Triple threat

The three Geminis — Hamilton Kobayashi, Harry Tsuchidana and the legendary (though he would say "overexposed") Satoru Abe —began hanging out with each other in Kobayashi’s Kaimuki frame shop. They are celebrating their birthdays with a show of Kobayashi’s landscape and waterscape paintings, Tsuchidana’s Mondrian-inspired gouache geometries and the general ambience of Abe’s sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings.

Though Abe put this show together to honor his friends and celebrate more than two centuries of combined art making, he is effectively the curator. So it goes without saying that the works are strong, but this show isn’t meant to compete with or even address contemporary art currents in Hono­lulu. Abe considers himself "passé," Tsuchidana calls what they do "obsolete," and Kobayashi emphasizes the value of the personal nourishment he derives from painting.

What the men say is probably true in the traditional sense of an art history that is obsessed with ranking and ordering things, and defining schools and movements. But in this century, such linear models have crumbled. For better or worse, we are now free to roam the digitized sum of human knowledge as we wish, without concern for such 19th-century constraints.

The work in Abe’s gallery served as a springboard for a range of talk-story topics a few days ago, including global human migration patterns, World War II experiences, traditional and computer animation, the informal knowledge that art gallery and museum janitors tend to accumulate, portraits done in Waipahu pool halls, and the puzzling nature of a digital present that allows you to "push the watercolor button" to produce the effect of art without actually making art. These guys may be "old," but they are far from out of touch.

One persistent undercurrent of the discussion was formal and everyday art education. All of them see the practical, personal and spiritual value of art-making, and they all continue to do it for different but related reasons. Kobayashi does not talk about his work in the broader historical context that Tsuchidana does, or in terms of a career of the type that Abe has had. Kobayashi does it "for the enjoyment." It is significant that, even though he says he could never think in the way that would allow him to explore abstraction with the success that Tsuchidana has achieved, the play of light, stone and motion in his "underwater" paintings is highly abstract.

Clearly there are many paths to and through the same destinations, and sometimes it is only the labels we apply to our activities that limit our capacities. Is this an insight that could be taught, or did it have to be earned through experience?

Tsuchidana would probably say that you could teach it, since he would love to see analytic cubism taught to young children to help them observe the world more closely. Kobayashi’s recollection of the gap between the European art history taught in University of Hawaii seminars and the modernism taught in the studios could be interpreted as a call for conceptual integration. In a similar vein, Abe recalled attending a dedication for his sculpture at Maui Community College where he called for half of the school’s curriculum to be given over to arts to balance what he viewed as an overemphasis on the academic. Pretty radical stuff.

But that should be no surprise coming from Abe, who sees art as a vehicle for self-exploration and self-expression. When asked "what’s next" for him, he answered that he wants to continue to surprise himself, and "have about 20 facets" to his work. Abe said he had been down to Kakaako to see the murals and considered some of them to be "very good."

When asked to compare the temporary nature of so-called street art to the relative permanence provided by institutional support of his work, he stated that it was more important that young people take the opportunity to express themselves than to worry about permanence.

"There is no such thing as talent," he said. "Talent is nothing … you need the desire … then you will develop skill.

"You gotta be hungry," he added, not just physically, but spiritually as well, strong words endorsed by all in attendance.

Though no one can’t guarantee the same discourse if you visit Abe’s gallery to see the work, if you go with an open mind and a willingness to learn you’ll leave with jewels of the same razor-sharp cut and quality.