MAR · APR · MAY 2017 EXHIBITIONS HONOLULU MUSEUM OF ART HONOLULU MUSEUM OF ART SCHOOL Artists of Karen Hampton: Carrying Culture The Journey North Through March 25 Hawai‘i 2017 Through April 23 Through May 28 Honolulu Printmakers: 89th Annual Exhibition Hawai‘i in Design March 1–March 22 Francisco Goya: Through March 12 Reception: March 1 • 5–7pm The Disasters of War Aloha one and all! Even though I have been in office for only two Through Aug 13 Chen Chan Chen: Nanogallery: Paradise Cove Please allow me to start this first letter by weeks (!) as I write this letter, I see three obvious Diane Chen KW, March 1–30 thanking the board members, donors, volunteers, aspects of the museum that I believe need to be Mizusashi: Gaye Chan, docents, staff, teachers, students and the many developed as part of the larger institutional strategy: Japanese Water Contance Chen Liu Fragmentation: Analog Sunshine Recorders other supporters and friends that help make Jars from the Carol Through March 12 March 12–April 11 the Honolulu Museum of Art one of the most 1 We must raise the international profile of the and Jeffrey Horvitz Reception: March 12 • 5pm wonderful museums in the world. museum, so that more people all over the world Collection Charles Furneaux Given that I have been intimately involved with want to visit. Through June 11 and the Sublime Contact 3017 this museum since I was five, it is not an exaggera- Through March 12 April 1–April 17 2 We must continue to make the museum relevant tion to say that this institution has occupied my Reception: April 1 • 5–9pm to the people of Hawai‘i, so that we have a more thoughts practically my entire life, and to be given educated and informed population. Young Artist Exhibition the opportunity to serve HoMA and you as director April 22–30 is, for me, the ultimate honor and privilege. Please 3 We must operate the museum in a sustainable SPALDING HOUSE Reception: April 22 • 10am–noon know that I will dedicate my career to advancing way, so that it is financially healthy enough our museum to new heights. to serve the public in the most effective and Nanogallery: Adam Tompkison appropriate manner. I join the museum during a milestone year— SEE SPECIAL May 1–May 30 HoMA turns 90 in April (see pages 22 and 26 HoMA Select TOUR INFO for more on this). Since 1927, this institution has These seem like big, broad goals, but they can Through June 25 II ON P.24 Quilt Show May 4–14 affected the people in the entire state of Hawai‘i. serve as an important way to organize our Opening Reception: The responsibility for the arts education of our approaches to many issues. I also see them as May 4 • 5:30–8pm citizens and visitors is indeed a noble mission and absolutely essential if we want to further our great one that is critical to the health and future of our institution and develop a great future for arts and FIRST HAWAIIAN CENTER Splendors of Ikebana society. However, as government support wanes, culture in Hawai‘i. May 18–21 • Reception: May 18 • 11am the museum must increase its activities in an orga- So on that positive note, mahalo nui loa nized and systematic approach in order to fill this to you all! Onwards and upwards to 100! Beauty Through Celebrating 20 Years the Eyes of Our Children growing educational and cultural gap. Our people 29th Annual MOA Museum of Art need us to be an efficient and effective organiza- of Hawai‘i Art Children’s Painting Exhibition tion, and I will do all I can to make this happen. May 27–June 1 SEAN O’HARROW, PH.D. at First Hawaiian Center Opening reception: DIRECTOR Through March 24 May 27 • 10am EXHIBITIONS 3 TRAINED AT THE NATIONAL COLLEGE OF ARTS in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahzia Sikander first became internationally recognized for her work in revitalizing the traditional practice of Indo-Persian miniature painting. She has since become a leading international contemporary artist, expanding both the physical and conceptual boundaries of miniature painting in startling ways. Parallax consists of hundreds of painstaking, hand-drawn images that form a symbolic visual language of motifs pregnant with subjective meaning. These images were converted to digital format and translated into a monumentally scaled, three-channel single image immersive audio-visual installation, projected March 16 –July 30, 2017 at the Honolulu Museum of Art over a 45-foot-wide-surface. The animation is accompanied by an operatic score prepared by Chinese composer Du Yun that combines new poetic compositions in classical and colloquial Arabic by three contemporary Sharjah poets to provide a tapestry of multiple independent voices woven into a greater unified harmony. The result is a combination of visual and audi- tory stimuli that produce a multivalent narrative of ever- shifting significance. First created for the 2013 Sharjah Bienniale, Parallax was inspired by the artist’s journey through the land- scape of the United Arab Emirates. It explores contested