AUCKLAND.- Auckland Art Gallery presents For Keeps: Sampling Recent Acquisitions 2006 - 2009. A giant sculpture of a sleeping ballerina is one of the many new additions to the Auckland Art Gallery’s contemporary art collections now on display to the public.

For Keeps: Sampling Recent Acquisitions 2006 – 2009 showcases art collected in the era it was made, and highlights the extraordinary diversity of emerging art practice in New Zealand.

Taking over the entire top floor of the gallery, For Keeps opens tomorrow on the corner of Wellesley and Lorne Streets. Entry to the exhibition is free.

Renowned New Zealand artists Michael Parekowhai, et. al, Peter Robinson and Julian Dashper are presented alongside international artists including Annette Messager (France) and Bill Henson (Australia).

For Keeps provides insight into the way art is collected by a public gallery. Auckland Art Gallery annually acquires around 170 new works purchased with public funds, gifted, or placed on long-term loan from the Chartwell Collection.

The process involves often long-term partnerships with artists and patrons, as well as curatorial expertise.

Curator Natasha Conland says, “there is a surprising subtlety and elegance to this group of works that may not have been visible in such an exhibition even ten years ago.”

Many of the artists have reused found objects, showing “a canny ability to make everyday objects do painless visual acrobatics, with a soft and often beautiful landing.”

“We choose works that communicate. They need to have potency, power, clarity and the ability to pose the questions of the day.”