Gus Fisher Gallery

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Gus Fisher Gallery

Gus Fisher Gallery is a centre for contemporary art with a focus on socially engaged exhibitions. The gallery is free to visit.

Housed in a 1934 heritage building in central Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Gus Fisher Gallery is The University of Auckland's flagship art gallery. The gallery's extensive programme of events runs alongside its exhibitions, including performances, film screenings, workshops, panel discussions and family activities.

30/08/2026

Coming up at Gus Fisher Gallery: touchsprings (Miranda Bellamy & Amanda Fauteux) 💫⁠
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touchsprings is an exhibition by Ōtepoti Dunedin and Canada-based artists Miranda Bellamy and Amanda Fauteux. Through their research-based, interdisciplinary, and site-responsive approach, Bellamy and Fauteux consider interdependent relationships within living systems. ⁠
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The title, touchsprings, is a word the artists have coined to describe moments of action that set irreversible and unintended things into motion. Plants and the stories they hold unite the artworks in the exhibition and provide prompts from which to contemplate ways of seeing and relating.⁠
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From the invention of kerosene to plant taxonomy, touchsprings brings together significant bodies of work that illuminate the hidden seeds that set things in motion. ⁠
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The artists acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, The New Brunswick Arts Board and Tyrewise.⁠
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touchsprings will run from 26 September – 12 December⁠ at Gus Fisher Gallery. Join us for the opening event Friday 25 September from 5.30-7.30pm, all are welcome. ⁠
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@⁠_miranda_was_here__ .fauteux ⁠
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Image: Miranda Bellamy and Amanda Fauteux, research image, 2026. Courtesy of the artists.

25/08/2026

Gus Fisher Gallery is now calling for proposals for The Changing Room 2027, proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust. ⁠
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The Changing Room offers three exhibition opportunities for Aotearoa-based artists per year. The initiative enables emerging to mid-career artists to realise ambitious projects by supporting the creation of newly commissioned artworks. Through The Changing Room, Gus Fisher Gallery furthers its support of artists and its commitment to showcasing career defining and transformative contemporary art projects. ⁠
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Proposals are welcomed from artists looking to present new ideas and experimental practices in a unique heritage space. Once used as a dressing room during the building’s former broadcasting days, The Changing Room features four heritage windows, terrazzo flooring and an antechamber on entry.⁠
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The Changing Room projects will run alongside concurrent exhibitions at Gus Fisher Gallery in 2027, over the periods February – May, June – August, September – December.⁠
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The deadline for submissions is 11.59pm on Thursday 1 October 2026.⁠ Find out more about the space and how to apply at: gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz/thechangingroom
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Image: Lucy Meyle, Phone Tree, 2026. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

16/08/2026

Call for volunteers 🌟⁠
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Gus Fisher Gallery is currently seeking volunteers who can assist with gallery invigilation on Saturdays, providing a welcoming and safe space for a wide range of audiences. As kaitiaki of our exhibitions, you will be confident in safeguarding and helping visitors to navigate the works on display. ⁠
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Our ideal volunteers are passionate about contemporary art and enjoy engaging with all types of people.⁠
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To find out more about volunteering, please visit our website to find an application form, under the Opportunities tab in our bio.⁠
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Image: Studies for a Keepsake: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, installation view. Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections.

13/08/2026

In Lucy Meyle's Phone Tree, corn earworm moths (Helicoverpa zea) nurse an ear of corn in a bassinet. Surrounding the cob with cooking recipes which peek through the basket holes, the moths are raising it to be a better, more delicious corn. ⁠
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Jane Wallace considers Meyle's playful interactions between animal subjectivity and objecthood in her text response to the exhibition, writing:⁠
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"In making commercially-available traps that mirror envelopes or milk cartons – and in Meyle’s exaggeration of them – the boundaries and categories of objecthood are exploded. The absurdity of these traps reveals the eccentricity of objects otherwise recognised as standard. There is something strange about gluing a piece of paper at angles to create a pocket for another paper to live inside. When the non-human appropriates items from the human domestic field, our belief in these items’ fixity is destabilised and shown to be largely unfounded."⁠
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Don't miss Lucy Meyle and Ziggy Lever's screening programme and publication launch tomorrow Saturday 15 August at 2pm in the gallery. All are welcome, find more info at the link in our bio 🌽⁠
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⁠The Changing Room 2026 is proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust.⁠
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Image: Lucy Meyle, Phone Tree, 2026. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

19/07/2026

We are currently seeking our next Gus Fisher Gallery Interns ✨⁠
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In 2026, we are advertising for two interns – one internship is for an Art History student and one is for a ⁠Fine Arts student currently enrolled at Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland.⁠
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These internships provide an opportunity for students to gain an insight into a career in the arts sector through hands-on experience in a public art gallery. Designed to work alongside current study commitments, the part-time internships will be based onsite at Gus Fisher Gallery for two days a week over September – December 2026.⁠
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To be eligible for this internship you must be currently enrolled on an undergraduate degree, Masters or PhD course in Art History or Fine Arts at Waipapa Taumata Rau. If you are enrolled on a conjoint degree, your major must be in Art History or Fine Arts.⁠
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Applications must be submitted online, by the closing date of Sunday 9 August 2026 to be considered. Find out more at the link in our bio.⁠
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Image:⁠ Studies for a Keepsake: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, 2026, installation view.

