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All in all it was a great museum and I will be back. It was a little sad that it seemed very empty when I was there, I only say maybe 10 other people besides the docents but then I suppose the majority of people come to Hawaii for the outdoors.
You should go during Art After Dark. *Packed*. Also for any of their many events. But during the day on a weekday (especially days like the ones we've been having): tourists are at the beach and locals are at work, mostly. Did you eat in the cafe? It's pretty good.
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I'm going hiking tomorrow so I won't be going to the Hawaii State art Museum until next week. I'm also going to try and visit the Contemporary Art Museum as well.
Too late now, but the Contemporary and Academy of Arts have merged. So if you visit them on the same day (do-able if you have a car, and the Contemporary is very small), you only pay one admission.
The restaurant at the State Art Museum is great. Schedule to be there for lunch if you can.
Are you planning a trip to the Bishop Museum? It's more cultural artifacts than paintings and drawings. But if you liked the furniture at textiles at the Academy, you'll like a lot of the stuff at the Bishop. The new Hawaiian Hall exhibit (opened last year, I guess) is fantastic.
Thanks for the tips Prof, I'll look into checking out the Bishop museum as well. I understand that most of the locals are probably at work, my own work schedule is the reverse of the usual 9-5 (I work 6pm-1am). I'm used to museums being empty, but just not that empty. It was pretty cool having the entire place to myself though. I'm definitely going to be visiting again when I can go with a few friends and I'll start looking into their events as well.
I didn't eat in the cafe, by the time I walked by the courtyard it was in they were closed. It looked nice though.
I'm definitely going to be visiting again when I can go with a few friends and I'll start looking into their events as well.
There are free days. From their web site:
Bank of Hawaii Family Sundays: Third Sunday of the month, 11am-5pm
First Wednesday of every month
Military appreciation day: First Sunday of every month free for military personnel and their families with ID
Entry to the Academy Shop, the Pavilion Cafe and The Robert Atherton Art Research Library is free.
Is that (what used to be a privately owned) backyard at the C.A.M. not heaven on earth? http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/images/smilies/pray.gif (broken link)
So I went to the Bishop yesterday, while it's not an art museum it was a good spot with nice exhibits. I usually enjoy natural history museums because of their collections of specimens and because they offer the opportunity to see the physiology of other species. The Bishop was different from most natural history museums I have seen because they seemed to be more anthropology oriented. I enjoyed this as well as the focus on the geological aspects of Hawai'i. Large numbers of the exhibits were exceptionally kid friendly and well designed, including a small exhibit on various types of wind in the islands. Another was focused on wave patterns through the seasons due to different wind and weather patterns and right next to it you could see the different sized waves that could be caused by underwater earthquakes, above water landslides, and fierce wind speed. The Hawaiian Hall is three stories of artifacts from daily life in pre-contact Hawai'i as well as a replica of a Hut and information about the mythology of various Hawaiian gods (I'm going to start doing a lot more research into this, mythology is something I've liked since I was a kid!).
Even with all this great stuff, the presentations are the real reason to go to the Bishop, at least if you were to ask me. The museum itself is good and definitely worth the trip but I've never been able to see so many presentations in one trip. There were two standouts for me-
1) The Lava presentation where you learn about the various lava flows and the different types of lava rocks that can be collected from volcanoes. Pele's hair and tears and pieces of Pahoihoi and A'a (probably didn't spell those right) as well as "spatter" and pieces of lava rock from underwater flows are handed around for you to inspect up close. They also finish by pouring a sample of molten rock from a furnace, and have a geologist on hand to answer questions.
2) The Polynesian navigation exhibit (my favorite), takes place in the planetarium and shows you all the stars that the Polynesians used to get to Hawai'i and Tahiti. You learn about the southern cross, the Hawaiian names of familiar stars and constellations and you get to see a presentation about the trip made in the 70's by a group of sailors to prove that navigating on a voyaging canoe from Hawai'i to Tahiti is not only plausible but possible with no modern navigational equipment. At the end of the exhibit, using the stars only, the audience gets to attempt to navigate themselves from Tahiti to Hawaii. Obviously they make it a way easier than it really would be but I definitely learned a lot more about the stars and the history of navigation by ancient peoples was amazing.
I'm going to another art museum tomorrow. Update to follow.
So I went to the Bishop yesterday, while it's not an art museum it was a good spot with nice exhibits. I usually enjoy natural history museums because of their collections of specimens and because they offer the opportunity to see the physiology of other species. The Bishop was different from most natural history museums I have seen because they seemed to be more anthropology oriented. I enjoyed this as well as the focus on the geological aspects of Hawai'i. Large numbers of the exhibits were exceptionally kid friendly and well designed, including a small exhibit on various types of wind in the islands. Another was focused on wave patterns through the seasons due to different wind and weather patterns and right next to it you could see the different sized waves that could be caused by underwater earthquakes, above water landslides, and fierce wind speed. The Hawaiian Hall is three stories of artifacts from daily life in pre-contact Hawai'i as well as a replica of a Hut and information about the mythology of various Hawaiian gods (I'm going to start doing a lot more research into this, mythology is something I've liked since I was a kid!).
Even with all this great stuff, the presentations are the real reason to go to the Bishop, at least if you were to ask me. The museum itself is good and definitely worth the trip but I've never been able to see so many presentations in one trip. There were two standouts for me-
1) The Lava presentation where you learn about the various lava flows and the different types of lava rocks that can be collected from volcanoes. Pele's hair and tears and pieces of Pahoihoi and A'a (probably didn't spell those right) as well as "spatter" and pieces of lava rock from underwater flows are handed around for you to inspect up close. They also finish by pouring a sample of molten rock from a furnace, and have a geologist on hand to answer questions.
2) The Polynesian navigation exhibit (my favorite), takes place in the planetarium and shows you all the stars that the Polynesians used to get to Hawai'i and Tahiti. You learn about the southern cross, the Hawaiian names of familiar stars and constellations and you get to see a presentation about the trip made in the 70's by a group of sailors to prove that navigating on a voyaging canoe from Hawai'i to Tahiti is not only plausible but possible with no modern navigational equipment. At the end of the exhibit, using the stars only, the audience gets to attempt to navigate themselves from Tahiti to Hawaii. Obviously they make it a way easier than it really would be but I definitely learned a lot more about the stars and the history of navigation by ancient peoples was amazing.
I'm going to another art museum tomorrow. Update to follow.
WOW your updates are wonderful! Are you just visiting right now? Thanks!
I did not know about the Contemporary Art museum, I'll have to check it out next time in Honolulu.
Something I didn't see mentioned among the museums is Doris Duke's Shangri La estate, now owned by the Academy of Arts. It's a special tour that starts at the Academy of Arts, and her collection focuses on Islamic art. I've been wanting to go but haven't had a chance yet. And just to tie in with the art scene thread, Shangri La has an artist in residence program: Home Page - Doris Dukes Shangri La
The Bishop museum is not an art museum, but the collection of Hawaiian and polynesian artifacts borders on art. Also, the "hut" is not a replica, it is in fact the last authentic Hawaiian grass house still standing, mostly taken from a remote valley on Kaua'i: Island History for Friday, July 29, 2011
We were just at the Academy of Arts and did the Shangri-La tour last month. Very impressed by both. I'd lived in DC for 25 years, and the HAA is obviously more similar to the smaller museums there (Corcoran, Phillips Collection, etc.) than any of the Smithsonian's, but has a very nice overview collection. The Shangri-La tour was very well-organized and informative. I'd been wanting to go for years.
Still need to go to the Bishop, too!
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