Shows and concerts may not be high on the list of activities you might want to do in this age of COVID-19, but now the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and Bishop Museum both have new exhibitions that will more than fulfill your needs for artistic inspiration and fulfillment, while also providing a new look at contributions of Native Hawaiian artists in particular.
At the Hawai‘i State Art Museum, the wide-ranging exhibition “Mai ho‘ohuli i ka lima i luna” features works by artists who have been “underrepresented, historically marginalized and structurally oppressed,” said Drew Broderick, an artist, educator and co-curator of the show. “It centers on works by kanaka artists and practitioners.”
The works, on display in spaces throughout the museum with a main installation in the second-floor gallery, are from the state’s Art in Public Places collection, which comprises more than 7,000 works. Among the featured artists are Bernice Akamine, Pam Barton, Solomon Enos, Rocky Jensen, Clemente Lagundimao Jr., Al Kahekili‘uila Lagunero, Marques Hanalei Marzan, Meleanna Aluli Meyer, Harinani Orme, Carl F. K. Pao and Maika‘i Tubbs.
Broderick along with co-curators Ka‘ili Chun and Kapulani Landgraf, all of whom teach at Kapiolani Community College, found that Native Hawaiian artists as a whole were severely underrepresented in the collection, comprising just 2.9% of the collection.
The exhibition does not go into the reasons for this disparity, Broderick said. “It is mainly just to celebrate these kanaka artists,” he said. The title of the exhibition references an ‘olelo no‘eau (Hawaiian proverb) extolling the virtues of hard work.
It is pure coincidence that this exhibition is taking place at a time when the issue of underrepresentation and marginalization is being manifested in current political and social climate, as seen in the Black Lives Matter movement and the discussion over the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minorities. Curators had originally been planning an exhibition of this kind for the Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture, the quadrennial arts festival that was to be held in Hawaii this summer but was pushed back to 2024 by the pandemic. The museum then stepped in and offered its collection and resources, Chun said.
While nearly all the pieces were created by Native Hawaiian artists, they reflect a broad range of styles and media. A small stage of sculpture, for example, displays Mark Chai’s “Very Simple” (1975), and Sean K.L. Browne’s white Italian marble “Puna” (2005), which suggest somewhat musical forms. As if enjoying the tunes is Pat Kaimoku Pine’s whimsical “Suntan #3” (2000), a relaxed, reclining branch of burly koa. Other sculptures on the stage include “Kualoa” (1989), a ceramic raku vase by Kauka de Silva and “Frond,” (2011) a gourd by Elroy Juan.
Visitors to the exhibition will experience an installation that focuses on the idea of connection, Chun said. The selections reflect “relationships between the art pieces and (are) based on relationships between the artists themselves,” she said. Some of the pieces have been displayed together in previous exhibitions, while others reflect a mentor-student relationship between artists.
Repeat visits to the exhibition will be warranted, as works will be rotated in over a period of at least a year. One evolving installation will take visitors on a journey via the paintings of Herb Kawainui Kane (1928-2011), a co-founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. His “Canoes of Polynesia” (1969-1972) is a series of 14 beautiful paintings of wa‘a (canoes), drawn from his meticulous research into traditional voyaging canoes.
“His titles and descriptions are super precise,” Broderick said. “He’s telling you the direction of the wind, he’s telling you how long the vessel is, he’s telling you what kind of voyage it may have been a part of.”
Downstairs, Kane’s paintings will be set against a backdrop created by artist Hana Yoshihata, a member of the Hokulea crew that completed its around-the-world voyage in 2017 and the only non-Hawaiian in the exhibit. She created the swirling patterns by mixing seawater from the equator and local shoreline water collected during the voyage and mixing it with acrylic paint, then pouring it over the canvas.
“She’s referencing the universe and the celestial connection between Earth and heaven,” Chun said.
The exhibition reflects an evolving view of the Art in Public Places collection and how to promote it, said Jonathan Johnson, executive director, Hawai‘i Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
“The exhibit is kind of looking at where we are now, and over the course of the next few months and years we’re looking at how do we celebrate this culture and advance it even more,” he said.
