Passionate, witty, and erudite, these essays by a radical curator describe how museums approach their sometimes conflicting missions to sponsor scholarship, generate popular appeal, and claim social significance. This analysis includes discussions of art and ethnology, the failure of late-Modernist art history, the construction of official culture, the intellectual history of European exploration in the Pacific, problems with cultural studies of the Pakeha Maori, and the conservation of archives and narratives.

Making Ends Meet: Essays & Talks 1992–2004

Wedde, Ian

Arts & Photography

Victoria University Press

Little Frank, a 120-year-old gangster who traded his imagination for a secure and long life, is the protagonist in this dark and dazzling novel set in an all-too-plausible near future. As the leader of a notorious gang, Little Frank is trapped in a luxurious life of mindless routine when he is suddenly jolted awake in the year 2090 to the bizarre facts of his current existence. Little Frank must now race to rebuild his memory and make sense of his new reality in this rich and complex work of science fiction.

Chinese Opera

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction

'From the outset, the social space of the essay is involved with the text' s readers to the degree that conversation is implied - more or less intimate, even argumentative. The essay will often have originated in conversation, or the conversations of groups gathered around an event. Its long form may both contain and measure the extended time of face-to-face conversation or imply that extent; in this it will differ from social media, email and instant messages. These forms are often both dynamic and distanced, with the immediate energy of in-the-moment exchanges. The essays collected here, though, hope for the pleasure of extended conversation, both in their content and in the critical participation of their readers.'Celebrated poet, novelist and critic Ian Wedde' s third collection of essays follows How to Be Nowhere: Essays and Texts 1971- 1994 and Making Ends Meet: Essays & Talks 1992- 2004, and ranges widely through Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific ocean, and the libraries and museums of the world. Artists considered in depth and often from multiple perspectives include Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere, Tony Fomison, Judy Millar, Peter Black, Anne Noble, Yuk King Tan, Elizabeth Thomso

The Social Space of the Essay 2003-2023

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Te Herenga Waka University Press

This collection of poetry features five extended poems that explore the concept of beauty and the nature of language, discussing serious philosophical ideas with zest, energy, wit, and humor. A unique volume featuring remembered and misremembered song lyrics from John Lennon, Lou Reed, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Ryan Adams, and Courtney Love, among others, it also includes fragments from philosophers and poets of the sublime, especially William Wordsworth and John Ruskin, and from religious texts such as the Bible and the Tao-Te Ching. Through glimpses of imperfection, Wedde offers a fresh take on the familiar, sparking a new vision of the world and its wonders.

Three Regrets and a Hymn to Beauty

History & Criticism

Auckland University Press

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Books by Wedde, Ian