Monday, September 21, 2015

Dovetail Dreams @ David Lloyd Gallery

For Dovetail Dreams Museum of True History [MOTH] has invited Round Two (Stephanie Chalmers & Emily Rumney) to recreate the brave domestic contrivances of 1940s cabinetmaker and former milliner Agnes Dean.

At a time when women were being encouraged to join the war efforts in areas previously only considered the domain of men, Dean embraced her new woodworking and carpentry skills and demonstrated a unique flair for design.

Following the war Dean relocated to New Zealand. She opened her own back shed studio where she created one-off furniture designs for friends, family alongside a surprisingly wealthy client list. She developed a successful business that grew largely through word of mouth.

What few of her clients knew was that Dean also had a secret passion for the avant-garde and would fashion curiously functionless prototypes. While no one ever saw these objects, Dean often referred to them in conversation with her close friends as her dalliances – small gestures with no purpose but to amuse her.


Round Two have chosen to interpret Dean’s ‘daliances’ as their starting point. Using the vernacular of cabinet-making they have created a collection of items they are sure Dean would have embraced as her own.

Dovetail Dreams was on display from 25-27 September 2015




Polite Society @ Paul Nache

For Paul Nache, the Museum of True History [MOTH] has commissioned artist Karl Chitham to re-present and re-interpret some of his earlier projects that have focused on little known stories from the MOTH archives. Taken from letters, journal entries and unfinished manuscripts, these curious tales give surprising insights into some of the untold histories of Aotearoa.

Chitham has selected three characters, whose archives he has worked with in the past. A. Verlassen, a failed architect and potter, Anton Kaipeita, the descendant of a French wallpaper designer from the late 1700s, and a self-styled monarch known only as ‘Kingi’ who set about building his own ‘estates’ in the Far North.

Polite Society is Chitham’s attempt to twist these stories together, pulling apart the threads and weaving them into a strange and disparate new whole. While each of the narratives draws on elements of decorative history that many might judge to be only relevant to a privileged minority, they also touch on some of the less palatable aspects of our recent past.

From the MOTH Archives
Anton Kaipeita was a resident of Henderson in the late 1950’s. Unemployed with no obvious sources of income he spent most of his days in his small one bedroom flat. In 1960 he disappeared, leaving his flat and its contents to his neighbour who he barely knew. Among the few possessions in the flat were some small paintings depicting fantastic buildings and a leather-bound folder with a collection of over 200 hand-painted wallpaper designs featuring European and Maori motifs. The neighbour later learned that Kaipeita’s grandparents had immigrated to New Zealand in 1892 and that he was a descendant of the French designer Jean-Baptiste Huet, Manufacture Royale to the court of Versailles in the 1780’s.

A. Verlassen amassed an impressive collection of architect designed ceramic vessels. Very few people were aware this collection existed and even fewer ever had the chance to see it before it was destroyed in the 1960’s. It has been suggested that the collection contained examples by some of the world’s most renowned architects but this has never been fully substantiated. In 2002 MOTH acquired an appointment book belonging to Verlassen’s close friend and former business partner. It contained a notation that read; “Lasin [sic] is a genius! Who would think to collect such an atypical architectural record? As I commented to my colleague - in many respects the pots appear somewhat overwhelmed by the lineage of their creation, but they have an unmistakable presence nevertheless”.


In the late 1840s a wayward sailor established himself in a dense bush area of the Mangakahia Valley, Northland. Calling himself Kingi, he set about building a series of unusual cliff top dwellings he referred to as the ‘estates’. Along with a rather dubious family history he also told local Maori that he had been sent by the Queen as the new monarch of New Zealand. Needless to say it is unlikely anyone took him seriously.

Polite Society was on display at Paul Nache from 6-28 March 2015