Tiki with Top Knot, 1998
oil on canvas
800 x 650 mm
inscribed lower centre: “TIKI WITH TOP KNOT”
signed and dated lower right: “FRIZZELL 16/8/98”
Exhibited: Gow Langsford Gallery stand, Melbourne Art Fair, Australia, 1998
Provenance: Private Collection, Auckland
In 1992 Dick Frizzell held a ground-breaking exhibition showcasing his first series of “Tiki” works at Gow Langsford Gallery. Frizzell’s appropriation of the tiki motif sparked considerable debate surrounding the issue of cultural ownership of images. These works were “highly charged and potentially dangerous, because of the explosive, territorial and historical content that stuck to the underside of the slick and playful surface.” (Allan Smith, Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste, GP Publications, 1997, p.23.)
In Maori culture the tiki exists as the originating form of the human race. The controversy which arises from depicting this revered cultural icon in the medium of contemporary art is in large part due to the latter’s commercial implications and agendas. Frizzell, however, is an artist who frequently throws caution to the wind when it comes to political correctness. His “Tiki” works present a playful parody of the history of an icon that has come to be defined not only in cultural realms but also within New Zealand’s history of commercial tourism. These works are situated in a post-colonial dialogue, and Frizzell is defining “the culture by making its images. His ‘electrifying sign language’ operates within the contemporary reality of biculturalism.” (Hamish Keith, “Tricky Tiki” in Tiki (exhibition catalogue), Gow Langsford Gallery, 1992, p.8.)
Frizzell is not the first artist in New Zealand art history to “borrow” imagery from Maori culture. Theo Schoon spent a considerable amount of time documenting Maori design patterns, and Gordon Walters employed the koru motif in his explorations of modernism from the 1950s to the 1970s. Frizzell’s “Tikis” are most frequently deconstructed through 20th century cubist practices, directly citing the work of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Alexander Archipenko and Jean Arp, among others.
Tiki with Top Knot skilfully integrates properties of the cubist aesthetic with planes of colour and geometric shapes layering one another to construct an image that flickers between abstract and figurative. Although formal changes have been made to the configuration of the tiki, there are some recognisable elements that remain. The pronged hand at the lower centre of the canvas and the central curved “legs” are both common features found in carved forms of the tiki.
The precisely executed cubist styling suggests the work of an earnest student copying from his master - Frizzell from Picasso. Viewed in a context outside of New Zealand, the tiki references would diminish into oblivion and the painting would be considered simply as a cubist portrait study. It could be said that Frizzell’s interest in the tiki is purely formal. The already stylised “human” form lends itself greatly to the deconstruction process, and the artist does not attempt to make further cultural references or comments in the work, beyond the tiki’s presence. With this emphasis on the formal as opposed to the cultural associations of the form, “the Tikis of Frizzell are spirited but spiritless, witty but witless, personalised but without personality, and most importantly cultured but cultureless.” (George Hubbard and Robin Craw, “Icon (Irony): Not Maori Art” in Tiki, ibid., pp.4-5.)
The popularisation and commercialisation of the tiki is now commonplace in contemporary New Zealand society and was recently the subject of Te Hei Tiki, curated by Ngahiraka Mason in 2005 at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. The exhibition ranged from photographs of early te hei tiki (the carved form of tiki), to contemporary clothing depicting the motif, and the work of New Zealand artists who incorporate this imagery, including a number of Frizzell’s now notorious “Tiki” works. Whatever reaction Frizzell’s paintings incite, “the tiki might be a focus for discussions about Maori and Pakeha identity precisely because it extends such discussions, turning them on their head, butting them up in new ways, confounding monopolies.” (Stuart McKenzie, “Ticky Tacky” in Dick Frizzell, Tiki, ibid., p.16.)