16/07/2026

Currently on view in The Changing Room, Lucy Meyle's Phone Tree centres around moth traps that lure ‘pest’ species with pseudo-pheromones and catch them in nets or on sticky paper. ⁠
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These surveillance and control devices have been adapted for humorously different ends, reframing them as narrative holders which are interfered with by the moths themselves. Rather than destructive tools for determining the presence of a pest, the moth traps serve as inadvertent collectors of moth memory, drama, and dreaming.⁠
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Screening as part of the public programme, join us for a presentation of Meyle and Ziggy Lever’s film work If cows didn't like mustard on Saturday 15 August, info at the link in bio.⁠
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Visit Phone Tree before 22 August, proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust.⁠
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Images: Lucy Meyle, Phone Tree, 2026. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

09/07/2026

Mānawatia a Matariki! 🌟⁠
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⁠Matariki Herenga Waka – For Everyone is the theme of this year's Matariki. This year we are encouraged to celebrate the interconnectedness and multiculturalism that strengthen and nourish our communities. ⁠
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Please note that Gus Fisher Gallery will be closed for Matariki on Friday 10 July as we take a pause to reflect on the year that has passed, and the future ahead. We will reopen with our usual operating hours on Saturday 11 July from 10am - 4pm.⁠
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Image: Lucy Meyle, Phone Tree, 2026. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

16/06/2026

As lifelong partners and collaborators, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore have created some of the most iconic portraits of the 20th century. Their attention to pose, costume and artful staging of mise-en-scène was a profound influence for many contemporary artists, and art critic Hal Foster once described them as ‘a Cindy Sherman avant la lettre.’ Now taught in art history courses globally, Cahun and Moore’s legacy lives on through their powerful artworks and stories of resistance that continue to resonate a century later.⁠
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Documentation of our current exhibitions Studies for a Keepsake and Phone Tree is now live on our website. ⁠
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To book a free guided tour of our exhibitions, get in touch with us on [email protected] ⁠
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Image: Studies for a Keepsake: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, exhibition view. Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

27/05/2026

Tonight's the night ✨️⁠
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Join us at Gus Fisher Gallery from 5.30pm as we celebrate the launch of two new exhibitions: Studies for a Keepsake and Phone Tree.⁠
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Studies for a Keepsake: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore is the first Aotearoa exhibition of these visionary artists and activists. Associated with the French Surrealist movement, their creative output spanned writing, photography, collage, performance and sculpture, and is considered to have been decades ahead of its time.⁠
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In The Changing Room, Lucy Meyle presents Phone Tree, an exploration of moth traps through drawing, casting and intricate lacework. Working in sculpture and publication, Meyle often draws together the archival, the observed and the absurd into material relation. ⁠
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Studies for a Keepsake is supported by Aalto Paint, with the public programme brought to you by The Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust. With thanks to Jersey Heritage Collections and Auckland Festival of Photography. ⁠
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The Changing Room is proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust. ⁠
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⁠Doors open from 5.30pm, speeches at 6pm. See you there!⁠
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⁠Image: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Untitled (Cahun with quilt), 1928. Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections.

07/05/2026

Save the date ✉️⁠
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You are warmly invited to the launch of our winter exhibitions programme at Gus Fisher Gallery, opening on Thursday 28 May, from 5.30-7.30pm. ⁠
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Studies for a Keepsake marks the first Aotearoa presentation of pioneering French artists Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and Marcel Moore (1892-1972). The exhibition showcases over seventy prints, including Surrealist portraits of Cahun, created together with Moore during the 1920s and 1930s. Never exhibited during their lifetimes, these photographs have become some of the most enduringly recognisable and defining of the 20th century. ⁠
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Running concurrently in The Changing Room is a new body of work by Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Lucy Meyle. Through drawing, casting and intricate lacework, Phone Tree centres around moth traps that lure 'pest' species with pseudo-pheromones and catch them in nets or on sticky paper. ⁠
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Studies for a Keepsake is supported by Aalto Paint, with the public programme brought to you by The Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust. With thanks to Jersey Heritage Collections and Auckland Festival of Photography.⁠
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The Changing Room 2026 is proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust.⁠
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All are welcome, we look forward to welcoming you back into the gallery.⁠
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Image: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Untitled [Cahun with mirror image], 1928. Courtesy of the Jersey Heritage Collections.

Address

The Kenneth Myers Centre, 74 Shortland Street
Auckland
1010

Telephone

+6499236646

Website

http://www.gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz/

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