Centre of Contemporary Art

Centre of Contemporary Art
The CoCA gallery
General information
Architectural style	modernist
Location	Christchurch Central City
Address	66 Gloucester Street, Christchurch
Coordinates	43°31′48″S 172°37′55″E / 43.5301°S 172.6320°E / -43.5301; 172.6320Coordinates: 43°31′48″S 172°37′55″E / 43.5301°S 172.6320°E / -43.5301; 172.6320
Construction started	1968
Renovated	2011–2016
Renovation cost	NZ$4.1 m
Owner	CSA Charitable Trust
Design and construction
Architecture firm	Minson, Henning Hansen

Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA, formerly the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery is a curated art gallery in the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The not-for-profit organisation provides free access to modern works of art for the public as well as a platform for contemporary practitioners, in particular prominent New Zealand artists. CoCA also collaborates with international innovators whose works engage with contemporary ideas and cultural issues.

The gallery is administered by the Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA) Charitable Trust. Quarterly seasonal exhibitions are overseen by a curatorium of experts from New Zealand and overseas, headed by new Director and Principal Curator Paula Orrell. The gallery is focused on curating and commissioning artwork, over than simply acquiring collections. This ensures that the exhibitions remain of consistent and continual relevance, engaging audiences in an ever-present world of contemporary art and supporting ongoing innovation in artistic practice. The gallery also has an impressive and proud history as one of the longest standing arts organisations in New Zealand.

CoCA began in 1880 as the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery. It was the first organisation to exhibit and collect artworks in Christchurch, and quickly became the most influential and dynamic arts society in New Zealand. Its first exhibition was held in 1881 at Christchurch Boys’ High School, in what later became part of the Christchurch Arts Centre. The CSA played an essential role in New Zealand’s burgeoning arts scene. In the 1930s it exhibited the works of “The Group”; a collection of artists including the eminent New Zealand painters Rita Angus, Evelyn Margaret Page and Doris Lusk. The CSA found its first permanent home in 1890 in a building especially designed for it by society member and acclaimed New Zealand architect Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (1825-1898). This was a prime example of the function and form of Gothic Revival in New Zealand architecture. A second neighbouring gallery, in the more conservatively favoured Venetian Gothic style, was added in 1894 by Richard Dacre Harman. Both buildings were on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Register of Historic Places until their demolition following the 2011 Canterbury earthquake.