The City Gallery Wellington is now open after a $6million refurbishment.

Whether it’s the latest exhibition of New Zealand’s leading artists, an international collection visiting the Gallery or just the Gallery’s café, there are plenty of reasons to put Wellington’s eyes-and-ears-on-the-arts on your schedule.

The Gallery has no permanent collection, and instead everything is constantly in motion: you might be in town for a show by anyone from Shane Cotton, Colin McCahon or Len Lye to Wim Wenders, Rosalie Gascoigne or Tracey Emin. Other attractions include the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, dedicated to showing Wellington artists, and the popular Nikau café, making some of the city’s best coffee. In addition to free tours every weekend, City Gallery Wellington runs an extensive and engaging events programme, featuring everything from international guest lecturers to talks by local artists to film, poetry and dance.

City Gallery Wellington has reopened with with three new gallery spaces, one dedicated solely to the exhibition of Māori and Pacific art. The additions to one of the capital city’s favourite buildings, the art-deco City Gallery in Civic Square, have been designed by Wellington architect Stuart Gardyne of Architecture+. In 1992/93 Gardyne converted the old Wellington public library into a contemporary art gallery for City Gallery Wellington, achieving a National Award from the NZ Institute of Architects.

The new two-story tower block houses the Gillian and Roderick Deane Gallery, the only civic gallery with a dedicated space to exhibit contemporary Māori and Pacific Art. In a country devoid of many arts benefactors, City Gallery is just one of the many recipients that has benefited from the generous support of the Deane Endowment Trust, created in memory of the Deane’s daughter Kristen. A Curator, Maori & Pacific Art and the opening show will be announced very soon.

Thanks to the ongoing support of Wellington’s Hirschfeld family, the new tower also includes a purpose built gallery for the much-loved Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, dedicated to the exhibition of Wellington artists and designers. The Gallery opened with a major installation by Regan Gentry, a highway bypass constructed entirely from cane basketware, commissioned by City Gallery.

Downstairs, the Russell Hancock Gallery replaces the former cinema and showcases the Civic art collection in a light-filled extended foyer space. Russell Hancock, along with his wife Kathleen, was an active and long-standing supporter of Wellington’s literary and arts community. In 2004, the Hancock family made a generous bequest to the city, which included Russell’s personal arts collection, to create a municipal gallery space, resulting in the new City Gallery space.

The multi-purpose Adam Auditorium adds versatility to the Gallery’s vibrant public programming and hosting facilities, both for the public and corporate sectors. The Auditorium is supported by Wellington art collectors and benefactors, Denis and Verna Adam of the Adam Foundation. Their support for the arts has included the Adam Art Gallery and the Adam Concert Room at Victoria University, among other projects.

To find out more about what’s going on at City Gallery Wellington, check out their website.

See what else is near this location:

Wellington Waterfront
Queens Wharf
Wellington Town Hall
Michael Fowler Centre
Cuba Street
Lambton Quay
Manners Mall
The Oaks Satay Noodle House
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The Duxton Hotel
Lovelocks Sports Bar
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