CAPÍTULO VI: IMPUTACIÓN OBJETIVA
3. CLASES DE DELITOS (TIPOS) SEGÚN LA ESTRUCTURA DEL
Nevertheless, it was in heritage institutions that taonga began to be seen as art more than artefact. The transition of Māori objects from curio to objects of beauty has been well documented by McCarthy (2004, 2007, 2011) and is reflective of the changing views, ideologies and political circumstances that defined them. It is therefore unnecessary to delve into such a discussion here. Rather, it is through this transition and a key moment in the reawakening of Māori cultural heritage that the word taonga became implanted into Aotearoa New Zealand’s cultural climate and gained another classification.
This key moment was Te Maori, an international exhibition comprised of traditional Māori objects from the collections of thirteen New Zealand museums. Taking nearly a decade for it to come to its full fruition, the exhibition opened with a kawanga whare or dawn ceremony at the Metropolitan Museum of New York on 10 September 1984 (Mead, 1984a). Touring the United States, the exhibition was held by the Saint Louis Art Museum, San Francisco’s H.M. de Young Memorial Museum and Chicago’s Field Museum, before returning to Aotearoa in 1986. Under the new title Te Maori: Te hokinga mai, (The Return Home), the exhibition toured New Zealand’s four major centres. Opening at National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington on 16 August 1986, it then continued to Dunedin and Christchurch, eventually making its way to Auckland, where it closed on 11 September 1987 (Te Maori Management Committee, 1988).
Mead (1986) had modestly hoped for 300,000 visitors during its Aotearoa leg, but the total numbers were far in excess of his estimate, with approximately 920,000 people attending Te Maori: Te hokianga mai over its four New Zealand locations or over 1.5
million across both countries (Te Maori Management Committee, 1988).38 The exhibition did receiving a degree of criticism for primitivist overtones and use of non-‐ traditional forms of tikanga (Ames, 1992; Tapsell, 1998).39 It is nevertheless recognised as an unparalleled success and key moment in the reinvigoration of Māori cultural heritage and its influence still lingers today (McCarthy, 2007, 2011; McManus, 1992; Mead, 1986, 1990).
Not only was the exhibition hugely empowering for Māori (and Pākehā alike) but it is credited for ushering in a new bicultural era in New Zealand’s cultural sector, with practices developed as part of Te Maori soon widely adopted throughout the country (McManus, 1992).40 It was during the consultation and planning stages with Māori and their use of the term, where taonga gained hold and begun to firmly establish itself into the New Zealand cultural vocabulary (McCarthy, 2007). In turn it is due to the successes of Te Maori and the subsequence changes in Aotearoa’s cultural sector that taonga has assumed a near metonymous position when one talks of Māori works in general.
In the exhibition catalogue Te Maori: Maori Art from New Zealand Collections, Mead (1984b) describes taonga tuku iho as something that has been transformed through the art-‐making process, the attachment of korero (oratory; to speak knowledge; speech; orally transmitted knowledge) and contact with people, which can be more
38 The closing report of the Te Māori Management Committee (1988) recorded following visitor
numbers. With the New Zealand leg equating to over a quarter of New Zealand’s population at the time.
Metropolitan Museum of New York 207,000 Saint Louis Art Museum 52,000 H.M. de Young Memorial Museum 102,000 Chicago’s Field Museum 260,000 Wellington 184,500 Dunedin 113,000 Christchurch 147,000
Auckland 473,000 (estimated)
39 Although being “progressive or virtuous” Ames criticised the exhibition for still working within
the traditional Western museum ideology, whereby Māori art was associated with ideas of “Romantic Primitivism” to the exclusion of contemporary practices or those perceived more as “craft” than “art” (1990, p. 34). Tapsell (1998) criticised the New Zealand exhibitions for their failure to acknowledge the mana o te whenua (customary authority associated with specific ancestral lands) status of the local tangata whenua where the exhibitions were held, with particular reference to the Auckland leg and disempowering of Ngāti Whātua O Ōrākei.
