Tour- New Zealand — Nico B. Young

Maori gateway at the Auckland airport. It had been about ten years since I was last in New Zealand. My mom is from there, and we visited often when I was a kid.

My brother had planned a trip of his own to Australia and New Zealand after dad died. The timing worked out that we were in Auckland at the same time.

I met him at Michelle and Will's house, where he was staying, for a dinner on my first night. James cooked.

Michelle brought out this duct tape flower I'd made in elementary school. They'd kept it all these years.

Lunch at the Auckland Art Gallery with Jackie and Michelle, who had both lived at my house at different periods of my childhood.

Painted 1906

Skyler came to the venue at soundcheck to say hi to the band.

It was unclear if Jackson would pull through for the rest of the tour, after postponing the previous two Australia shows. He did.

All our family friends showed up to the Auckland show.

Luka lived at our house when we were in high school, and I hadn't seen her since then.

I left Auckland and continued on to Welliington with the tour.

Massive sculpture in the Wellington airport, by Wētā Workshop, who did the special effects for all the Lord of the Rings.

City Gallery Wellington

One of my goals in New Zealand was to see a painting by the Kiwi painter Michael Smither in person

I was looking for his work in every museum and book shop I went in. I found this book of his early work that I had never seen before.

I had heard of a small artist-run space in Wellington called play-station. They happened to be having an opening the one night I was in Wellington.

The gallery was by the art school, so I was curious to see what the crowd was like.

The show was by an artist who had recently lost her father, and some of the work was about him. I talked to her and told her I had also recently lost my father and had a solo show upcoming and I was inspired to see how she paid tribute in her show.

The Wellington show.

Ripped my favorite jeans while helping with the load out.

New Zealand gov't capital building.

From Wellington, we flew to Christchurch, for the end of the tour.

In my hotel room, I was watching a video by a New Zealand carpentry youtuber.

At the end of one video he included some footage from a recent trip to Christchurch.

I realized that I could see the park they were at in the video from my window.

My hotel window also looked out over this big unpaved parking lot.

I remembered that Christchurch was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 2011.

Looking at historic aerials, I could see how much of the downtown was lost in the quake.

My hotel is in the center (it was actually the tallest surviving building) and all the parking lots surrounding it were once big buildings.

It was interesting to be in a city 10 years after most of it was destroyed, and see that the reconstruction is very much still in progress. Most of the downtown was empty lots.

I noticed a few small scrappy buildings built in the aftermath of the earthquake, as provisional community sites.

The city's famous 'Christ Church' in the center of town was still being rebuilt.

Many buildings had been condemned after the quake, but still stood, awaiting retrofitting, or demolition.

The town center was rebuilt in a very sleek modern style.

It was interesting to be in a city that was in the process of rebuilding itself, forging a new identity, meanwhile preserving what it could.

I ran into the Aussie tour promoters by the hotel one night and they took me out to an Indian restaurant. Great blokes!

Hanging out in the hotel lobby with crew and band guys before the last show.

I went to the earthquake museum.

The exhibits gave a timeline of the series of earthquakes that hit the town from 2010-2011

This screen played a skate video made by local skaters after the quakes, making use of all the new skate spots created by the upheaved sidewalks and rubble.

I loved seeing all the weird right-hand drive cars that never made it to the US market.

This car was rather beat up, and covered in moss and graffiti.

I later found this article.

The car had been made into a fountain for a temporary public sculpture.

In the hollowed out foundation of a building lost in the quake.

I wish I had gotten to see it.

The rebuilt Christchurch public library.

I finally found the definitive monograph of Michael Smither's work there.

I loved this painting.

I had a print of this painting on the cover on the wall in my college dorm room. I loved it so much. I made a painting inspired by it.

At the Christchurch art museum I saw a piece by my old sculpture professor, Fiona Connor.

I'd heard of a small gallery in town called The Physics Room. They were having a lunchtime artist talk on the day I was there.

The art scene there is small and intimate, so I stuck out. The curator Abby came up to me immediately after the talk and asked who I was. I stuck around and talked with the artist Priscilla Rose-Howe and her friend (who I didn't get a picture of) a guy named Lee.

I talked with Lee and asked what else I should check out while I was in Christchurch. He recommended a few places. He told me he was planning to come to LA in a few months and we exchanged contact info...

I went to this gallery Object Space that Lee recommended.

Then I went to the art academy building, which was still being restored.

The stonework was being redone with period-correct methods, part of why it was taking so long.

This was an exhibit of ephemera found in the rubble of the building

Young artists were being trained to carve stones cut from the same quarry the building had been made with 100 years ago.

They had kept some of the broken stone work from the original structure.

The art academy had a complex of boutiques

I was charmed by this homewares store Frances Nation, which had just opened a few days prior.

Frances Nation served an egg salad sandwich with preserved lemons.

One Million Marks by artist Chauncey Flay

A gallery worker explained that the artist had taken a hundred stones from around the south island, and ground them down into faceted sculptures.

