Ten guitars 1999
Customised guitars comprising variety of woods, paua inlay, steel strings, chrome hardware, speakers, video
10 pieces: 110 x 40 x 20cm (each, approx.)
Collection: The artist

Michael Parekowhai’s Ten guitars is named after a song by American balladeer Engelbert Humperdinck, which was adopted as an unofficial Maori anthem while the artist was growing up. The work consists of ten guitars transformed into glitteringly decorated showpieces, with New Zealand paua shell inlaid in traditional Maori patterns. This expresses the idea of the Maori as a performer, alluding to an area in which indigenous New Zealanders have been most likely to achieve notoriety in their country. The shell inlay used for this work has traditionally been applied to treasured Maori objects, but also gives an impression of the glitter associated with Nashville or Las Vegas. Blurring distinctions between popular culture and fine art, Parekowhai’s work raises issues of uncertainty about what is sacred in contemporary culture, which are significant in a far wider context than that of New Zealand society.

Artist's statement:

THE GYPSY ROVER

' The Gypsy Rover came over the hill
Down through the valley shady
He whistled and he sang
Till the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady.'

I was never into cars like Para. I always thought owning a cool guitar would be cooler than owning a car.

When I was at Windy Ridge Primary School - Te Kura o Te Hiwihau I used to go to guitar lessons in Peter Bryant's class during lunchtimes.

I never saw Peter Bryant relaxed. He was manic like Basil Fawlty with a wild look in his eye.

Mr Bryant was very, very tall with skinny legs and gangly limbs. He wore walk shorts with long socks and sandals and pastel coloured polyester shirts in lilac or orange with the sleeves rolled halfway up his arm like Prince Charles.

He had a florid slightly greasy complexion with long wiry hair kind of scraped across his skull and this very bad comb-over (which was weird, because in those days it didn't seem as if he was ever going to go bald). To me, Mr Bryant looked really seedy but funny.

Peter Bryant played a white steel stringed guitar. He could make that guitar sing like no-one else on earth. At Assembly Mr Bryant had a guitar band and would gladly give anyone a chance to play in front of the whole school. If you didn't know the song or couldn't make the chord changes all that well you didn't have to, you just sat out a few bars and joined in again when it got to a bit that you knew. The players in Mr Bryant's guitar band were always free, to play or to not play any time they liked. And that was nice.

Mr Bryant's guitar band used to practice in a double pre-fab with the partition wide open. There would be a line of about 10 or 12 guitarists, another line of ukeleles, one banjo player and any other stringed instrument we could find. For the guitar band, 'The Gypsy Rover' was Peter Bryant's favourite tune. It's a deceptively simple little song that's really good practice when you are only learning to play.

But none of my Maori friends ever bothered to come to guitar practice. Most of them would rather be outside playing bullrush or rugby or swinging off the monkey bars - besides most of them didn't need to practise because they could play already.

For me, a teacher like Peter Bryant gave us a lot of confidence and space. He never put pressure on you to compete or be the best. Neither did he insist that there was any 'ideal' or 'right' way of playing. For him, the most important thing was playing along.

And play along we did.