Auckland Art Gallery countdown

The countdown has begun - the newly developed Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki will open its doors on Saturday 3 September 2011.

After six years' planning and three of construction on the main building, the announcement of this date signifies not only the completion of a $121 million heritage restoration and expansion, but the beginning of a new chapter for the visual arts in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA) Chairperson Sir Don McKinnon says, "The new Gallery creates an exciting and ambitious new setting in which to bring art and people together. With thanks to the generous support of Auckland Council, central government, and the many individual and collective benefactors who have helped to make it possible." 

RFA Auckland Art Gallery Director Chris Saines says that the opening of the new building will transform the city's cultural precinct. "Aucklanders' patience during the construction of the developed gallery will be well rewarded. This will be a place for art on a scale not previously experienced in New Zealand. With over 800 works featuring on day one, the Gallery has more than doubled its display area since the building closed for development in 2008."

Gallery staff have spent three years researching, conserving and reframing works that in some cases have gone unseen for decades. New displays in dramatic new spaces will reveal the breadth and strength of the collections like never before.

"The new Gallery creates an exciting and ambitious new setting in which to bring art and people together," says Saines, "with thanks to the generous support of Auckland Council and Regional Facilities Auckland, central government, and the many individual and collective benefactors who have helped to make it possible." 

Over the next three months, the Gallery will announce a series of new commissions and an array of special events and activities planned for the opening - revealing the art and the artists who will breathe new life in to the Gallery.