Subjectivity rules annual Artists of Hawai'i exhibit

• Hawai'i pictures by Ansel Adams

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Honolulu Academy of Arts' Luce Gallery holds the 2002 Artists of Hawai'i exhibit. Honolulu Academy of Art photo Artists of Hawai'i 2002 Honolulu Academy of Arts 900 S. Beretania St. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 1-5 p.m. Sundays $7; $4 for seniors, students, military; free for members and children 12 and younger; and free for everyone on first Wednesdays of each month) honoluluacademy.org, 532-8700 This year's show is heavier on two-dimensional works, with almost as many pieces as last year but from fewer artists.

The show is open to any Hawai'i resident with a paintbrush, camera, saw or blow torch. Students, established pros and people in between all vie for a spot in the Honolulu Academy of Arts' annual exhibit. And the art expert who judges the show holds all the cards.

"It's absolutely a crapshoot," says Gaye Chan, an artist and professor at the University of Hawai'i who has been in — and out of — the Artists of Hawai'i exhibits over the years.

Given that every year it's a different crapshoot (with only one exception, the academy picks a new juror for each show), one is left scratching one's head when looking for trends.

Even this year's juror, Ned Rifkin, said that if he had chosen the winning works at a different time, he might have picked a different show.

Although Rifkin, director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., might have chosen a more genteel word than "crapshoot," it's likely he wouldn't argue with the analogy.

He said in a June lecture that what a juror has for breakfast may make a difference in the selection of one piece over another.

How did he make his first cut from the slides of 997 art works submitted?

Simple, replied Rifkin in a phone interview last week.

"Basically, anything that looks like something you want to see, you select that," he said.

After further cuts, artists bring in the actual work, and the juror flies to Honolulu to make a final cut.

So what, exactly, was Rifkin looking for?

"Intensity," "rigor" and "resonance" were some criteria, he said. "Having presence ... punch or impact" were others.

"I was trying to be as open as I could to what spoke to me, provoked me, challenged me some way," he said.

Did he find it?

"In varying degrees, yes," said Rifkin, who besides a distinguished career in museum administration and curating also has taught art history, photography and contemporary art.

"... My taste is fairly catholic, compared to a lot of people. By that, I mean it includes a variety of approaches — I'm interested in realism, abstraction, sculpture, painting, photography. And I am interested in professional command of your material, whatever that may mean."

Forty-seven artists have works in this show, which also has the distinction of being particularly heavy on two-dimensional work, notes the academy's curator of Western art, Jennifer Saville.

The 2001 show, the first in the academy's Henry R. Luce Pavilion Gallery, had 75 artists represented — but the number of art works on display in both years is about the same.

Linda Hess, a former publisher of Art Beat magazine, said the Artists of Hawai'i show "is maybe the most important show, most-seen show ... and usually the most-talked-about show for fine artists in town."

Some of the 51 previous shows, Hess said, have been awful.

Chan is more specific, opining, "there was a lot of bad work last year," though her art also was represented.

Juror Arnold L. Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, who picked last year's works, might disagree, of course. Lehman, known for his provocative choices in Brooklyn, created an eclectic mishmash of a show heavy in conceptual influences, and said he was looking for art that was "tough instead of safe."

"That's what's interesting about this show, the total element of randomness," said Hess, who has two works in this year's show.

Last year's selections were all over the map, she said. She had a quick preview of the 2002 show during the installation process and has a different view of this year's exhibition.

"I don't feel embarrassed to be in it," she said. "I felt it had good level of quality overall. ... I'm happy to be in this show. Different years, different people get their turn. I think that's built into the system."

Hess found Rifkin's talk in June enlightening.

"He's the only juror who talked about what it's like to be a juror for this show," said Hess. "He got up on stage with a chair and just a microphone, took us all on."

Artists whose work was rejected might be more detached about the process if they had heard Rifkin say how jet lag or what he'd had for breakfast could affect his selection, she said: "He was so brave to get up there and say that."

The only Kaua'i artist to have work represented this year, Kimberlin Blackburn, said she was impressed with Rifkin, especially after a visit to his Smithsonian museum.

"He sees a tremendous amount of art. He sees art from all around the country, if not the world," said Blackburn. "It's a big honor to be included. I heard it's not a very big show, so I thought 'Wow!' "

Artists of Hawai'i is always interesting, she added, because of the different jurors who come fresh to the Hawai'i art scene.

"Sometimes (it makes for) good shows, sometimes not," said Blackburn. "You're lucky to be in ones you like."

Artists get rejected constantly, said Chan, adding she has been rejected before from the annual show, and the exhibit "really reflects the value of the juror more than anything else."

"I'm in the point of my career where it doesn't really matter," Chan said. "You get rejected so much, it's 'What's the big deal?' "

Rejection is not so easy for her students, she said, who know being included in Artists of Hawai'i is more than a line on a resumé: It's a show a lot of people see and an opportunity to have one's art displayed in a legitimate venue.

Curator Saville said the 2002 show, with a small but eclectic mix of paintings, some photography, some printmaking, some new media and some sculpture, "does showcase a variety of different approaches, attitudes, media. It shows a diversity in creativity."

Hawai'i pictures by Ansel Adams

Thirty photographs by celebrated landscape photographer Ansel Adams, made during trips to Hawai'i over a 10-year span, are being shown in conjunction with the 2002 Artists of Hawai'i exhibit.

Guest curator is Anne Hammond, who earned her bachelor's of fine arts from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Project director is Jennifer Saville, the curator of Western art for the Academy of Arts.

Some photos from a 1948 trip were the result of a Guggenheim fellowship; the photos from the '50s were commissioned by the Bishop National Bank (now First Hawaiian Bank) for a book to commemorate its centenary.

The subjects of the exhibit photos range from blackened lava fields to paniolo to portraits of notables of the time, including historian Mary Kawena Pukui.

Hammond will deliver a free lecture at 2 p.m. July 7 in the Academy Theater.

Admission to this exhibit, which is in the Henry R. Luce Gallery, is included in the museum's admission price.