 2018 | Talk Contemporary
RANGITUHAHA; ASCENDING AND DESCENDING MĀORI NOTIONS OF TIME: Nigel Borell (Art Curator, Māori, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki) interviews Robert Jahnke, (Professor of Māori Visual Arts, Massey University, Palmerston North).
In 2020 Robert Jahnke received a Te Waka Toi award which recognises his outstanding contribution to Ngā Toi Māori, Maori Art. Funded and selected by Te Papa Tongarewa in association with Creative New Zealand.
The full project video of Bob Jahnke's monumental sculpture, Te Tatau ki Kirikiriroa, which was commissioned by MESH Sculpture Hamilton, in 2019. This informative video includes an interview with the artist, installation day and the opening ceremony attended by members of the council, local community and iwi leaders.
2023 Arts Foundation Laureate – Bob Jahnke ONZM FRSNZ (Sculpture) “My practice is not really about being an artist, really, it’s about being an educator. It’s coincidental that I’m an artist… I am really grateful for actually being acknowledged as an artist.”
Jahnke's presentation for the NZ Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 2021, traces a number of encounters with people and places which have resulted in illustrated children’s books, animated films, an ancestral house, and an indigenous visual arts degree programme; culminating in an outline of a forthcoming publication ‘Understanding Māori art: from carving to sculpture’. Robert's talk was part of the Ngā Ahurei Hou a Te Apārangi New Fellow Seminars, hosted in Te Whanganui-a-Tara at Royal Society Te Apārangi on 29 April 2021.
Promo video featuring the work of Bob Jahnke and selected artists from the epic Toi Tū Toi Ora exhibition (curated by Nigel Borell for the Auckland Art Gallery Toi ō Tamaki in 2020) for a documentary directed by Chelsea Winstanley and narrated by Taika Waititi.
Robert Jahnke discusses his work Te Tatau ki Kirikiriroa, which was commissioned by MESH Sculpture Hamilton and installed at Victoria on the River, in Hamilton, in 2019.