The Pacific Arts Association Newsletter, Number 29, December 2011

THE PACIFIC ARTS ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER
Number 29, December 2011 
www.pacificarts.org


Table of Contents

A Message from President Michael Gunn
Next PAA Europe Conference in Munich
Next PAA International Symposium
Pacific Branch of the PAA 
A word from PAA member Harry Beran
Upcoming International Conferences and Opportunities
International Exhibitions and Events
Publications of Interest
Pacific Arts Journal 
A note from Pacific Arts Journal Editor, Anne E. Guernsey Allen
Call for Articles
PAA Member News
PAA Membership Information
A note from Interim Treasurer Christian Kaufmann
From the Editor

A Message from President Michael Gunn

Dear PAA members,

Recently I had the good fortune to be in Port Moresby for the launching of “Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes”, the catalogue of the collection of the National Museum of Papua New Guinea edited by Barry Craig and published by Tony Crawford.  It was an interesting few days, for the book opening was an event marking what we all hope to be the end of a long period of corruption and inertia at the National Museum, and the beginning of a new brighter future under the leadership of Andrew Moutu, currently Acting Director.  Standing behind Andrew is a strong team of trustees, headed by Julius Violaris, and including Peter Loko (CEO of Telekom PNG),  Andrew Abel, Maria Kokopo, and Nora Brash.

Several museum people came over from Australia for the launching and were interested to see which of the rumors were true.  Signs of new direction were immediately visible - the museum grounds were freshly mown, cleaned, planted, and had the look of a place that had been unearthed from decades of neglect. All the plastic bags that previously littered the place had vanished, a car park that people had forgotten about was unearthed, unmentionable substances had been removed from the pond.

Inside we were amazed - the floor had been cleaned, the lights and air conditioning were working, and best of all:  the art works which were installed in 1982 were still there, minus only the stone objects which had been stolen several years ago. Unfortunately we were not able to see into storage - the person who knew the combination for the locks was not able to be found... 

Tackling corruption is not an easy task. More than six million kina had vanished unaccounted from the museum’s finances in recent years - the result of scams such as paying the people who were meant to mow the lawns 6000 kina a month, then the lawn mowers gave half back to a certain previous member of the museum staff who had authorized that payment. PNG almost prides itself as being the most corrupt nation in the Pacific, a fact mentioned on the front page of the Post-Courier when we were there. 

The task of Andrew and the Trustees is enormous - to turn the National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea into a corruption-free shining star, the national center for cultural heritage.  But, with the strength of this team, I believe they could do it.  I certainly hope so.

The National Museum, Port Moresby

Next PAA Europe Conference in Munich


PAA Europe Annual Conference in Munich, Germany
28-30 June 2012

Dr. MICHAELA APPEL, of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich, Germany, has confirmed that the next PAA annual conference will be held there. The theme of this year's meeting will be "Histories of Collections".  The symposium will coincide with the State Museum of Ethnology's 150th Anniversary. An exhibition, dealing with the history of the museum's collections, will focus on Moritz Wagner – (who in April of 1862 became the first Curator of the Royal Ethnographic Collection in Munich) - and the acquisitions of his time.  In 1868 the collection was opened to the public, Wagner, was employed until 1887. The Exhibition will open in in April 2012.

Members will be able to see "Oceania - World Views of the South Seas" an exhibition of Pacific artifacts drawn from the collections, curated by Dr. Appel, and the museums permanent exhibition "Beyond the Horizon – World Art". 

PAA members will be able to see the museum's Oceanic art storage

The members will be able to join an excursion to the Sudsee Sammlung in Obergünzburg which houses and displays an exhibition of the Captain Karl Nauer collection.   Nauer donated an extensive Pacific art collection to his hometown Obergünzburg/Allgäu in the early 20th century.

An opportunity to present other topics in a general session will also be available during the symposium.

Call for Submission of Abstracts:
Abstracts should be submitted by March 1, 2012.  Acceptance will be confirmed by April 1, 2012.

Symposium registration information:
Registration and further information regarding the conference will be emailed directly to members. 

Anthropology museum website
Website for museums in Munich and their links






Next PAA International Symposium

PAA 11th International Symposium, Vancouver, Canada
August 5-8, 2013


The next PAA International Symposium will be held in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia August 5-8, 2013. The theme and other details are to be announced shortly. Among the topics to be addressed will be Pacific connections to the First Nations.  Watch for information as it becomes available in upcoming newsletters and on the PAA website.







