Maori carving: a personal view

Tu Tangata, Issue 23, 1 April 1985, Page 28

Maori carving: a personal view

Alan Taylor

He rerenga korero/Social comment

Creative restrictions on traditional or Classical Maori carving were less than the restrictions placed on modern Maori wood carving. Today, the art of whakairo rakau is very much the art of derivation and limited vision: it is uninspired, unimaginative. There has been no major breakthrough in the art of meeting house carving in almost a century.

In what amounts to a rennaisance in assembly house design and construction, decorative carving has failed the challenge of the creative process. Virtually all contemporary whare runanga are decorated with carvings of a bland

uniformity thinly veiled in some cases, by specious vitality achieved by exaggerated serpentine ancestral forms and an emphasis on an over-distorted facial or mask design. Surface decoration is a fetish; an ex-

pression of considerable carving skill, but limited discipline or creative imagination. Obsessive in its multi-de-rivative detail, the work is sterile. And, invariably, deadening in its effect; figurative carving (ancestral poupou) reflect nothing of intent the creation of spiritually provocative representations of tupuna. The past is not present; not even its shadow. The figures inspire not recognition but alienation in viewers who can identify with them only on a superficial level, at best. Responsibility. Are carvers responsible or those who commission meeting house carving? The answer, it seems, is both; both appear to have entered into a conspiracy of silence. Neither acknowledges the failure of the other: one to creatively advance the art, the other to demand or, at least, encourage it. And the reason for it? Both, apparently, lack confidence in an understanding of the art and its creative impulses which, gradually, have become attenuated through the expectations of conservatism in Maori society. In resolving the problems of creative development in Maori meeting house carving, education in Classic Maori culture is as important as the fostering of

the creative dynamic in carving. Knowledge and understanding of tradition and development in early carving are essential to the younger generation of carvers; ignorance is the primary source of conservativism and restricted creative vision. No apprentice carver should be without a thorough education in the Maori cultural tradition: no carver should be regarded tohunga whakairo rakau who is without such a background and the capacity for transmitting both the reality of the art and its traditions along with the will to inspire younger carvers in the creation of an evolving, living art. However, despite failure of the truly creative process, despite failure in culture education, the fact remains that Maori carvers are highly skilfull exponents of a distinctive art. All that is needed is creative freedom, strength of purpose and awareness of a uniquely flexible carving tradition, for the realisation of an inspired contemporary art. As a personal view of meeting house carving, this essay would be without meaning if it was without observations on alternative carving to that under discussion. First then, maori carving should reflect its times. Today, it should mirror a society on the threshold of the 21st century a period of intense scientific development and social change. Consequently, the dynamic experience of necessary change in Classic Maori society should be drawn on; particularly those changes in the art of

carving that relate to the present and are identifiable. Archaic or early western Polynesian Maori wood carving was essentially naturalistic, while Classic carving was highly stylised in form and decoration. However, common to both periods was a remarkable tradition in abstraction, observable, particularly, in waka hoe or canoe paddles. A relatively recent European preoccupation in art, the concept of abstraction was well understood by early Maori and is best defined as an art in which pure form predominates over surface decoration. Ap-

plied to meeting houses, abstraction would powerfully relate a past creative tradition to the present; the pure lines of abstract ancestral panels, for example, harmonising imaginatively with the best in contemporary assembly house design. Finally, abstraction in modern Maori carving is not unknown. Several carvers-sculptors such as Arnold Wilson, Cliff Whiting, since the 1950’s have successfully and creatively adopted the style. Hopefully, their work will extend to the decoration of meeting houses.