CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Debra Drexler dreamed that artist Paul Gauguin came back to life, which led her to paint "The Awakening." But that wasn't the end of it. Her thoughts led to "Gauguin's Zombie" on view at the Academy of Arts, complete with a grass shack recreating Gauguin's Tahiti existence.
FOR THOSE whose hearts -- and livelihoods -- lie in creative endeavors, the world is rarely black or white. It's most often gray. It's a perspective from which subjectivity reigns. The creative soul rarely derives meaning from the obvious. Instead, it's all about the undercurrents, the layers, the spaces in between the facts.
A clever exhibit awakens
Paul Gauguin to address
contemporary issuesBy Joleen Oshiro
joshiro@starbulletin.comConsider the story of Paul Gauguin. He turned his back on his life in Paris to surrender himself to his art in an idyllic existence in the Pacific. He was too savage to be understood in Europe. Centuries later, Gauguin is a legend, deemed one of the greatest painters of all time. All we know about the great master we glean from history books. His story is part of how we understand where we were and where we are in Western art.
But in riding the undercurrent, in peeking between the history-book facts, there are other "stories" to tell about Gauguin -- and, as a matter of fact, endless stories to tell about the art world itself. Through "Gauguin's Zombie," an installation on display at the Honolulu Academy of Arts through Sunday, painter Debra Drexler wittily and imaginatively explores a cornucopia of issues relevant to the art world, and to larger society, as well.
THE NEED for Drexler to create what would become "Gauguin's Zombie" took root when the St. Louis native and art professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa began searching for direction.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Imagined journal entries, part of the exhibition "Gauguin's Zombie," on view at the Academy of Arts.
"I was trying to create a voice as an artist in Hawaii because this was home now," says Drexler, an isle resident for 10 years. "But I couldn't represent this place the same way a person from here would."
A trip through Australia in 1998 during a sabbatical from the university provided the time and space her imagination and unconscious needed to cultivate that voice. Australia's "large, vital art scene" kept Drexler's aesthetic sensibility well nourished. And the country's parallels to Hawaii kept home a continual presence in her mind.
"Australia's in the Pacific, and it has a similar history to Hawaii. There's also an indigenous population, a European population and an Asian population, all living together," Drexler says.
Artistically, Australia and Hawaii contend with similar issues. In Darwin, where an ethnographic museum held Aboriginal bodies, controversy erupted over whether the remains should be repatriated to their original communities. The same issue has been brought up in Hawaii, Drexler says, over Hawaiian bones. (As it turned out, the museum is repatriating the remains.)
It was during her time in Darwin, undoubtedly with the controversy swirling in her mind, that Drexler had a dream that was the seed for "Gauguin's Zombie."
"Instead of a body of someone from the Pacific, I dreamt it was Paul Gauguin on display," she says. "Two women were preparing his body, and he lunged at one of them.
"I thought his body was having an instinctive response," she said, in reference to Gauguin's reputation as a womanizer and a scoundrel.
"When I woke up, I thought the dream was funny, and I wanted to do a painting from it."
The result was a work called "The Awakening" (which is part of the exhibit).
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Part of "Gauguin's Zombie," on view at the Academy of Arts.
But the dream lingered in Drexler's mind as she traveled through Australia, and "ideas were brewing." Drexler started building a story line. She thought about the concept of the "museum blockbuster exhibit," which involves big names and big marketing.
"They're called things like 'The Fathers of Modern Art,' and they have items for sale, like T-shirts and mugs with faces of the artists on them," Drexler says.
"But then I started thinking, What if the blockbuster was the fathers themselves?"
By the time Drexler reached Tasmania in the south of Australia, she had conceptualized the story. Next, she produced eight tiny drawings of the story line.
"I had writings on the bottom of each drawing, like a story board," she says.
When Drexler returned home, she separated the writing from the drawings and found that the characters of the story had their own voices. After four years in the studio producing the elements of the exhibit, and a visit to Tahiti in the fifth year, Drexler's work was ready for exhibition.
"GAUGUIN'S ZOMBIE" comprises an eclectic array of elements: a grass hut outside the gallery in the courtyard, complete with a portrait of Gauguin the zombie, a paint palette, a refrigerator and rattan furniture; a wood carving that frames the door to the gallery exhibit; Drexler's paintings depicting Gauguin's life after he reawakens; glass-encased journals written by Gauguin the zombie; faxes from the fictional National Ethnographic Museum regarding the "odd occurrence" of the zombie's attempt to attack the woman; flyers and signs by the (again, fictional) Society Against the Display of Human Remains, protesting the museum's "Fathers of Modern Art" exhibition; and a display window outside the gallery offering such paraphernalia as "Gauguin's Zombie" mouse pads, T-shirts and mugs.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
"Lost in Paris" is among the works by Debra Drexler that form "Gauguin's Zombie." The ambitious exhibition tackles issues of gender, cultural looting and marketing frenzy that permeate the art world, and society in general.
It is through such elements that Drexler comments and raises questions about an astounding variety of issues, deftly packed into one exhibit. The journals and paintings, for instance, place a glaring spotlight on Gauguin's scandalous lifestyle, while the backlash to the museum's exhibit educates Drexler's audience about the controversy over displaying human remains. The items of modern life that infiltrate the show -- refrigerator, faxes, e-mails, journal comments and souvenirs -- illustrate the phenomenon of marketing in the art world.
