Exhibition (Maudslay Gallery)
EXH.2018.4 | Pacific Currents
Event Date
Author: Remke Velden

Context (Acquisition Details)
Gifted by the artist to the Museum.
Event Date 2006
Author: rachel hand

Context (Production / use)
The artist based this patu on the bronze patu manufactured on the order of Joseph Banks. These were stamped with Bank’s coat of arms and used in trade on the second Cook voyage (1772-75). One of these is held by the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Exhibited in the Pasifika Styles Exhibition held in the Museum May 2006-March 2008.
Event Date 18/12/2008
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
'Patoo Patoo Pasifik'a by George Nuku (2006). Carved transparent perspex hand club or patu, by George Nuku, with the Pasifika Styles logo carved on it.
Event Date 18/12/2008
Author: maa

Context (References)
Herle, Anita (2008). Relational Objects: Connecting People and Things Through Pasifika Styles in International Journal of Cultural Propert, Vol. 15, Issue 2.

'George Nuku's placement of a specially carved perspex patu (hand club) in the Maori display case in the permanent gallery is an eloquent evocation of the productive potential and ambiguities involved in the movement of objects and ideas between the Pacific and the United Kingdom (Figure 13). Nuku's Patoo Patoo Pasifika (2006), gifted to the museum and inscribed with a version of the Pasifika Styles logo, refers to much earlier exchanges through which Cambridge acquired eighteenth-century Maori tãonga collected during the voyages of Captain Cook. The label for Nuku's patu reads as follows:

After returning with Captain Cook from the Pacific in 1771, the naturalist Joseph Banks commissioned a set of bronze patu (hand clubs) bearing his coat-of-arms, cast from a Maori patu onewa. His purpose was to take them on Cook's second voyage to use to impress the locals. This work is an echo of those earlier works. By bringing this Patu to England, I am returning the favour'.

Event Date 30/5/2022
Author: rachel hand

Context (Acquisition Details)
Artist and carver George Tamihana Nuku was born in Hastings, Aotearoa New Zealand, and grew up in Omahu, a small village on the east coast, and later moved with his family to Napier. German and Scottish on his father's side, he comes by his Ngati Kahungunu and Ngati Tuwharetoa tribal affiliation through his mother. His work is distinct in its use of manmade materials such as perspex and polystyrene.

Nuku moved to England in 2005 and his Outer Space Marae was part of MAA's Pasifika Styles (2006 - February 2008) curated by Rosanna Raymond and Amiria Salmond and artist-in-residence for the exhibition 'Power and Taboo', British Museum (Sept 2006 - Jan 2007). He has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and Europe.
Event Date 30/5/2022
Author: rachel hand