Memento Moa
In Memento Moa, Gary Baseman creates a mythical land of hybrid creatures – exploring themes of migration, memory, and mortality. Playing off the Latin phrase “memento mori” which expresses the inevitability of death, Baseman reimagines Aotearoa New Zealand as a land of rebirth and harmony, bringing back the giant moa from extinction to symbolize those loved and now lost. Baseman pays tribute to his beloved cousin who immigrated to New Zealand from the United States, but whom he never visited at her adopted home during her lifetime.
Through iconic characters set in otherworldly landscapes, Memento Moa considers family, history, and the idea of home with the artist’s longstanding desire to “celebrate the beauty of the bittersweetness of life.” His landscapes provide a whimsical, absurdist stage for curious characters in motion, suggesting change and the passage of time. Migration: the movement of large groups of people or animals from one place to another, takes on multiple meanings when considered instinctual, voluntary, or involuntary.
Born and raised in Hollywood, Baseman is the youngest child of Holocaust survivors who were forced to leave their ancestral homes in Eastern Europe during World War II. Compelled by their experience, Baseman considers the complexity of migration and immigration. The artist’s notion of home (belonging, surviving, thriving, remembering, and forgetting) feed into a broader consideration of extinction: the threat to and loss of flora, fauna, and human cultures. Childhood memories have fed this imagery. Popular culture, such as television, film, animation, books, games, toys, and beloved feline pets, now deceased, live on in fantastical new worlds inspired by Aotearoa.
Memento Moa will be on display 28 September – 9 December 2024 at Taupō Museum
Taupō Museum, 4 Story Place, Taupō 3330 New Zealand (www.taupodc.govt.nz/community/taupo-museum)
Memento Moa debuted at the Suter Art Gallery March 18 – June 11, 2023.
The Suter Art Gallery, 208 Bridge Street, Nelson, 7010 New Zealand (www.thesuter.org.nz)
