Lisa Reihana: Emissaries Exhibition
Honolulu Museum of Art brings internationally known Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana’s 64-minute, panoramic video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected] to Honolulu. The video reinterprets and brings to life through sound and movement, the French 19th-century decorative wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, which is in the museum’s collection.
Reihana takes creative license with the subject matter. She alters widely reproduced images, such as Webber’s The Death of Cook, and complicates utopian images of the exotic with scenes of comedy, customary practices, conflict, and moments of uncomfortable social tensions between characters. Animated encounters between European visitors and Pacific people play out against the wallpaper’s picturesque backdrop, disrupting historical narratives and challenging stereotypes that originated in the myths of empire.
See this exhibition on display at the Honolulu Museum of Art from March 2 - July 14, 2019.
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