Another looming presence in Drexler's exhibit is humor. Gauguin's reawakening, for instance, is reminiscent of a Hollywood horror film.
"He's like the mummy. He starts waking up and stirring, and people are up in arms," Drexler says.
In large part, the artistry of "Gauguin's Zombie" lies in the proficiency with which Drexler is able to reference the work of Gauguin. Numerous paintings "quote" colors or poses from some of Gauguin's most famous works, and her door frame woodcarving mimics one created by Gauguin. His says "House of Pleasure"; hers, "Gauguin's Zombie."
The most impressive facet of the exhibit's references to the painter is Drexler's revamped Gauguin journal.
"I got a facsimile of the journal so I could copy the handwriting," she said. "I also tried to mimic him stylistically."
Gauguin titled his journal "Noa Noa," meaning "fragrant smelling." Drexler called hers "Neo Neo," which means "foul smelling," a reference to the stench of decay Gauguin the zombie emanates. (References and reactions to the zombie's foul smell are a recurrent touch of humor in the show.) "Neo Neo" chronicles the entire story line of "Gauguin's Zombie" and even quotes from passages in "Noa Noa."
"Those are marked in red ink," says the ever -meticulous Drexler, who completed her reference with 10 relief prints to accompany "Neo Neo," just as Gauguin had done for "Noa Noa."
THEN THERE'S a character named Vinnie Begone, who introduces the element of postmodernism to the exhibit. Begone is the 21st-century alter ego of Vincent van Gogh, complete with a brother who markets his work. Gauguin the zombie ends up working for Begone, producing paintings that Begone will sell under his name, a practice of some famous postmodern painters.
While the practice may seem abhorrent, Drexler gives Begone and his real-life counterparts a historical context.
"During modernism -- the time of Gauguin and van Gogh -- there was great experimentation and creative innovation," Drexler says. "When modernism ended, artists declared the death of painting. They believed there was nothing original to say, that everything had been tried.
"Some postmodern painters express this by copying the styles of famous painters. It's not about originality. Vinnie Begone is that kind of postmodern painter. And that's why he has artists painting for him."
And where does Drexler the painter stand on this issue?
"That's just one aspect of postmodernism," she says. "It's a reaction to what came before.
"I consider my work postmodern because it's complex and it has a narrative. And it deals with themes outside the art object.
"I actually feel positive about this period," she continues. "Things are more open than 30 years ago. We're open to different viewpoints. Coming out of the feminist movement, there is cultural and ethnic diversity."
Things were markedly different when Drexler was being educated.
"When I went to art school in the '70s, females were not included in art history. Art was looked at as male work. All my professors were male," she said.
Drexler said she didn't sense the undercurrents of what was and was not being delivered to her in education. "I suppose I was in denial in some ways," she says, "but I was too young. I was unaware of the politics of it all. I just wanted to paint."
As far as Gauguin was concerned, "I related to him the most in terms of pure painting," Drexler says.
But in other ways, as a role model and in his lifestyle, Gauguin fell way short. And the art world glorifies that, Drexler says.
"He abandoned his wife and family. He had the reputation of a scoundrel. The West holds a romanticized view: that he was misunderstood, that he was too savage to understand," she says. "But when I went to Tahiti in my final year of work on this exhibit, people said, 'What, that drunk?' He's known as the man who spread syphilis across Tahiti and who married a series of 14-year-old girls."
In her role as art teacher, Drexler provides her students with a balance to the male-oriented perspectives she was educated with, by including significant women in the historical time line of the art world.
"In the '70s, while I was being schooled, lots of women spent time on researching for revisionist art history. They found important women artists who were just not included in art history," Drexler says.
While she can share those examples with her students, Drexler also discusses the reality of societal constraints, which made art virtually inaccessible to most women.
IN HER OWN history as an artist, in which she has exhibited both nationally and internationally, in more than 100 group and 20 solo shows, Drexler considers "Gauguin's Zombie" her most important exhibit to date. Drexler's own discussion of the exhibit offers explanation enough as to why.
"'Gauguin's Zombie' is like a novel or a movie," she says. "Lots of messages and themes run through it. One narrative allows you to go through those themes. As an artist, I filter everything, and humor is my main filter. Like a novel or a movie, the show examines serious issues through humor."
But perhaps the most profound achievement to come out of "Gauguin's Zombie" has less to do with the show and most to do with Drexler herself: It bore the transplanted artist the voice she sought.
"Gauguin was largely responsible for the stereotypes the West has of the Pacific. He created that parable of paradise, of escaping civilization. I was worried about falling into stereotypes with my work.
"Now, I'm looking at how my culture represents the Pacific rather than trying to represent it," Drexler says. "I'm examining those issues."
Where: Honolulu Academy of Arts 'Gauguin's Zombie'
When: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday
Admission: $7 general; $4 seniors, students, military; children 12 and under free
Call: 532-8700
Also: Walk through "Gauguin's Zombie" with artist Debra Drexler 11 a.m. to noon Saturday. Meet outside the academy. For reservations, call Mark's Garage at 521-2903. Print sale to follow.
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