Shark mural for art event offends some onlookers

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Honolulu walking tour of Pow Wow murals

Art — particularly guerrilla-style street art — often courts controversy, and that’s been no different at Pow Wow Hawai‘i.

During last year’s weeklong festival of street art, which invites local and internationally known artists to paint on buildings throughout Kakaako, a provocative "pineapple rape" piece — done on a wall at the Fresh Cafe parking lot on Queen Street as a slam against large-scale agribusiness in Hawaii — was painted over once the event was done.

This year, co-organizers Jasper Wong and Kamea Hadar told artists to try not to offend the building tenants and property managers who agreed to participate in Pow Wow.

But a mural by noted Austrian artist Nikolaus Schuller (aka Nychos) and Jeff Soto of Riverside, Calif., got the attention of workers at the Alu Like building on Keawe Street. The large painting on the parking lot wall adjacent to the Alu Like building depicts a living shark that is dissected to reveal a human skeleton inside. The shark is held by the tentacles of a "box" jellyfish.

Sharks are a common aumakua — deified ancestor — of Native Hawaiians, the primary constituency of both property owner Kamehameha Schools and Alu Like, a nonprofit agency that enables Native Hawaiians to achieve social and economic self-sufficiency.

Schuller told the Star-Advertiser on Feb. 15 that it was never his intention to offend the Hawaiian culture with what he calls his "loony-based" and humorous painting.

The artist told Wong he had been approached by offended onlookers, so Wong offered to provide a deeper explanation of the mural to help allay some of the tenants’ concerns.

In an email to Alu Like on Monday, he noted that Schuller "is an acclaimed artist from Austria. He is renowned for his brightly colored illustrative work that adorns walls all over the globe.

"The concept of the painting stems from Schuller’s interest in medical illustrations. The shark isn’t being butchered or killed, rather it is being carefully studied for its anatomical structure by a fantastical mythological Austrian creature. … His main goal is to share the beauty of the shark (both inside and out)."

Wong said the human inside the shark represents a close friend of the artist who recently died. "In that respect, his friend will forever swim freely in the oceans of the world," Wong said.

Alu Like officials would not comment on the mural.

Joy Kono, an official with Kamehameha Schools, said in an email to the Star-Advertiser that she understands every artwork has a story.

"As such, the mural on the Alu Like parking lot was of a shark, which is a typical aumakua of Hawaiian people, the people Alu Like serves," she said. "It was the tenants’ desire to understand the art work of (Schuller’s) when this shark began to appear on the wall, and, in particular, in pieces."

At this point there are no plans to remove the mural.

Pow Wow Hawai‘i also was the target of agitprop posters seen around town, posted by an anonymous street artist and declaring a boycott on the event for what it claims is a disrespectful misappropriation of the Native American word "powwow."

Wong welcomed the critical feedback. "I think it’s awesome — free extra marketing," he said with a laugh.