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Having been a visiting artist at the percent white, 30 percent Oriental, wind as a gentle breeze. H11UX1iia11 art is University of Hawaii at Manoa for and 40 percent everything else, which polite and tasteful. It is seldom disturbi11g the past four months, somewhere I includes real Hawaiians-a miniscule or movi11g. It knuws its place. It does succumbed to a wily plea to look into percent or so of the whole! For an not raise serious questions. It seeks to the contemporary scene. I can already artist it implies no large, consistent affinn wlrat we know and to comfort our see that this is not the "Big Apple"• body of people to support or appre­ expectations. It is complacent. At their or Los Angeles. On the other hand, ciate any kind of art, but rather, many best, tire attitudes tlrat give rise to suclr what IS going on? Who knows? Right diversely rich cultural traditions art arc productive of a ki11d of restrained now, I'm curious. to compete with or draw from as clega11a, shibui, of a sort to be found inspiration. Studio space is almost most lriglrly-droeloped in an earlier Japan A Look at the Numbers nonexistent and, if available, over­ or France in the eightee11tlr century. Honolulu is a big small town priced. People work at home, in S11cl1 art can be pleasant and entertaining, of three-quarters of a million closets or outside. It's not a feverish, even delightful. It camrot be said to add residents-the entire population of militant place; more quiet, scattered, in any measure to our experie11ce or to the state is around a million and that serene and familial. acknowledge a world tom in agony. It A MAL IHI NI LOOKS AT HAWAII'S ART DYAD Mamoru Salo Honolulu International Airport Walter Gabrielson A Problem of Judgement t•mbellislres but does not 1l1111nmate our It's difficult seeing Hawaii in rela­ realities. HllUJlii is a pretty place. Its arts tion to other art centers because of arc pretty tl1ings in pretty places. Tlrat its relative cultural youth, isolation a11y artists rise above tlris lLvel is worth and spectacular physicalness. So our spedal atte11tio11 . Some do so. Per/1aps what is it? When in doubt, go to the it is i11 tllcir work tlrat one may f111d a doesn't include tourists (300,000 a guru- in this case, a feisty University promise for a11 i11tenratio11alized art whiclr month who intensely circulate in of Hawaii studio teacher-artist­ w1JI grow deeper roots a11d thereby a more greater plastic Waikiki) or military historian- a self-styled subversive substa11tial tree, lo bend with tire wind (who hang out on Hotel Street in of the status quo who once wrote: wllile dl!OCloping a character and identity search for different art forms). The of tts ow11. 2 population of the state is about 30 If H11UX1iian art today could be characterized in a uxiy that would dif­ fere11tillte it from art in other places, it might be by 11oting tlrat Hmmiia11 artists and tlreir audie11ces te11d to perceive (the) 5 I took this comment around to She made forceful paintings: they happens to the commanding, strong several establishment people and blast, sway and swing. She felt personality that drops into a non­ found no substantial disagreement. herself lucky to have the Hawaiians referential art ambience and cuts Keep on looking. to express, and worked at it. Tennant, his own swath until later ideas who did few men-"I have not the come along. The Troika genius of a Michelangelo to make The art of contemporary Hawaii muscles aesthetic! But I prefer to talk to 3-0 in Public Places comes from three strong individuals men."4- appears on the horizon as a The State of Hawaii is benevolent who operated through the 1930s and feminist discovery not yet revealed to towards art. It has had one of the first to the close present: lsami Doi, the Mainland.5 She imperiously wrote one-percent laws in the nation-laws Madge Tennant and Jean Charlot. opinions on artists, art training and requiring that one percent of public They are all deceased now. Aside aesthetics. An intense, devoted group building funding, $1.2 million in 1979, from Tennant, few artists of Hawaii of followers now supports a private be set aside for purchasing works of have had artist-followers. The museum in Honolulu containing her art. Since its enactment in 1967, more importance of the three is that they major works. It's worth seeing. than 200 pieces have been commis­ set the tone for what is happening Jean Charlot, a Frenchman, has sioned and set in place. now to a great degree, made art a large following that is growing Many large, "big bucks" pieces legitimate in a backward place, still larger after his recent passing. were initially done by big-time out­ and created