The Academy invites you to Academy Art Center at Linekona to see two explosive murals by legendary graffiti artists Estria (aka Estria Miyashiro) and Prime (aka John Hina, a member of 808urban). We send them a heartfelt thank you for donating their talent and time to create the works on formerly drab shipping containers at the Academy Art Center at Linekona.

Both artists are committed to working with youth and doing community outreach. For their piece “Kahu” (Guardian), pictured above, the duo wanted to preserve a part of Hawaii’s past while respecting the integrity of contemporary graffiti muralism (must have concept, letters, characters, background). According to Estria and Prime, the arrows represent battle-mode in graffiti, and the downward pointing triangles are a symbol of affection in Hawaiian tattoos.
“Much of the beauty and magic surrounding Hawaii’s past is usually retold in hula or music, but not in graffiti murals,” says Prime regarding their choice of subject matter.

Here is background on the work from the collaborators: The guardian sharks of Pu’uloa were Ka’ahupahau and her brother, Kahi’uka. These guardians were benevolent gods who were cared for and worshiped by the people; and who aided fishermen, and drove off man-eating sharks. Ka’ahupahau may mean “Well-cared for Feather Cloak” (the feather cloak was a symbol of royalty). Kahi’uka means “Smiting Tail”; his shark tail was used to strike at enemy sharks. He also used his tail to strike fishermen as a warning that unfriendly sharks had entered Pu’uloa. Ka’ahupahau lived in an underwater cave in Honouliuli lagoon (West Loch). Kahi’uka lived in an underwater cave off Moku’ume’ume (Ford Island) near Keanapua’a Point at the entrance of East Loch.
A US Navy dry dock over the old home of Ka’ahupahau collapsed shortly after it was built. Engineers claimed earth tremors prevented any structure from resting upon the bottom, but Hawaiians believe that “The smiting tail” still guards the blue lagoon at Pearl Harbor.
In ancient times Ka’ahupahau established the law that no shark shall kill a human being in her waters. Only in recent times have sharks been known to bite people in O’ahu waters.

Pu’uloa: Where Once There Was Life… [an excerpt]

Aia nui nā kahawai i laila … koe kaka’ikahi nō.
There were many streams … only a few remain.

Aia nā i’a hāmau leo o ‘Ewa i ulu ai… he mō’alihaku
There the pearl oysters thrived … now fossils.

Aia ‘o Ka’ahupahau i Pu’uloa … Ua pa’a ka hale
There lived Ka’ahupahau, the shark at Pu’uloa … her home is closed.
—Shad, December 1, 2008

“Foremost in all our thoughts should be the care of this land of our ancestors.”

After completing “Kahu,” Estria and Prime generously decided to paint a second shipping container, creating a vibrant design utilizing their names (pictured below). The latest addition to our contemporary art holdings!

That ubiquitous portrait… you know, the one where you have your arm stretched out in front of you, hoping your face is in frame. Yes, that portrait. The one where some celebrity is somewhere in a blurry background. The one you have as your profile pic on Myspace, Facebook and Twitter… Oh how the portrait has (d)evolved over the years… For the next six weeks, a budding photographer takes her shot at the classic genre.

The lights, props, and camera are ready. So is Elizabeth Curtis, The Academy’s next Artist in Residence. Her plan is to capture visitors in candid and staged portraits with the museum as the backdrop. In a building full of portraits, Curtis hopes that through her project, visitors will examine “the implications of portraiture, its inherent construction, and its effect on identity formation.”

Would you like to have your portrait taken? Sign up for a half-hour session with Curtis at the Academy’s Visitor Information Center at the entrance of the museum.

Funded by The Artur and Mae Orvis Foundation Inc., Curtis’ residency runs from January 23 to February 28, weekends during museum hours.

The kids enrolled in the Academy Art Center at Linekona’s Exploring Art of Furlough Fridays classes (so popular we had to add an extra one) got a special treat today—four cast members of “Stomp” and Kenny Endo’s Taiko Arts Group dropped by for a special show. Passersby stopped to join in the fun, and one dad went and grabbed his kids from a nearby school.

Kenny Endo kicked things off, demonstrating the meanings of different beats and sounds of taiko drumming. (Did you know there are specific drumming techniques to depict things like wind rattling shutters and snowstorms?) He and his troupe even picked six students—Genevieve, Holden, Lauren, Cara, Cole and Cable—to try some taiko drumming themselves.

Then four members of “Stomp” took the makeshift stage and showed kids how they can make instruments out of everyday items such as garbage cans and plungers. New Yorker Donisha Brown got the crowd riled up and she was joined by her three colleagues who are originally from Hawai’i—Guillaume Carreira, Ivan Delaforce, and Andres Fernandez. Their infectious, innovative beats were a mood elevator. You can catch them at Hawaii Theatre Dec. 22 to Jan. 3.

Then the two groups joined forces for a foot-stomping, energetic finale. Who knew taiko drumming and an Off-Broadway urban drum show went so well together?

