I would like to respond to a part of Bob Dye's Feb. 18 commentary on the proposed gallery for the State of Hawai‘i’s art collection in the former Hemmeter Building. He said the "art gallery does not fill a void. It will be a nice but unneeded redundancy."
He makes reference to both the Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum, both of which have collections of works by artists of Hawai‘i. However, the 5,000-plus-work collection assembled and maintained by the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, which would be the focus of Gov. Cayetano’s proposed gallery, is definitely the largest and finest collection of work by artists of Hawai‘i from the 1960s to the present.
The state’s collection offers a more extensive and in-depth overview of contemporary art of Hawai‘i than can be found in the collections of the two museums. Furthermore, there is currently no public place or institution in Hawai‘i where one can see a collection of the art of Hawai‘i on a regular basis.
The academy’s plans to have a gallery for the art of Hawai‘i in its new addition will help remedy this situation to a certain extent, but its focus will also be on the whole history of art in Hawai‘i, so only a portion of the display is likely to include contemporary works created here.
At The Contemporary Museum, we currently do not have space to show selections from our permanent collection on a regular basis, and we intend to address this situation with our own addition of a gallery in the future, although this will only allow us to show a small portion of our collection at any one time.
So Cayetano’s proposed gallery will indeed fill a void and serve a good purpose. The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts’ holdings are a substantial and important resource for the education and enjoyment of the residents of this state and our visitors.
It is a collection of excellent quality and worthy of having a public space in which to view it. It is regrettable Cayetano’s proposed gallery is to be funded by foundation monies rather than by allocating regular state funds for this purpose. Nevertheless, his proposal for a gallery for the state’s art collection will add something new and significant to the quality of life in the Islands and will foster an increased interest in Hawai‘i’s art and artists.
