New Honolulu Museum of Art exhibits

This month, the Honolulu Museum of Art showcases quiltwork from across the state, cultural-revolution-era paintings from China and a series of Hawaii landscape photographs shot during the 1980s.

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May 8, 2013
 

This Friday, the 2013 Hawaii Quilt Guild Annual Show gets underway at the Honolulu Museum of Art School. From May 10 to May 19, more than 150 quilts will be on view. The non-juried display is the largest of its kind in Hawaii, featuring a broad range of tastes, talents and styles. Visitors to the show will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite three quilts. hawaiiquiltguild.org.

On May 23, “Black Painting: Chinese Artists Persecuted During the Cultural Revolution” opens. The artwork reflects the effect of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 on the arts. Senior artists were publicly beaten by their students and imprisoned. Their counter-revolutionary art was then shown in Black Painting exhibitions. Those exhibits were intended as a criticism of their styles, but they had the side effects of giving the art greater exposure, influencing and launching leading figures in contemporary Chinese ink painting. honolulumuseum.org.

A third exhibition opens at the end of the month: “Hawaii: The Mythic Landscape | Photographs by Stephan Brigidi.” Most of the photos were shot between 1980 and 1990, when Rhode Island-based Brigidi lived in the Islands. The photos, shot and manipulated by Brigidi, highlight the importance of environmental and cultural stewardship. honolulumuseum.org.

Treena Shapiro is a Honolulu-based freelance writer and editor. She has worked previously for the Honolulu Advertiser, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Associated Press. She currently lives in Windward Oahu with her husband, two children and a pair of cockatiels.