Tēnā koutou, Tēnā koutou, Tēnā tatou katoa.
Nau mai haere mai ki te Govett Brewster Art Gallery.
Welcome to the website of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery,
New Zealand's most courageous contemporary art museum and home to the collection of modernist filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye.
Opening in 1970, the Govett-Brewster offers audiences energised and memorable encounters with the art and ideas of today. The Govett-Brewster has been recognised as a pathfinder; relentlessly dedicated to generating new artist projects, exhibitions, publications, events and discussion that stimulate ideas, challenge preconceptions and enrich the imagination.
Through her generous gift and subsequent bequest to the city, Monica Brewster (nee Govett) envisaged and established a museum of international standing to offer a window to the world in the coastal community of New Plymouth in Taranaki on New Zealand's west coast.
Since 1980 the Govett-Brewster has been the guardian of the Len Lye Collection and Archive, presented and cared for in partnership with the Len Lye Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive. Experimental filmmaker, kinetic sculptor, painter and poet, New Zealand born Len Lye (1901-1980) was an intensely creative figure whose vibrant ‘direct’ films, made without a camera, are increasingly recognised as pioneering contributions to the history of moving image.
The Govett-Brewster is dedicated to offering exceptional opportunities for artists and audiences both within the Gallery and beyond its walls. Distinctive exhibitions and residency programmes – presented through four seasonal suites annually – include the commissioning of new and site-specific projects by national and international artists.
The Govett-Brewster Collection is a significant and continuously expanding collection of contemporary and modern art. The Collection registers recent directions within a wider story of contemporary visual arts in New Zealand, the Pacific and internationally.
The Govett-Brewster offers fresh avenues for communication about the art and ideas of its time spanning conversation, workshops, tours, films, performances, music and events to inspire and engage people.
The support of the Friends of the Gallery and the Govett-Brewster Foundation are critical to our success, as is the valuable support of our many sponsors and supporters.
In 2009 the Govett-Brewster was honoured in receiving The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Governors' Award. The Award acknowledges an individual or an institution that has significantly contributed to the arts in New Zealand, only three have been awarded to date. In making their selection, Arts Foundation Governors acknowledged the singular commitment by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth to the cause of contemporary art, particularly from Aotearoa New Zealand, over the last four decades. Governors noted that the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery has unswervingly followed a path of presenting leading edge contemporary art from the outset, and that a succession of able directors has brought to New Plymouth a programme that one might more readily have expected in one of New Zealand's larger cities. The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery has set a benchmark for commitment to the "new."
Rhana Devenport
Director