March 2024
George Nuku is Māori and one of New Zealand’s leading contemporary artists. In March 2024, he conducted an extensive exploration of the Oceania collection of the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin. In so doing, he laid the foundation for further artistic collaboration, which will be realised in 2025 in cooperation with the Contemporary Art Department of the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst.
George Nuku works with stone, wood, shells and Plexiglas; in his artistic practice he explores the relationship between humankind, nature and culture. He employs millennia-old elements from Māori culture and juxtaposes these with contemporary issues like decolonisation, restitution and cooperation. His artworks span a broad spectrum from delicate jade and pearl amulets to human-sized stone and Perspex sculptures and two-storey Polynesian demigods and heroes of Māori mythology.