Works show local, global together

By David C. Farmer
Special to The Advertiser

•	'God Created Man? Man Created God?' An exhibition of video installations, artwork and a performance by Mark Kadota Koa Gallery Kapi'olani College 4303 Diamond Head Road 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Friday Performance: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Maile Performing Arts Theater Ends Friday

In two Honolulu exhibitions, the dialectic of local vs. global finds intriguing expression.

Mark Kadota's ambitious "God Created Man? Man Created God?" has several elements, all using contemporary images to illuminate traditional beliefs in modern terms.

The primary installation presents video interviews with people from around the world: Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Ka-zakhstan, Brazil, the United States, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Austria and Suriname.

Each person is asked: "Do you believe in God? Can you define your God? Have your beliefs changed? Do you believe in an afterlife?"

The religious backgrounds range from African traditional beliefs to Catholicism, agnosticism/atheism, Islam and Judaism.

The DVD interviews are presented simultaneously on five separate computer monitors, arranged according to the topics, all accessible with the touch of a mouse. The viewer can repeat, rewind or fast forward, according to personal taste.

"God is not so bad; it's his servants," opines one Jewish speaker.

"I feel I've somebody inside me, and I don't know its name," says a lovely Muslim lady from Kazakhstan, a jasmine-like flower in her ear.

These interviews accompany the artwork and a video installation. A performance at 7 p.m. Wednesday also will explore the subject.

A video installation in a separate room is an audiovisual interpretation of what Kadota distilled from the interviews. We see a screen with projected images accompanied by music and sound.

In the middle of the space is a pile of broken glass, resembling an island in the vastness of an ocean. Between them, suspended from an overhead grid, back-lit nylon filament lines catch and refract the video colors, a lead fishing weight tied for ballast at each end of the lines.

The installation consists of separate sections, including "God of Man," featuring a pointillist face with a sound track of many voices reciting the many names of man's images of God, and "Ascending to Heaven," consist-ing in part of richly colored images of people moving on escalators. This part of the installation draws eerie power from Kadota's keen observation that people invariably look heavenward when they ride escalators.

"Illumination" — a set of photographic ink-jet prints with archival inks and some colored pencil images — is displayed in two groups.

The first group consists of screen captures taken from mostly European religious television programs, including Islamic, Jewish and Christian ones.

Kadota is fascinated by the fact that we now use the television medium to deliver traditional beliefs: "It seems to have replaced reading texts in our fast-paced and instant-gratification lives," he says.

The second group — Hands of Faith — presents disparate hand positions found in various religious icons: Buddhist mudras, faux-mudras and their western Christian equivalents.

The exhibition provokes thought and challenges assumptions.

As D.H. Lawrence wrote, "There is only one religion, and its name is Wonder." And yet the depressing fact remains: our world is filled with war and death and conflict in the name of religion.

As Kadota observes, much of our contemporary world's conflicts are between different ethnic, cultural and religious groups.

"More than ever, there is a need for tolerance and understanding. This exhibition, for me, is a tool in building bridges and to alter the patterns of distrust and violence. We need to learn to live together and respect what is different about our neighbors."

The exhibition tantalizes us with challenging questions.

Is a world global village consciousness — at once unitary but also diverse and unique — possible?

And as an exhibition, does the environmental design promote or reduce the impact of the message?

Is the medium the message, or does the message eclipse the art?

Must the artist have a message, or is it enough to provoke the viewer to question for himself?

Some answers suggest themselves: religion as a path to humility; creativity as the ultimate holiness.

In the end, Kadota's exhibition leaves the viewer with a glowing after image, like the image that remains on your retina after you close your eyes after staring at a single color.

'KA LEO POHAKU'

•	'Ka Leo Pohaku — Those Who Listen to Stones' Works by Arna, Solomon Apio, Nick Bleeker, Peggy Chun, Lynn Cook, Kauka de Silva, Kim Duffet, Jeremiah Gruenberg, Shirley Hassenyager, Hanale Hopfe, Claude Horan, Scott Manley, Michael Mauricio, Paul Staub and Ginny Walden Exhibit Space Gallery 1132 Bishop St. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday Ends Friday

Like Kadota's exhibition, the show challenges the viewer to consider the relationship of the local to a global perspective.

Artists in the exhibition include Arna, Solomon Apio, Nick Bleeker, Peggy Chun, Lynn Cook, Kauka de Silva, Kim Duffet, Jeremiah Gruenberg, Shirley Hassenyager, Hanale Hopfe, Claude Horan, Scott Manley, Michael Mauricio, Paul Staub and Ginny Walden.

Many of these artists will be attending the monthly First Friday event at the gallery Friday.

The petroglyph — in Hawaiian, kiei pohaku — is an image carved in stone.

Petroglyphs are found all over the world: Europe, the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, Egypt and the Pacific islands. They range in age from one hundred to several thousand years.

Many of the designs are universal, carved in different hemispheres separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles.

Each design has an ancient message as individual as the carver and the viewer.

The largest accessible grouping of Hawaiian petroglyphs is at the 'Anaeho'omalu area of the Kohala Coast on the Big Island.

Chants and the tradition of oral history may offer clues to the meaning of some Hawaiian petroglyphs. Although opinions of scholars and researchers vary, most can agree that the rock art images have universal appeal.

Each monoprint in this show is inspired by an ancient petroglyph. Many are carved in the lava fields of the six major Hawaiian Islands.

Polynesian rock art has been documented from Rapa Nui to British Columbia. Legends and oral history of the Pacific Rim tell of the great voyaging canoes, traveling vast oceans to visit and possibly leave their messages carved in stone.

Like the world's rock art, similarities exist, but no two images are identical.

Artist/curator Lynn Cook is a printmaker, cultural travel writer and photographer who has lived in the Hawaiian Islands for more than 30 years.

Her interest in cultural and historical images began in her childhood in the Pacific Northwest, where she studied design with the indigenous tribes, traveling by boat to rock art sites on remote Gulf Islands.

Moving to Hawai'i, she continued her love affair with petroglyphs.

She has researched and photographed petroglyphs and carved designs around the Pacific Rim: Hawai'i, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Alaska, Canada and the continental United States. Michael Mauricio's exquisitely carved adz handles are standouts in a potpourri.

As the exhibition reminds us, petroglyphs are found not only in Hawai'i, but also worldwide, a fact that reinforces the local/global dichotomy that remains our challenge and our hope as we race hell-bent toward a future threatening destruction yet yearning for survival.

Guest writer David C. Farmer holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing and a master's degree in Asian and Pacific art history.