The Pacific Branch of the PAA

The 76th Western Museums Association meeting that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii from September 23-26th, 2011 offered a unique opportunity for PIMA and PAA to jointly present a session titled CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC ARTS IN INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: Regional Views and Critiques. The session was proposed and co-chaired by PIMA SG Tarisi Vunidilo and Christina Hellmich.This session offered a world view, by regions, of exhibitions and initiatives focusing on contemporary Pacific art. The line up of presenters, some of whom are curators and scholars provided a global view of the work being done with Pacific collections, for the last five years in the Pacific, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Tarisi Vunidilo started the presentations by sharing some of the work being carried out in the Pacific region, then followed by Christina Hellmich, Dr. Carlos Mondragon,Dr.  Carol Mayer, joint presentation by Dr. Carol Ivory and Dr. Yuh-Wao Wan of Taiwan and concluded by Dr. Fanny WonuVeys. They spoke about the commission, collection and exhibition of contemporary Pacific works by museums and cultural institutions. They also presented and critically assessed the recent exhibitions and presentation of contemporary Pacific art using new paradigms of decolonization and globalization in their part of the world. Of particular concern to the panel was the impact of these projects on artists and Pacific Islander communities. This joint session was well attended and provided the audience with a snapshot of work and exhibitions being carried out in international museums relating to contemporary pacific collections.


Panelists (L-R) Dr. Wonu Veys,  Dr. Yuh-Yao Wan,  Dr.  Carol Ivory, Dr. Carol Mayer, Dr. Carlos Mondragon, Christina Hellmich, Tarisi Vunidilo who participated in the September 2011 WMA meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

PIMA looks forward to continuing work with PAA in the next Western Museums Association Annual Conference, which will meet in October 2012 in Palm Springs, California. The committee will be discussing this and will keep members updated. This symposium is an opportunity to make a difference in the museums, academic institutions, and Pacific communities.  

Proposal deadline is January 7th, 2012

For more information: http://westmuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/2012-session-proposals/

Cheers

Tarisi Vunidilo

PIMA SECRETARY-GENERAL

Visit the PAA Pacific Facebook page for further information on projects and activities
Contact: paapacific@gmail.com


A word from PAA member Harry Beran

In praise of dealers’ catalogues  
Harry Beran

Dealers in the traditional arts of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas have published numerous catalogues on topics unique in the literature on the arts of these regions. Here I mention three that happen to be of special interest to me.

At Parcours des Mondes in Paris in 2011, I picked up Galerie Dodier’s catalogue Totems Miniatures by Laurent Dodier illustrating thirty-six horn spoons with richly carved handles from the Tinglit of Alaska and the Haida of Canada. There are few publications which illustrate so many objects of one type from one culture, permitting stylistic comparison among them, and there is probably no other showing so many horn spoons from Alaska and Canada.

 
Tlinglit or Haida spoon made of mountain goat horn. 27.3 cm high. Illustrated in Totems Miniatures, p. 27.

On the occasion of their show at the San Francisco Tribal Art Fair in San Francisco in 2009, Michael Hamson and Richard Aldridge issued their catalogue Art of the Massim & Collingwood Bay, published by Michael Hamson Oceanic Art. This is the only printed publication showing a substantial number of artworks from Oro Province of Papua New Guinea — indeed more than ninety.

 
Unnamed Collingwood Bay man wearing two turtle shell combs.Illustrated in Art of the Massim & Collingwood Bay, p. 254.

In the year 2000, Galerie Meyer in Paris published a catalogue Oceanic Headrests, illustrating sixty headrests from Melanesia, Polynesia, and including even one from Micronesia. It shows more of these headrests than any other publication I know.

Headrest from the Lower Sepik. 17.5 cm high. Illustrated in Oceanic Headrests, pp. 30-31.

I have other interesting sales catalogues from Jean-Edouard Carlier (Galerie Voyageurs & Curieux), Kevin Conru, Julien Flak (Galerie Flak), and John Giltsoff. Some of these catalogues as well as the three described are probably still available. Most of these catalogues commercial publishers would probably not have issued. We should be grateful to the galleries for these treasures — and to their customers who pay for them indirectly.


Upcoming International Conferences and Opportunities

State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Pacific Research Colloquium
Developing Pacific Scholarship
30 January - 10 February 2012
Australian National University, Canberra

The Research Colloquium is envisaged as a training opportunity for younger Pacific Islands researchers. http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ssgm/

 
2012 Centennial CAA Conference 
22-25 February, 2012
Los Angeles, California

As a benefit of its affiliation with the College Art Association, the PAA hosts a session of papers at the annual CAA conference.  The session theme in 2012 is The Body Politic: The Role of Body Art and Anthropomorphic Depictions in Oceanic Societies. 

Throughout the South Pacific, the human body as subject or medium has been used to convey political ideals and structure society. This panel takes as its starting point Shilling’s contention that the corporeal body is a multidimensional medium for the constitution of society (a source of, a location for, and a means of positioning individuals within, society).

http://conference.collegeart.org/2012/
http://www.pacificarts.org/node/105
http://pacificarts.org/files/The%20Body%20Politic%20CAA%20for%20PAA.pdf



Heritage 2012: 3rd International Conference on Heritage and Sustainable Development
19-22 June 2012
Porto, Portugal

Heritage 2012, like its predecessors, aims at establishing a state of the art event regarding the relationships between forms and kinds of heritage and the framework of sustainable development concepts.

Today, heritage preservation and safeguarding face new and complex problems. Degradation due to factors such as global and local pollution, climate change, poverty, religion, tourism, commerce, ideologies, war, are now at the cutting edge for the emergence of new approaches, concerns and visions of heritage.