histories of colonialism, political-economic power and cultural authority that characterize the area’s complex history. While certain themes, such as the importance of oil, presented through surging black flows and pipe-and-valve constructions consciously resembling Christmas trees, are specific to the original venue, other motifs are universal, questioning shared values of personal and collective identity. The result is a work of regional and global, individual and societal relevance that operates on multiple levels at once. Sikander has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. Department of State Medal of Art (2012) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Genius Award (2006). —SHAWN EICHMAN, curator of Asian art This exhibition is made possible by the generosity of Sharon Twigg-Smith. Hospitality sponsor: Halekulani Media Sponsor: Special thanks to Sony Hawaii Company, Sony Electronics Inc. 4 EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS 5 Artist talk: Camouflage Rhythms: Zhan Wang Artwork by March 9 • 4pm Doris Duke Theatre Juliette May Fraser Free April 6–September 7 Curator of Asian art Shawn Eichman moderates a talk with Zhan Wang about his Camouflage Rhythms: Artwork by Juliette May Fraser art and practice. features oil and watercolor paintings created by Fraser during World War II when she worked side-by-side with lei sellers making camouflage nets for the Army Corps of Engineers. Artists such as Fraser were recruited for their acumen with color, composition, and the painting and dyeing process. Lei sellers and fishnet makers were recruited for their expertise in weaving techniques and agile hands, and their deep knowledge of the Hawaiian environment where the camouflage nets were used to conceal military equipment. In an unexpected yet highly productive arrangement, Fraser and the lei sellers devel- Honolulu Biennial at the museum oped a system consisting of cutting burlap and recycled fabric into strips, dyeing and configuring the strips to Through May 15 blend in with specific areas around the islands, and then weaving the strips onto large-scale nets, often completed while singing Hawaiian songs. This scenario emerged as a result of economic changes In February, a crane set in place on the museum’s rock (also known as “strange stone”), removes the sheets, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. front lawn Artificial Rock #133 by Zhan Wang. The work welds them together, and burnishes the surface. Directly Hawai‘i’s economy felt the impacts of war almost immedi- is part of the Honolulu Biennial: Middle of Now | Here, playing off the 17th-century scholar’s stone on view in ately, especially when the U.S. government requisitioned 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 presented by Honolulu Biennial Foundation and our China Gallery, Zhan’s Artificial Rock #133 challenges commercial passenger ships for military service in the The Howard Hughes Corporation, based at the Hub us to think about tradition—and how our notions of weeks following December 7. Ships that transported goods (formerly Ward Village’s Sports Authority space) and it continues to evolve in the contemporary world. to and from the islands were used to transport construction Opposite page: includes installations at locations throughout the city. Don’t miss this chance to see important art from and military supplies, and the luxury liners that once Zhan Wang (Chinese, b. 1962) Beijing-born Zhan Wang, one of China’s superstar Hawai‘i, the Pacific Islands, Asia, North America, brought tourists were re-purposed to bring construction Artificial Rock #133, 2007 Stainless steel Conceptual sculptors, has taken the fantastically Australia, and New Zealand from March 8 to May 8. workers and military service men and women to Hawai‘i Collection of Taiji and Naoko Terasaki and eroded rocks revered by Chinese scholars since the The artists were selected by Biennial curatorial as part of what has become the military complex. By January 1942, courtesy of Honolulu Biennial Foundation eighth century and updated it for the 21st century by director Fumio Nanjo, director of Tokyo’s Mori Art the influx of American military personnel arriving by ship in This page: re-creating the scholar’s rock in an industrial medium— Museum, and Biennial curator Ngahiraka Mason, place of wealthy vacationing travelers brought the booming Juliette May Fraser (1887–1983) stainless steel. Artificial Rock #133 comprises the real former curator of Indigenous art at Maori Art at lei-selling industry to a screeching halt. The painter and lei Camouflage Cutter (detail), circa 1944 Oil on canvas rock alongside Zhan’s cast. The artist molds sheets of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. sellers adapted to the economic shifts and secured work On loan from the collection the metal around the surface of a traditional scholar’s More info: honolulubiennial.org that allowed them to continue being artists, in an entirely of Dr.