It was sunny and the first day of spring. In his shady Nuuanu carport, Solomon Enos stepped onto his papier-mache model-in-progress of Central Oahu being attacked by white giants and defended by action figures.
As he narrated the gory scenes, the artist threw back his head and laughed.
"I’m retroactively changing people’s legacy. Seeing how you built your wealth, you’re not so beautiful after all!"
The invaders were "papering over natural areas with the documents that gave them power," including newspapers that supported the businessmen who overthrew Hawaii’s monarchy. The defenders included Hawaiian and Asian deities and St. Francis of Assisi confronting a monster who’s chewing up a Hawaiian-language newspaper "because the language was banned."
Citing people under siege worldwide, "We can all change the narrative back," Enos said.
Two weeks later the installation had crystallized and arrived at the Honolulu Museum of Art School alongside other contemporary artworks being installed for the "Contact" pop-up exhibition that runs through April 12. Asked for the title of his work, Enos thought for a moment. "‘A Battle of Narratives,’" he said, and laughed.
"OK, we’re going to keep that one," said arts curator Ngahiraka Mason with a smile (but by opening night, "battle" had changed to "struggle.") Mason, who had come from New Zealand to co-jury the show with Noelle Kahanu, was busy labeling the more than 45 works with Josh Tengan, the exhibit manager. The theme is the Americanization of Hawaii from the 1890s to 1930s and how this contact affected the islands and its people, said Maile Meyer, an exhibit co-organizer.
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‘CONTACT’
A juried exhibition of contemporary Hawaii art
>> Where: Honolulu Museum of Art School, 1111 Victoria St.
>> When: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, through April 12
>> Cost: Free
>> Info: honolulumuseum.org
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A wall of the gallery had been covered with two black chalkboard surfaces. Between them would hang a large, hot-pink and grey abstract painting by Kalani Largusa. "Kalani will chalkboard ideas on the right-hand panel, and the public will be able to respond on the left panel," Mason explained.
During a visit to his studio at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Largusa, a Ph.D. candidate in fine art, said he was drawn to chalkboards for their spontaneous, temporary quality, their use in education during the period and their similarity, for him, to abstract painting.
"I use both to solve and work through problems, like a journal, sketchbook or mathematician’s notepad," Largusa said. Informed by sources as diverse as Heidegger, his own family and ancestral places (he comes from Kauai) and painters from Lee Krasner to Jean-Michel Basquiat, "I’m trying to connect to what it means to be a contemporary artist of Hawaii."
Outdoors, the tall pillars of the porch resembled maypoles hung with 8-foot-high banners in tropical colors; emblazoned with letters, they twirled in the breeze. Catching one in her arms, the artist, Marika Emi, said she had perused Hawaiian-language newspapers from 1898-1904, choosing phrases "that have an ambiguous meaning today, paralleling the current language used by development." The banners are made of mesh material because "I wanted you to be able to see through them."
In the garden, forms made of metal and fiber by Imaikalani Kalahele dangled from the great banyan tree. Against its trunk leaned a painting of glowing red and yellow waves engulfing ranks of skyscrapers in the night.
"Construction is a theme of mine now," said the deep-voiced, white-ponytailed Vietnam veteran during a visit to his home studio set deep in trees and foliage. Regarding one of his mobiles, in which a red shape was suspended in a cage, "The heartbeat of the land is always steady, regardless of what happens with the land," he said.
A poet as well, Kalahele was close to kamaaina writer John Dominis Holt. "I first read Holt’s ‘On Being Hawaiian’ in the ’70s, and it was nice to see that generation was as pissed off as we were." On the lawn, a tower he’d built of reclaimed koa and "chalkboarded" with his poetry enclosed a tall, spindly red-and-gold human shape.
"This show is basically an ode — and from here we start again," Meyer said. Talks, screenings and concerts accompany the show; for details, see honolulumuseum.org.
In a world obsessed with trendy, flashy electric tech, what a joy it is to be invited to reflect and move forward with basic, hands-on materials — including words.