the acceptance and Charlot worked in Mexico and is siders, which created some local institutions that surround art. subsequently out of the Mexican resentment. These works give a Isami Doi is Hawaii's most humanist tradition. He came to contemporary look to Honolulu for well-known 11isc1l artist, trained Hawaii in the Forties and moved the quickie observer. Ironically, many locally and in New York. His early his sensitivities for the peasants to of these works appear to suffer a work was representational; he later the disappearing Hawaiian race. consistent problem of conflict with turned to abstraction. He was brought An indefatigable worker, he was their location in terms of size, color to prominence by the generation of a painter, made prints, did large and siting. It's a matter of nature Japanese rising to political, economic murals, and trained other artists in versus art, with the former winning and social power in the Sixties­ the fresco technique. Charlot taught hands down. It's hard to figure. making his works difficult to obtain at the university and oversaw its How did these people let the place now. The State Foundation on development in art, wrote books do them in? Among grander assump· Culture and the Arts, formed in the and plays, was an outstanding art tions: Alexander Liberman, on the late 1960s, did a great deal to promote historian, sold well and did com­ university campus, whose red tubes the careers of Japanese artists at its missions. What can you say? Charlot become very, very red; Tony Smith's outset. Besides Doi, this group in­ is now considered a contemporary "Fourth Sign" which becomes a black cluded Bumpei Akaji, Satoru Abe and giant and his works are collected geometric snake attempting an attack Tadashi Sato. internationally. His work became on the Art building-also on the Madge Tennant is the surprise. curiously more frozen into formalist university campus; lsamu Noguchi's She stopped off in the Islands in 1923 ideology as he went along. Now it's "Sky Gate" on the grounds of the and was persuaded to stay on for a hard to see what all the shouting municipal building; Marisol Escobar's while to paint the native Hawaiian. was about. He is reminiscent of many "Father Damien" standing solidly on It became an obsession. Coming Thirties Ashcan artists who attempted the steps of the State Capitol; Barbara from a solid grounding in European to idealize t/Jcir concept of class Hepworth's hvo massive bronze academic art, Tennant soon found her inequalities and suffering in heroic, sculptures at the Main State library; mettle in large Renoir/Dubuffet-like unassailable poses. Now they just Arnaldo Pomodoro's trio of metal impasto renditions of Hawaiian look silly. Charlot's natives are women in their gigantic, serene blocky, frozen stoic fantasies that majesty-with a startling formalist more deny than exalt humanness, painter/content bit of evolution that despite whatever daily chore is competitive with Gauguin's work. they are allegedly up to. His real accomplishments as a functioning artist in isolation should not be questioned. Charlot is more fascinating as an example of what 6 columns at the Financial Plaza in not aggravate, the society it comes deep, rough waters on the northern downtown Honolulu, and George from. I have been told horror stories coast of Oahu. He had come to the Rickey's piece that is defeated of how responsive the department Islands, was enchanted by them, and instantly and overwhelmingly by is to "this" and "that" conservative is now building a foundry-atelier. He the architectural abomination of influence, and that the graduate had that powered-up confidence of the Prince Kuhio Federal Building. student is fearful of innovation at the someone who's seen and survived the The Honolulu Academy of Arts, also, cost of being branded a "revisionist." big time and wants now to draw back has a few pieces. Funding, now, is Whatever the problems, it is not the and get to work in earnest. He's growing more towards the local artist local thing to protest, scream and doing it. He's developing the territory and will reflect his energy from now shout, raise hell, or whatever. much like a frontiersman-bringing on. Outdoor sculpture in Hawaii is in Management and faculty enjoy ideas and crafts out to the west and direct competition with the Hawaiian an elegant distance from reality­ settling the frontier. environment where practically every perhaps the result of the Islands' Don is a surfer, builder and artist. day is better than the one before. relative isolation and student respect He found Hawaii irresistible as source It makes for a hard problem and which elevates authority figures.

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