Tuhinga 24: 49-64, doi: 10.3897/tuhinga.24.e34204
Rites of passage: public response to Don Driver’s Ritual (1982) and its institutional history
expand article infoSarah Farrar
© Sarah Farrar.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Farrar S (2013) Rites of passage: public response to Don Driver’sRitual (1982) and its institutional history. Tuhinga 24: 49-64. https://doi.org/10.3897/tuhinga.24.e34204
Open Access
Abstract
For 30 years Don Driver’s artwork Ritual (1982), from Te Papa’s collection, has intrigued, angered and confused audiences. This text analyses documentation of the public response to the work and its institutional history from 1982 to 2012, and considers the impact of this chequered history upon Ritual ’s iconic status within New Zealand art.
Keywords
Don Driver, Ritual, sculpture, contemporary art, New Zealand, National Art Gallery, Te Papa, controversy.