Musical exhibition
At Bishop Museum, the new exhibition “Kaula Piko: The Source of Strings” explores the wide-ranging, yet often underappreciated impact of Hawaii musicians on the popular music of today, particularly through the musical instruments that they helped develop.
The exhibition features a number of historic instruments, including first-generation, ukulele-style instruments made here by Portuguese immigrants; an ukulele belonging to Duke Kahanamoku and an 1880s acoustic guitar owned by Curtis Iaukea, a court official during the Hawaiian Kingdom, connecting them with instruments and musicians familiar in the present day, such as the steel guitar, a modern acoustic guitar played by country icon Johnny Cash and the electric guitar favored by rock musicians worldwide.
“What these string instruments do is they stitch together all these pieces into one cohesive story through time,” said Kilin Reece, a luthier and music historian who co-curated the show.
The exhibition stems from Reece’s research into a 1930s guitar made by the Martin Guitar Co., which led to the discovery that it had been commissioned by Mekia Kealakai, a Native Hawaiian musician who had toured the mainland as a traveling musician at the turn of the century and eventually became bandmaster of the Royal Hawaiian Band. The guitar, which came to be known as a “Dreadnought,” was larger and louder than other guitars, which was needed to project into the far reaches of concert halls and tents where Kealakai had performed. The Dreadnought has since become the standard upon which nearly all modern acoustic guitars are based, Reece found.
The steel guitar, first developed by Joseph Kekuku in the 1890s but now popular among country musicians, has a particular resonance for Bishop Museum, said DeSoto Brown, the museum’s archivist and the co-curator of the exhibition. “The Hawaiian boy who created the steel-guitar style of playing was a student at Kamehameha School for Boys, whose campus was … on Bishop Museum grounds,” Brown said. “The first metal implement he made to play the acoustic steel guitar, he made in the shop here on the grounds of Bishop Museum.”
Visitors will have a chance to create the sliding glissando of the steel guitar on a display model. (Use one of the steel bars in the rack, but after you’re done put it in the nearby box. It will get a cleaning before being put out again to guard against COVID-19 transmission.)
Hawaii’s contribution to rock guitar came in the form of Maui-born musician Freddie Tavares, who performed for years in Honolulu but eventually moved to Southern California. There, he met up with Leo Fender and wound up making significant engineering contributions to the famed Fender Stratocaster guitar design, as well as Fender amplifiers. “He also played the opening chord to the ‘Looney Toons’ cartoons,” Brown said.
Reece said the Hawaii musicians can be compared favorably to any major figure of that era in terms of their contributions to worldwide culture.
“That generation, their lifespans span the invention of radio, the phonograph, the automobile, World War I, World War II.” Reece said. “Mekia Kealakai, born 1867, was born the same year as Frank Lloyd Wright, and Scott Joplin, so my hope is that this exhibition places Hawaii musicians in the same place as architects of modern society, culture and music.”
Expanded hours
The Honolulu Museum of Art, which reopened July 16 after shutting down for a period because of COVID-19, has expanded its hours to include more evening and weekend hours. The museum’s show “30 Americans,” an exhibition of works by African American artists, has been extended to run through Sept. 6.
“Mai ho‘ohuli i ka lima i luna”
>> Where: Hawai‘i State Art Museum, 250 S. Hotel St.
>> When: Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m-4 p.m.
>> Cost: Free
>> Info: hisam.hawaii.gov or 586-0900
“Kaula Piko: The Source of Strings”
>> Where: Bishop Museum, 1525 Bernice St.
>> When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily
>> Cost: $10.95-$24.95 (kamaaina $10.95-$14.95; members free)
>> Info: bishopmuseum.org or 847-3511
Honolulu Museum of Art
>> Where: 900 S. Beretania St.
>> When: Thursdays and Sundays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
>> Cost: $10-$20
>> Info: honolulumuseum.org or 532-8700
