Honolulu Academy of Arts Winter 2006

Pre-contact Pacific Objects Arrive from Germany

On display February 23-May14
 

The words of the Hawaiian chant filled the room at the university in Germany as La`akea Suganuma started the ceremony to bless the feathered head of the Hawaiian god Kuka`ilimoku before it left Germany with 348 other objects for an exhibit at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Suganuma, dressed in kihei, (traditional Hawaiian attire), then dipped his hand into the water in a coconut bowl that he had crafted for this occasion and did the blessing.

The collection was ready to leave the Institute of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Georg August University of Göttingen in Lower Saxony, Germany, and travel to Hawaii for the exhibit “Life in the Pacific of the 1700s: The Cook/Forster Collection.”

Last Friday, chants rose in the Academy’s Luce Galleries as Tony Lechanko, La`akea Suganuma and their group blessed the empty spaces before the installation of the newly arrived objects. The show will open February 23.

“The Academy is trying to honor cultural protocols where appropriate,” said Susan Sayre Batton, the Academy’s deputy director (pictured above).

All of the items in the exhibit were collected during Capt. James Cook’s second and third voyages through the Pacific Ocean between 1770 and 1778. They were given as gifts or acquired through trade. Most were made before first contact with Westerners.  It is the first time the entire Göttingen collection will be shown in a public museum.

 Batton said the curatorial concept is to display the objects together according to use, not according to their culture of origin. There will be no sections organized by Tongan, Hawaiian or Tahitian manufacture. Instead, she said, floor coverings will be together, war implements will be together, and musical instruments will be together, for example.

 “It will demonstrate the connectivity between the Polynesian culture. There will not be a big sign explaining these connections. You will just get it when you see the things together,” she said.

Batton said people who have seen the items talk of their level of sophisticated craftsmanship and the level of the power of the individual objects. “Jackie Lewis-Harris, one of the advisors to the exhibition,  told me that some of these objects will make you cry. They are movingly beautiful objects.”

One of the surprises for viewers, Batton said, will be the condition of the objects. “They are in splendid condition. Stephen Little (Academy director and show  curator) has said they look like the day they were made.”

Pictured above: Ki`i Hulu Manu  

Admission to the museum will be free during the exhibition that closes May 14.

Feather Helmet.

The exhibition design is unique to the Academy and to Hawaii, she said.  The 18^th century material is being presented like contemporary art in big, open spaces. “This is in contrast to presenting the material in the manner of an ethnographic museum,” said Batton. Both of the Luce galleries are being used for the exhibit and offer 8,000 square feet of exhibit space. “This allows the objects to breathe,” said Batton.

“The gallery walls are a blue which is the complementary opposite of the browns and beiges of the items’ natural materials,” said Batton. The exhibition is designed by Berlin designer Heike Mulhaus. She and her team of German carpenters are in residence assembling the exhibition furniture which features clean lines.

Clothing will be displayed on forms made of papier maché from newspaper pulp. The realistic shapes look like stone or concrete and provide a neutral background. The feathered image Ki`i Hulu Manu will have a special place of respect with a platform on which offerings may be made. The other most sacred object, a mourning dress (heva) from Tahiti, will have a special and dramatic display in a dome in the other gallery.

A public lecture by the director of the Göttingen University collection will be given the night after the exhibit opening. There is an extensive schedule of lectures, film and other activities.

Stephen Little to Conduct Walk Through Tour

Stephen Little, Academy director and curator for the “Life in the Pacific of the 1700s” exhibit will do a walk through tour of the show for Guild members on March 16.

The tour will be from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Luce Galleries. Cocktails and pupu will be served from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Pavilion Café.  Guild member Nadine Little is the tour chair.

The cost is $30 and the event is restricted to 60 persons. Invitations will be mailed in mid-February.

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