Maori Modernism

October 1, 2017 7:48 PM

How the advertising and travel posters changed in New Zealand. The subtitle of this article is "The New Zealand Artist Who Put the Islands' Native People First."
posted by MovableBookLady (12 comments total)

"The New Zealand Artist . . ."

sorry
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:49 PM on October 1, 2017

Mod note: fixed subtitle!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:53 PM on October 1, 2017

Also it really ought to be "Māori" - the long a is pronounced
posted by mbo at 8:06 PM on October 1, 2017

Thanks for fixing that missing word.

I don't know how to do that nesting symbol thing. When I was a typesetter we did that stuff all the time but it was different software and now I don't do enough typing to make myself learn how to do all the diacritical marks. Apologies.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:18 PM on October 1, 2017

Simplest is just to cut and paste (like from the linked article ....)
posted by mbo at 8:20 PM on October 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

There have been some great local exhibitions of posters from Selling The Dream, which I have enjoyed viewing. Interesting to read this.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:57 PM on October 1, 2017

Thanks for posting this, I really enjoy historical tourism posters. That one 'visit by rail' is very striking!
posted by freethefeet at 9:01 PM on October 1, 2017

A nice link, thanks. Terrific illustrations. Most of us probably think only of NZ travel posters as being on Murray’s wall in Flight of the Conchords. Example: “New Zealand: Like Scotland But Further.”
posted by LeLiLo at 9:28 PM on October 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Interesting article, those Marcus King posters were splendid.
posted by valetta at 12:41 AM on October 2, 2017

Feels very WPA National Parks style. I need some of these.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:19 AM on October 2, 2017

Neat article and great posters.

To be sure, the writers admit, King’s depictions of the Māori tended to be overly utopian and artificially celebratory

They were travel posters meant to promote tourism -- those will be utopian and artificially celebratory by definition. His work stands out for how good it was within those sideboards.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 AM on October 2, 2017

Very cool. The flight of the conchords posters are great too. That level of tourism promotion I whole heartedly am on board with. I've been spending most of winter down there for the last seven years and even in that short amount of time noticed tourism kind of blowing up. It's this kind of potentially bad thing where non-kiwis are only just now noticing that a little slice of absolute heaven has escaped being whored out because it's so geographically remote. But it's now being noticed....there's Lord of the Rings and next thing these really rich American dudes and monied people from china are looking at New Zealand and going "how did we miss this?" And "shit I could get 5 acres around Jackson Hole or buy 12000 acres of some fourth generation sheep ranchers place with the same money and he'll take it because it's more money than he's ever imagined actually existing and I will probably survive the apocalypse better being so far away from everything, I'll take New Zealand." X50 and more every year. It's probably totally inappropriate to be protective of a place I'm not from.
posted by hatchetjack at 7:17 PM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]