He took the powdered stones and made pigments out of them.

He then made a 100 page book for each stone, with 100 marks made from its pigment.

All the books amounted to a million marks, hence the name of the show.

Each book was for sale, and came with a custom made box that stored it and its corresponding stone.

Lee recommended I go to the botanical gardens, where I saw the ruins of these trees which fell during the earthquake.

The concert venue for the last show was the Christchurch Town Hall. The structure was badly damaged in the earthquake but was restored and reopened in 2019.

End of the tour.

The final loadout.

Brian, Jackson's guitar tech, had confided in me a few days before that his father had passed away earlier that morning. He'd been worried that it would happen while he was away. He finished out the rest of the tour stoically. I can sense his relief to be headed home in this photo.

I flew back to Auckland with the band, and then while they caught a continuing flight to LA, I stayed on in Auckland for another ten days.

I went to stay at Michelle and Will's house in Parnell with my brother.

Skyler at Mt. Eden

Volcano crater in the middle of the city. We used to come here as kids.

The house our mom grew up in, Mt. Eden.

At a pie shop in Mt Eden.

One of NZ's major national holidays, ANZAC Day, happened while I was there.

Every year, thousands of people gather at sunrise at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for a parade.

I had never been anywhere with that many people at that hour before.

Continuing my hunt for a Michael Smither painting, I went to the gallery he was represented by.

It was closed, but I could see a print of his through the window.

A secondhand shop with a good name.

Most delicious eggs benedict from Benedict's.

Skyler and I left Auckland on a little road trip up north to Whangarei.

We went up there to see the Hundertwasser Arts Center, completed in 2022.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist and visionary builder, who spent most of his life in a small town near Whangarei.

Hundertwasser designed the art center in 1993, but the project stalled and her died in 2000.

This was a small maquette structure, built in his style, for approval by his estate before construction began on the main building.

The wall text said this rug was the last thing he worked on before he died of a heart attack aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 in the pacific ocean.

I was somewhat relieved to see these photos of the house in which he actually lived, which was relatively pragmatic and simple compared to the architecture he designed.

After Whangarei, we stayed the night in Matakana, at this resort where an old family friend worked.

Sophie

Sophie lived with our family in LA for a few years when my brother and I were young, and she was too.

I went with Sophie to a morning yoga studio dance class.

Sophie drove us to a nearby beach

Sophie was newly pregnant, or maybe soon-to-be? I can't remember.

We stopped in Matakana village, where we had memories of from past trips.

We ran into an old family friend there, randomly. We hadn't seen him since our last time in NZ.

Back in Auckland. Ice cream with Luka.

I told Michelle that I was hoping to see a Michael Smithers painting while I was there. She collects art, and got a catalog to an upcoming auction at a gallery with a few of his paintings.

It happened to be one of my favorites from his book I saw in the Christchurch library.

It was so amazing to see in person.

Karangahape Road.

I'd heard about Samoa House Library, a small arts library started by students after the Auckland art university got rid of its arts library.

It was in Samoa House, which had historically been a Samoan cultural building on K Road

The library was completely donation based, and its shelves are sorted by Donor, rather than traditional categories.

I grabbed a stack of books and sat at a table for a few hours, reading them.

Meanwhile, a film crew set up in the library, to film a documentary about Samoans and Pacific Islanders in Auckland.

They were filming a roundtable discussion, and it was interesting to eavesdrop and get context to the Samoa House.

I started talking to one of the librarians, Gracie. She was curious about how I'd heard of the library, it seemed rare that they got a foreign visitor. She got my info and invited me out to drinks with her friends later that night.

Gracie's friends- Salene, Electra, and Emily. Salene and Gracie were roommates, but had met while living in San Francisco.

Coastal Signs gallery

I'd been connected to Sarah Hopkinson, who runs Coastal Signs, a year before via email, through Fiona Connor. She told me to reach out if I ever visited NZ. So I did. She wanted to connect me with Auckland artists, so she sent out a text to her friends to come get drinks with me the next night.

Tree in parking spot.

Michael Lett Gallery

I was shocked by how many of Sarah's friends showed up to meet me for drinks. In LA, I couldn't imagine corralling that many people to meet a visiting stranger.

Sarah and Ammon Ngakuru

Gracie and Salene also came.

We went out to Karaoke on K road after.

A very lovely night

I wanted these books, but didn't have much room in my suitcase. Then I had the idea to donate them to Samoa House Library.

I met Gracie and her friends again at a sports pub.

I gave her my donation to Samoa House

On Skyler's last day in town, we had a series of quick catchups with family friends.

Nathan took us to the harbor to show us the super yacht that he works on.

Skyler and Nathan

Then we met our friend Kate for a beer

Then we met our friend Bradley for a coffee. Brad lives in Joshua Tree, and just happened to be in town with his family. He was in a big NZ rock band Stereogram.