When Jasper Wong presented Pow! Wow! Hawaii in 2011 he brought the Aloha State up to speed on a contemporary American art form that many mainland cities had long embraced. Street art — murals legally created on building walls in public places — had been beautifying urban America for several decades.
Coordinating with a small group of local and international artists, the Kalani High graduate, who previously had tried out the idea in Hong Kong, organized a live-artists’ exhibition at the now-defunct Fresh Cafe in Kakaako.
The concept was an instant hit.
Ten years later Pow! Wow! has evolved into a rock-solid annual celebration of contemporary art and urban culture that promotes the work of Hawaii resident artists and other national and international creatives. The nonprofit organization has staged street art festivals, along with outreach and educational programs, in more than a dozen cities around the globe.
Now, Wong, Bishop Museum and Hawaiian Airlines are celebrating that legacy with “Pow! Wow! The First Decade: From Hawai‘i to the World” in the museum’s Castle Memorial Building and elsewhere on the museum grounds. The exhibition, which opened May 15, runs through Sept. 19.
“We have four murals on the museum grounds — on the front of the museum, by the planetarium, on the front of the Castle building, which is the first time that they’ve ever done a mural on that surface,” Wong said May 12, while artists were busy putting the finishing touches on pieces throughout the exhibition.
The show, which features more than 160 artists, takes visitors through an inner-city neighborhood that houses a record shop, a tattoo parlor, a bodega (small grocery store) and a noodle bar. Almost every inch of the buildings’ outdoor walls is covered with street art.
“The goal is to create an immersive exhibition — an exhibition you can get lost in, so when you come in you get transported to someplace else. This space is inspired by urban cities — cities like Chicago, New York and Hong Kong — and it’s supposed to be like buildings underneath a freeway overpass,” Wong explained. “It leads to a maze of different murals and then in the back we have a large exhibition of paintings.”
BISHOP MUSEUM staffer Rachel Filbeck, leader of the team that designed, built and installed the exhibition, explained that each business represents an important part of street art culture. The tattoo parlor is a link to the artistry. The record store connects to hip-hop music. Bodegas are an important part of many inner-city neighborhoods and reflect “the social and economic situations” in those communities, Filbeck said.
“The noodle shop shows how it went global and became a phenomenon that transcends cultural barriers,” she said.
Wong named his event Pow! Wow! as a nod to comic book art — “Pow!” being the impact art can have on someone, and “Wow!” being the viewer’s reaction to it. However, the words have an older meaning referencing a Native American term, powwow, which has become used as a general term for meetings, conferences and gatherings; Wong has made gatherings central to the annual Pow! Wow! schedule.
Before Pow! Wow!, Honolulu knew street art as the intricate and colorful work of anonymous graffiti crews, who executed their creations illegally on the bare gray walls of public buildings, freeway retaining walls and overpasses, and similar inviting “canvases.” The bright splashes of color would enjoy a few days of visibility before city or state employees would paint them over at taxpayers’ expense — creating a fresh canvas for another street artist.
Somehow, those doing the painting never seemed to get caught in the act.
The artists’ work was illegal, but in terms of creativity it was several steps above the cryptic designs used by street gangs to mark their turf, the acts of individuals who defaced street signs and traditional graffiti messages such as “Kilroy was here!” — the ubiquitous text often associated with American soldiers in World War II.
ON THE national level, the origins of contemporary street art date back to the late 1960s with the invention of the aerosol spray can. The pioneer street artists wrote simple “tags” (stylized signatures) and sought to tag as many locations as possible. As time passed tags morphed into large and colorful calligraphic designs, and East Coast street artists found that the best way to get their work seen by the widest possible audience was to put their art on subway cars. By the end of the 1970s many of the cars of the New York City subway system had become mobile street art exhibits. Some designs used the full length of a subway car.
In the years that followed, American street art captured the imagination of people all over the world. Some forms of street art have been accepted as fine art by members of the mainstream art world. (Think Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.)
Back in Honolulu, Chinatown merchants have known for years that street art can both spruce up urban environments and deter less-artistic art. When the merchants invited street artists to paint the panels they used to cover their store windows at night, random vandalism of the panels declined.
The same thing has happened in Kakaako since Wong and his artistic collaborators introduced Pow! Wow! to Honolulu 10 years ago.
Wong, who said he is proud to have hit the decade milestone, plans to continue the event for years to come.
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ON VIEW
“Pow! Wow! The First Decade: From Hawai‘i to the World”
>> Where: Bishop Museum, 1525 Bernice St.
>> When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
>> Cost: $24.95 (ages 18-64), $21.95 (65 and over) and $16.95 (age 4-17); children 3 and younger are free. Kamaaina and military discounts are available.
>> Info: bishopmuseum.org or 847-3511
