Hawaii’s Back yard
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ART GALLERY Vicky Chock's "Vegetarian Tang Figure" is one of the shoebox sculptures on view at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery.
UH-Manoa’s art
gallery creates a stirArt galleries in Honolulu. Quickly now -- what first comes to mind? The Honolulu Academy of Arts? The Contemporary Museum? Perhaps the new Hawaii State Art Museum?
Whatever popped into your head, chances are it wasn't the University of Hawaii Art Gallery, which receives relatively little attention locally, but which has earned an international reputation for the quality of its exhibits, both in content and design.
An art gallery was the dream of the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Art Department faculty from the time blueprints were being drawn for an art building on campus more than 30 years ago. The gallery opened along with the art building in 1976. Its first exhibit, "Selections I: Art Collections in Hawaii," ran for two-and-a-half weeks, from Nov. 14 through Dec. 3 that year.
Tom Klobe has served as director of the art gallery since 1977. He says, "It was always seen as an integral part of the art building. We show everything from historical exhibits to cutting-edge contemporary art."
Located on the ground floor within a courtyard of bamboo and irises, the octagonal-shaped facility is a tranquil escape for art aficionados. Filled with natural light that pours in through multiple windows, it features 4,200 square feet of exhibit space -- cozy in comparison to its better-known counterparts in Honolulu, but notable for its installation system of modular and movable walls that allow flexibility of presentation.
"The system is so flexible we can do almost anything except lower the floor," said Klobe, who received his bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees in design from the UH. "We have created a Byzantine church with arches inside the gallery, have suspended the walls as platforms with cables from the ceiling, and have had works extend through the windows into the garden outside. The space can be entirely closed or open to the garden. The installations have a reputation for being outstanding -- comparable to or better than the best anywhere in the world."
FACILITIES THAT HAVE loaned art for exhibit at the UH Art Gallery include the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Peabody Museum in Salem, Mass. The gallery usually sponsors symposiums, lectures and films that complement exhibition themes.
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ART GALLERY
May Izumi's "Hey! Diddle! Jump!" of clay, copper wire, polymer clay and fiber is one of the shoebox-size sculptures on view at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery.The 628-square-foot Commons Gallery adjacent to the main gallery displays thesis projects, creations by visiting artists and students' class work. Exhibits here change weekly. About 50,000 people view presentations in both galleries each year.
Since its inception, the University of Hawaii Art Gallery also has organized 14 traveling exhibitions at more than 100 museums in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and Guam. Subjects have run the gamut, from "Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning" to "Jose Guadalupe Posada: My Mexico" (UH's Hamilton Library boasts the finest collection of works by this late 19th-century/early 20th-century printmaker), to the triennial "International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition," an invitation-only presentation that has spotlighted acclaimed artists from some two dozen countries, including the U.S., Scotland, Australia, Japan, France, Croatia, Cuba, Italy, Peru and South Korea.
FROM 2 TO 4 p.m. today, the public is invited to attend the opening reception for the eighth shoebox sculpture show, which demonstrates the ingenious ways artists have met the challenges of space and scale dictated by the size of a shoebox. Cast metal, carved wood, blown glass, woven fibers, papier-m‰chŽ, feathers, clay and glass beads are among the vast array of materials used to create the 145 striking small-scale sculptures.
For her piece titled "Welkom (Welcome)," Chrystl Rijkeboer from the Netherlands combined hair from people of different ethnicities into various egg-sized forms, each with an open mouth full of teeth. At once fascinating and repulsive, these forms are enclosed in a box covered with blue-and-white hand-painted tiles.
Pretty, peaceful scenes of windmills, fields, flowers and words in various languages meaning "welcome" are interspersed between shipwrecks, prisons, buildings afire and other disturbing images. Rijkeboer's work is a commentary on the changing attitudes of the Dutch, who once opened their country to foreigners, but now proclaim "Holland for the Dutch!"
A wheezing motor, a scratchy recording of a Chinese soprano and the pulsating mercury in a blood-pressure machine are the main components of "Story," by Liang Jen-Hung of Taiwan. He connected and arranged the items in a gray metal box, and placed a small sticker to the right of the mercury gauge that bears the letters "W.H.O." followed by text in Chinese characters. This sculpture symbolizes Liang's belief that "we all live systematically, proceeding to the moment when the spirit is lifted to the sublime."
After an initial showing at the UH Art Gallery through April 17, about half of the sculptures will be selected for a traveling exhibition, which will be mounted in 13 venues -- seven in the U.S., five in Taiwan and one in Guam -- over the next three years. The exhibition's final destination will be the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in October/November 2005.
Sums up Klobe, "The University of Hawaii Art Gallery ranks right up there with Hawaii's other museums in terms of quality of the artistic experience. The purpose of art is to stir the whole range of emotions -- delight, sadness, excitement, wonder, awe -- and to encourage reflection about life and people's differing views of it. Art knows no bounds, and our gallery is a wonderful place to celebrate the creative spirit."
Address: University of Hawaii-Manoa Department of Art, 2535 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI 96822
Chrystl Rijkeboer's "Welkom (Welcome)" of hand-painted tiles and human hair.
University of Hawaii Art Gallery
Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays from late August through mid-May. The gallery is closed during the summer.
Tours: Free 45-minute guided tours for groups with a minimum of 10 people are available on weekdays. Please schedule at least a week in advance.
Admission: Free (donations are appreciated)
Phone: 956-6888
E-mail: gallery@hawaii.edu
Web site: www.hawaii.edu/artgallery
On view: The 8th Shoebox Sculpture Show opens with a 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. reception today, continuing through April 17
Other exhibition sites on the UH campus: the East-West Center Gallery (944-7111), the John Young Museum of Art (956-5666) and the School of Architecture Gallery (956-7225).
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based free-lance writer
and Society of American Travel Writers award winner.