The Academy is honored that Estria and Prime will paint a freezer container at the Academy Art Center at Linekona tomorrow afternoon. Want to see graffiti heavyweights in action? Estria, who organized the graffiti battle at Blaisdell back in May and whose roots are on O‘ahu, and Prime will get started at noon and work through Sunday. They recommend you drop by around 2pm. The duo will transform the freezer with a design they’re working on right now. The mural above is just to give you a taste of what’s to come. One of Estria’s priorities is doing community outreach. He sees graffiti as way not to teach kids how to tag their names but to connect to their communities.

In October, Estria held the Third Annual Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle in Oakland, where he is now based. For more on Estria, check this recent interview on Hyphen Magazine’s blog.

See you at Academy Art Center at Linekona tomorrow! Parking is available behind the building, entrances are on Beretania and Young streets.

Academy Art Center at Linekona, 1111 Victoria St., 532-8741

Tokyo’s Harajuku district is the place to see the latest street fashions on the city’s hipsters. It’s a crowded urban scene where Louis Vuitton mixes with cosplay geeks. Do you know what Harajuku means? “Meadow lodging.” Yah, meadow lodging. Pretty bucolic, huh? Sawako Chang, co-curator of “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” shows us what Harajuku looked like in Katsushika Hokusai’s day. Take a look, and the name will make sense.

Here it is in Nihongo!

Katsushika Hokusai used a lot of blue dye in his “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” prints. Honolulu Academy of Arts Asian Art Curator Shawn Eichman explains why.

You can see this print in “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” through Jan. 3.

“Document your work!” Something art instructors preach to students from the very beginning. For some reason though, it seems to be a universal problem with many artists. (That and keeping a tidy studio.) For Academy Artist in Residence Boz Schurr, documentation is a non-issue—documentation IS her art. Schurr enters the final week of her residency and in her colorful wake, she is leaving heavily painted canvases and hours of video footage squished into hyper speed clips on youtube. The videos document each painting from beginning to end, and unveils a narrative that is orchestrated into the process. This diachronic view of each painting serves as a wonderful counterpoint when viewing the complete set of paintings in real time and in the flesh.

Come check out her in action as she finishes up her residency this weekend in Gallery 31 Art studio. You have no excuse—Sunday is FREE admission because it’s Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday.

A fan of Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster—an exploration into the mysteries of Freemasonry? (As Maureen Dowd wrote in The New York Times, “How can you not be frightened by a brotherhood that includes Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny; Buzz Aldrin; and Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s?”) Academy docent Marilyn Smith did hours of research on three Academy works that are referenced in one way or another in “The Lost Symbol.” And she has put it all together to give the Tour + Tea “The Lost Symbol at the Academy” Jan. 26, 28, 31, 2:30 p.m. It’s free with museum admission.

In the lineup are works from Albrecht Dürer’s “The Apocalypse” series, cause the book gets into the northern Renaissance master’s “Melencolia,” and Leonard Baskin’s bronze sculpture Isaac, cause the evil villain Mal’akh sees himself as that biblical character. Plus, you get to see George Washington sitting on a rainbow! Aciiiiieeeeeed! (In Constantino Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis of George Washington,” an oil sketch he did before painting the ceiling of the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building. That’s the Capitol fresco above, our George—who, by the way was a Freemason—is way more trippy and animated.)

This is going to be a popular Tour + Tea. To make reservations, call 532-8700.

There’s little over a week left to see “Degrees of Distinction,” an exhibition of alumni work at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery. You don’t want to miss it. And not just because Academy Assistant Curator of Education Aaron Padilla is in it. (Although that’s a very good reason. Here he is with his most amibitious wood sculpture to date—the piece, its texture and shapes rising up to the ceiling, kind of makes you just bubble over with happiness.)

It’s an engrossing show that will keep you lingering in the gallery. Gordon Sasaki’s penetrating, loving portraits of friends have the power to make what some might label a “disability” a beauty mark. (Sasaki is now a teacher artist at the Museum of Modern Art.) Jason Minami’s “Gold Grouping,” an archipelago of giant glass pushpins spread across a wall, is one of the most innovative instances of handblown glass I’ve seen in Honolulu. Harold Koda, now the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, brought a replica of a 1919 velvet “Paris Coat.” There are many more works in the well-curated show that will make you go ‘wow.’ On view through Dec. 11.

Staff are abuzz about Curator Theresa Papanikolas’ and Installation Designer Larry Maruya’s reinstallation of the Clare Boothe Luce Gallery (aka Gallery 27). The room is transformed, and there is all kinds of dialogue going on between the works, which run the whole of the 20th century. You get an art frisson just being in a room that has a Matisse and a Baldessari. And the Neo Rauch is back up. Mammoth. It will make you pause and puzzle.

Giorgio de Chirico and Yves Tanguy have a surreal chat.

There is so much to see, in such an engaging, elucidating manner. Read Theresa’s thinking behind her reinstallations of galleries 10 and 27.