HONOLULU.- Tracing the transformation of art over eight decades, the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) presents “Past-Forward: Modern and Contemporary Art from HoMA’s Collection,”. With painting, sculpture and photographic work, “Past-Forward” explores the evolution of abstract painting in the decades after World War II, the rise of new figurative movements in the 1960s and 70s and the confluence of art and politics in subsequent decades. In addition to the debut of new acquisitions, key works by artists including Robert Rauschenberg and Lee Bontecou return to the galleries for the first time in more than two years.


Lee Bontecou (American, born 1931), Untitled, 1964. Welded steel, canvas, saw blades, soot, and wire. Purchase, 1968 (3545.1) © Lee Bontecou 2024.


Almost half of the works in “Past-Forward” are drawn from the nearly 4,000 objects that once comprised the collection of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu. In 2011, The Contemporary Museum gifted its collection and assets to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, merging the two institutions and forming the Honolulu Museum of Art.

“The Contemporary Museum was such an important part of Honolulu’s cultural fabric, and we are grateful to steward its collection as a part of the Honolulu Museum of Art,” said Halona Norton-Westbrook, director and CEO of HoMA. “‘Past-Forward’ integrates two outstanding collections of modern and contemporary art while staging a dialog between artists from various backgrounds, geographies and historical periods.”


Robert Colescott. “Shirley Temple Black (Aloha Shirley),” 1980. Acrylic on canvas. Honolulu Museum of Art. Gift of Dawn and Duncan MacNaughton, 2017 (2017-31-02).


A significant theme that emerges in “Past-Forward” is how artists have used unconventional materials, beginning with Robert Rauschenberg’s 1962 work “Trophy V (for Jasper Johns).” In a tribute to his fellow artist and ex-romantic partner, Rauschenberg embedded an entire windowpane in this abstract painting, which also features a ruler and cardboard box, along with a map and other images that relate to Johns. Alongside this work, the exhibition features a haunting 1964 wall sculpture by Lee Bontecou that incorporates sawblades and soot, as well as a spectacular 1968 arrangement of animal bones, antlers, buttons, glass eyes and other materials by Alfonso Ossorio.


Richard Diebenkorn, “Berkeley #63,” 1956. Oil on canvas. Honolulu Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley N. Barbee, 1966 (3429.1).


Works by Barbara Kruger, Alexis Smith and Kara Walker demonstrate how artists manipulated found materials and historical imagery to address the politics of identity in the 1980s and 1990s. Walker’s “The Means to an End…A Shadow Drama in Five Acts” (1995) is one of the artist’s earliest silhouette narratives that use grotesque and challenging images to explore complex issues of power, race and the history of slavery.


George Miyasaki. “Green Landscape,” 1957. Oil on canvas. Honolulu Museum of Art. Gift of Julie Miyasaki, 2014 (2014-83-02).


These hallmarks of HoMA’s collection are presented alongside new acquisitions. One of the most recent works in “Past-Forward” is Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s “Rays from a Sinking Sun” (2022). Reminiscent of a mobile by Alexander Calder, the sculpture incorporates unexploded ordinance from the Vietnam War to address memory, trauma and the potential for healing. Another recent acquisition is Gaye Chan’s “Colony (Young Laundry)” (1999, 2023), consisting of an antique wooden clothes-hanger and an upside-down miniature diorama of trees and Chinese pagoda-style buildings. A longstanding Hawaiʻi artist who was born in Hong Kong, Chan’s work often holds feelings of displacement and upheaval in tension with those of belonging and community.


Tseng Yu-ho, “Seagulls,” 1965. Dsui painting, gold and paper on screen. Honolulu Museum of Art. Gift of Sister Sara Kay Thompson and Philip Thompson in memory of their mother Marie Sara Garvey Thompson, 1992 (7049.1).


“It is always fascinating how artists make something new out of images and objects from the past,” said Tyler Cann, HoMA’s senior curator of modern and contemporary art. “Sometimes they make a conscious break with history, but artists can also help shape our understanding of the present by looking back. Maybe that’s especially true in a cultural moment that feels like it’s accelerating in all directions.”


Tuan Andrew Nguyen, “Rays from a Sinking Sun,” 2022. Artillery shell, steel, and powder coated paint. Honolulu Museum of Art, Museum Purchase (2023-05-01). Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York.


In addition to Chan, “Past-Forward” highlights contributions by other artists from Hawaiʻi, including George Miyasaki and Ray Yoshida. The exhibition also includes internationally recognized artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Colombia, the Philippines and Vietnam, including Brett Graham and Olga de Amaral. Together, the works in “Past-Forward” show how a diverse range of artists have expanded cultural conversations over the past seven decades while addressing personal, aesthetic and social concerns.