Fireworks were the highlight of the opening of the Beijing Olympics. More creative than the usual saturns and smiley faces of our July 4 pyrotechnics, the Beijing bursts were the work of superstar artist Cai Guo Qiang, whose installation “Wako: Japanese Pirates in the Middle Ages” is on view right now in Shu: Reinventing the Book in Contemporary Chinese Art at the Academy. You have just two more weeks to check it out! The drumming part of the opening ceremony brought to mind a few of the works in Shu as well. Honolulu won’t see contemporary art of this magnitude again for a while.
By the last half hour of ARTafterDARK: So Sari!, not one more person could be squeezed into Central Court where it seemed like an entire Indian village jumped for joy to the bhangra beats of DJ Rekha. People of all ethnicities wore saris and shalwar khamees to celebrate subcontinental culture. The line to get into the Academy wound around the block, and inside people waited to get a taste of chef Nick Salvi’s meat samosas and potato curry, and have their hands filigreed with henna. A less cool aspect of ARTafterDARK are revelers who treat invaluable statues as photo props and paw artwork on the walls. Look and learn, but don’t touch, please.
The Asian Sensation-ness continues with the next ARTafterDARK: So Sari! This installment may be a hard one to top. Amerjit Ghag, owner of interior design firm Red Circle, has secured internationally known DJ Rekha for the event (and paid for her airfare). Wear your sari and bop to the bhangra beats. DJ Rekha founded the long-running monthly Basement Bhangra at SOB’s in New York City—and the South Asian sound spread from there. Now Honolulu will get its first taste of Bhangra at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. After you’ve worked up a hunger on the dance floor, replenish your energy with potato curry and grilled naan from E+O Trading Co.
ARTafterDARK
July 25, 6-9pm
$10, free for Academy members
At the members’ opening of One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now on June 25, Hawaii Public Radio’s Noe Tanigawa interviewed artists (such as Michael Arcega at left) and viewers as she explored the gallery. Here’s her ambient, aural take on the exhibition, which aired on July 11.
As part of Asian Sensation, the Doris Duke Theatre will screen four films by animation genius Hayao Miyazaki. He won an Oscar for best animated feature in 2003 for “Spirited Away,” and got a nomination in 2006 for “Howl’s Moving Castle” (that’s a still from “Howl’s” at left). Both films are part of the Miyazaki series that kicks off on July 12 with “My Neighbor Totoro.”
What makes Miyazaki so great? Read on for the answer from series curator and anime aficionado Steve Mobley. read more from "Marvelous Miyazaki on screen July 12-18"
Leland Miyano’s talk at the Doris Duke Theatre on July 5 sparked a lot of eco-minded questions. His deep knowledge about natural Hawaii, his experience with his mentor Roberto Burle Marx and his innate creativity made for an enlightening experience. Here’s a snippet.
On Monday, Star Bulletin reporters Nadine Kam and Joleen Oshiro came by the Academy to do a video interview with Mika Tajima. The Brooklyn-based artist talks eloquently about her work.
“Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art,” which opened on June 25 as part of Asian Sensation, is epic. It’s an extremely insightful cross-section of work produced by some of today’s hottest international artists—names that will be familiar to those who have been following experimental art in China since the early 1980s (that’s Yue Minjun’s “Garbage Dump” pictured at left). The Academy’s installment of “Shu” is especially thought provoking, in that it is contextualized within a larger scope of contemporary art. Although modernity and “Asian-ness” are common denominators amongst all the “Asian Sensation” exhibitions, the curatorial approaches differ significantly. read more from "Über-curator Wu Hung at HAA Thursday"
At 8pm last night, people crowded the nook in the Henry Luce Gallery that holds Mika Tajima’s “Extruded Plaid (Suicidal Desires)” to see the New York artist’s performance piece that accompanies the installation. In five-inch black and gold glam heels Tajima crouched on the ground and smashed pieces of glass with a hammer—in a very deliberate, controlled, mesmerizing manner, a bang then a slow stir, as an alchemist at a cauldron. The crunching sound went into reverb and filled the gallery. Then she traded hammer for electric guitar, the volume slowly, almost imperceptibly rising, until it drowned out the sound of breaking glass. One art consumes another, like a serpent swallowing its tail.
Some raved about genius, others held their ears. It was the highlight of a night that brought the Honolulu art community together.
At the 5:30 opening for the Society of Academy Fellows, the key players in Asian Sensation spoke. The three-pronged exhibition marks the first time the Asian art department and the European and American art department have collaborated. From left to right are Academy director Stephen Little; Karin Higa, curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and one of the three curators of “One Way or Another”; former deputy director Susan Sayre Batton, who just left the Academy to become acting deputy director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; April Lee, manager of special projects and curator of “Leland Miyano: Historia Naturalia et Artificialia”; Rui Sasaki, who coordinated “One Way or Another” at the Academy; and Asian art curator Shawn Eichman, who was instrumental in bringing “Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art” to the Academy. read more from "Asian Sensation opening a sensation"
Instead of the usual didactic wall text, Leland Miyano’s exhibition “Historia Naturalia et Artificialia,” features the poem “The Biology of Art” by W.S. Merwin. Merwin, who is a longtime friend of Miyano’s and who has been living on Maui since 1976, is one of the nation’s most prominent poets—having been awarded, among other notable honors, the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 and the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005.
Since the ‘60’s Merwin has moved away from formal and rhetorical boundaries by unpunctuating his poems—allowing them to exist on a more sacred plane. He speaks about the interconnectivity of man with nature, blurring distinctions and notions of individuality in “The Biology of Art”:
“after a long time you look down
into a valley without a name
after a long time as water you look up”
Miyano echoes this innate oneness in his installations, and uses his works as vehicles to both incite environmental awareness and arouse wonder for the natural world. Through poetic use of metaphor, both men speak to a responsible co-existence with nature—one that promises the reward of experiencing its inherent wisdom. read more from "W.S. Merwin enhancing the work of Leland Miyano"
Instead of the usual didactic wall text, Leland Miyano’s exhibition “Historia Naturalia et Artificialia,” features the poem “The Biology of Art” by W.S. Merwin. Merwin, who is a longtime friend of Miyano’s and who has been living on Maui since 1976, is one of the nation’s most prominent poets—having been awarded, among other notable honors, the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 and the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005.