In Hawaii one of the first things people ask to get to know each other is, What high school did you go to (or usually in pidgin, What high school you went)?
It’s a quick way to sum up an idea of a person’s background, an attempt to find common ground or something they can relate to, even if it’s only a distant cousin.
It’s the way curators Tyler Cann and Alejandra Rojas Silva of the Honolulu Museum of Art hope to draw people to come and see the work of seven artists who were the products of McKinley High School and the three teachers who inspired them.
The exhibit, “Home of the Tigers: McKinley High and Modern Art,” opened Sept. 28 and will be on view through Jan. 12. Admission is free to anyone 18 and under. Cann is the museum’s senior curator of modern and contemporary art, and Rojas Silva oversees paper, photography and new media.
The artists who graduated from McKinley in the 1920s to the 1960s include the sculptor Satoru Abe, the most widely recognized Hawaii artist, and Imaikalani Kalahele, a Native Hawaiian painter, poet, musician and activist, who are both still living. The late Raymond Han, Ralph Iwamoto, Keichi Kimura, Robert Kobayashi and John Chin Young are the other five.
Following their service in World War II, Kimura, Kobayashi and Iwamoto settled in New York where they worked at the Museum of Modern Art. Abe and Han also moved to New York to attend the Art Students League, according to the curators.
While Han, Iwamoto and Kobayashi remained in New York, Abe and Kimura returned to Hawaii and became significant figures in the development of modernism alongside John Chin Young. Kalahele was drafted into the war in Vietnam and returned to become a powerful voice for Native Hawaiian values, resistance and cultural revival.
Rojas Silva said, “All of them grew up in downtown Honolulu and attended the same high school, but their careers were quite different and they touched upon many significant art movements.”
Cann said, “Many participated in things like surrealism, abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction and pop, then came back to representational work or moved between them all. … Each of these artists followed their own North Star and took different paths in the art world.”
Just down the street from the museum, McKinley is one of Hawaii’s oldest public high schools whose students represent a multicultural cross section of downtown Honolulu.
Cann said, “We see McKinley students outside the museum very frequently, and this exhibition attempts to make a real invitation for those students to come inside, to see work by artists who were exactly like them.”
“And beyond McKinley students, (it invites) all students. It’s a story about Honolulu. It will teach tourists traveling something about the place they’re in, but it also reflects this place to us who are living here,” added Rojas Silva.
Almost half of the exhibit is abstract art, but there’s something for everyone, they said.
“It’s something any person walking in the street can enjoy,” said Rojas Silva. “Come see this exhibition that reflects Honolulu at a certain point, that you are a part of this story. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel they need more knowledge to enjoy this.”
The exhibition also presents the work of three dedicated art teachers at McKinley — Minnie Fujita, Charles Higa and Shirley Russell— notable artists in their own right who taught there for decades, she said.
The curators quoted Kalahele, who said, “Minnie Fujita became like this mentor to me. She just turned me on to stuff in the early days that really made an impact on me till today.”
Of Fujita and Higa, Kalahele said, “They were really fantastic teachers. They knew how to just turn on things, you know, and walk away, let you do what you’re going to do.”
As a part of this project, both worked with McKinley students and interviewed alumni, some of whom were professional artists.
“Something we found interesting: They weren’t aware of the kind of legacy that McKinley High School had in terms of art, and knowing that allowed them to have a sense of pride, a sense of place and a sense of belonging to this legacy,” Rojas Silva said.
COMPANION EXHIBITION
>> Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 S. Beretania St., 808-532-8700.
>> The Honolulu Museum of Art pairs “Home of the Tigers” with a companion exhibition, “Satoru Abe: Reaching for the Sun,” on view Oct. 18 through July 20.
>> The museum’s first retrospective of Abe’s work focuses on his seven-decade career, delving deeply into his recurring themes, motifs and processes. It features more than 50 paintings, sculptures and works on paper.
>> Works range from Abe’s early figurative paintings of the 1950s and sculptural practice in the second half of the 20th century to his recent abstract works.