40 There were pre Te Maori precedents for some of these practices. As exemplified by Selwyn
Muru’s opening for the exhibition Parihaka at the Dowse, Lower Hutt in 1979 where there was a marae-‐like atmosphere created (Brown, 2003; McCredie, 1999)
commonly defined as “a highly prized object that has been handed down from the ancestors” (1984b, p. 21). Further, there is a direct correlation or fusion between taonga and art. Mead himself perhaps best illustrates this with his well-‐cited comment regarding opening the exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. He states,
The Metropolitan is synonymous with international art. By taking our art to New York, we altered its status and changed overnight the perception of it by people at home and abroad. We brought Maori art out of the closet, out of the cupboard of primitive contextualisation. In fact, we rescued it and freed it from the limiting intellectual climate of New Zealand, releasing it so it could be seen by the world. (1986, p. 11)
As the argument posits, locating Māori works within the pantheon of art, they are forevermore inscribed as Art objects. While the contextualisation of Māori works as art works is undeniable, Mead (1984b) ensures they are not equivalencies. In this light it can be assumed that Mead’s labelling of taonga as art is an attempt to draw correspondence between Māori and Western concepts. Whilst conceding that by placing taonga in such a context they are not the works they once were (Heidegger, 1993, p.166). It was noted during the exhibition some observers saw the categories of art and taonga operating simultaneously, where for others they were separate (McCarthy 2007). Nevertheless, considered in terms of their formal qualities, technical innovation and uniqueness, taonga have been aestheticised, allocated a place within the great canon of art and discussed in relation to their own lineage from seed to flowering to turning.41 Not strictly deterministic, they constitute a continuation and attempt to disestablish limited Western thinking of pre and post European contact.
The concept of the art object in Western terms is based upon perceptions of authenticity and originality tightly bound to Walter Benjamin’s (1999) notion of aura. To know an artwork, to experience its aura, is according to Benjamin, to know its place
41 As a means to bring the discussion of the development of Māori art closer to those that
produced Mead (1984b) posited an analogy based on growth. Broken into broad time periods the analogy locates Māori art in mythical beginnings and progresses to modern times.
Nga Kakano – The Seeds (900-‐1200) Te Tipunga – The Growth (1200-‐1500) Te Puawaitanga – The Flowering (1500-‐1800) Te Huringa – The Turning (1800-‐Present)
This particular period has been developed further into three moments. Te Huringa I (1800-‐1900)
Te Huringa II (1900-‐1960) Te Huringa III (1960-‐Present)
in time and space, to be witness to its history. It is this recognition that determines aura is perceived not through physical closeness to the original but rather the contrary, through “the unique phenomenon of distance, however close it may be” (Benjamin, 1999, p. 216). Harking back to art’s earliest possible instantiation engulfed in ritual and spiritualism, the authentic artwork is imbued with that same sense of ritual.
There are distinct parallels between the Western work of art and taonga but as Mead (1984b), Henare (2007), and Salmond (1984) state they encompass much more. Whether a means to ensure peace, establish and maintain relationships or part of utu (reciprocation), the role of taonga is dynamic and far from a fixed singular determinism, set in correlation to an overarching universal tradition (Mead, 2003). As important objects of mātauranga Māori taonga exude power and can evoke strong emotional or physical response from those that view them (Mead, 1984b, pp. 21-‐24). However, many of the taonga that lie within Aotearoa’s museums have been separated from their iwi associations and histories. Whether through an early collector’s lack of understanding, interest or through more questionable acquisition, they have been disconnected from their tribal affiliation and traditional importance and are thereby unable to perform one of their most important functions. Thanks to Te Maori they are treated with the respect appropriate to objects of their stature and unquestionably still exude ihi (spiritual power), wehi (to strike fear; awe; to excite), and wana (authority; class; unquestioned competence). Nevertheless, held in Aotearoa New Zealand’s museums and galleries, these aestheticised and spiritually endowed taonga live between art and taonga, between form and function, having aspects of both but unable to function solely as either.