Here, environment, economics, society and culture, the four dimensions of sustainable development, will be considered in order to define a singular approach on how to deal and go beyond the traditional aspects of heritage preservation to where it can serve as the driving force for commerce, business, leisure and politics.

This year's conference includes two new areas: one on key issues of preservation and rehabilitation techniques of structures and materials, adaptive reuse of historical buildings, sustainability goals, assessment tools and another dedicated to early stage researchers willing to share the results of their doctoral and post-grad research projects.

The deadline for abstracts has passed. The deadline for papers is on or before February 29, 2012. Notification of acceptance, revision or rejection will be made via email until April 15, 2012. 

http://heritage2012.greenlines-institute.org/H2012website/conference_scope.html
http://www.pacificarts.org/node/717

The 5th Biennial Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga International Indigenous Development Research Conference
27-30 June 2012
Auckland, New Zealand

The conference will highlight indigeneity and the multidisciplinary approach used for indigenous development. Presentations and papers will address all aspects of the following themes central to its realization:

-Optimizing Indigenous Economic Wellbeing: addressing issues, needs and opportunities arising in Maori and indigenous communities, leading to increased economic independence and self-determination.

-Healthy and Thriving Indigenous Families: addressing issues, needs and opportunities arising in indigenous families leading to healthy, successful and thriving indigenous families.

-Enhancing Indigenous Distinctiveness: understanding the distinctive contributions and development that indigenous communities – people, knowledge, assets, and resources – make and may yet make to the world at large. 

-Indigenous Knowledge Creation: the development of indigenous approaches to and methodologies of knowledge creation; exploring indigenous worldviews and understanding the contribution of these approaches to world knowledge. Exploring indigenous worldviews, and epistemologies, and the relationship between indigenous knowledge, and other knowledge (such as science).

-Building Excellent Indigenous Research Capability:  what is the nature of the indigenous research capability’? How is this achieved? How can we harness new technologies? What do we mean by excellence in indigenous research capability? Do any current models exist? What models exist in the histories of indigenous communities?

-Research and Indigenous Transformation: what is the ‘bridge’ between indigenous development research and positive change in our communities? How can we ensure that the outcomes and benefits of our research do get into the hands which can make change in our communities? How is positive change achieved through our research?

www.indigenousdevelopment2012.ac.nz 
enquiries@indigenousdevelopment2012.ac.nz
http://www.pacificarts.org/node/715

The Easter Island Foundation: 8th International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific
Living in Changing Island Environments
July 8-13, 2012
Santa Rosa, California

The general theme of the conference concerns living in changing island environments, with an overall emphasis on the relationships between people, climatic variation, and consequent changes introduced to environmental and social landscapes.

The conference will explore topics that include adaptive responses in subsistence, technology, ideology, social organization, artistic expression, and language. The conference will also consider new technologies that document, study and preserve the fragile archaeological heritage, including the topics of GIS analysis, laser scanning and 3D modeling of ceremonial sites and island landscapes.

The PAA panel has been set for this meeting which will be chaired by Carol Ivory, and Tricia Allen, Yuh-Yao Wan, Carol Ivory and Stacey Kamehiro as speakers.

Prof. Patrick V. Kirch from the University of California, Berkeley, discussing the use of islands as model systems for studying human-environmental interactions, will be the keynote speaker.

http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/?page_id=636

20th ESFO Conference
The Power of the Pacific -Values, Materials, Images
December, 5th-8th 2012
Grand Terminus Hotel
Bergen, Norway

The conference will be hosted by the University of Bergen’s Pacific Studies group, Department of Social Anthropology and Bergen University Museum.

In 2012 we shall be celebrating the first twenty years of ESfO conferences. We do this by commemorating the enduring significance of Oceania in global trajectories of history, ideas, politics, economy and ecology. We invite participants and panels to reflect on the unique position of the region with regard to its cultural and linguistic diversity, its ecological and geographical distinctness, and its particular position as a region full of experiments and experiences with social formations.

We encourage participants to consider the shifting values and imaginations in and of the social worlds of Oceanic peoples. Importantly, we ask participants to consider the political, economic and moral alternatives that Oceania continues to represent in relation to the contemporary world.

The conference aspires to expand understandings of the ways in which Oceania continues to deliver materials, in the widest sense, to the wider world: 

•        resource materials of economic and ecological significance 

•        political materials that convey alternatives and challenges to current models of social 

         organization and of nation, statehood and democracy

•        artistic and visual materials that evoke the cultural vibrancy of the Pacific

•        religious materials that engage Christian images in localized 

•        concerns

In short: materials for thought in the wider world.

From a pluralist agenda we wish to bring to the forefront indigenous knowledge and aesthetics, and we encourage interdisciplinary dialogues between anthropology, linguistics, art history, media studies, archaeology, history, political science, biology and other fields.

We also anticipate studies that take the pulse of unfolding contemporary phenomena such as:  

-         religious and moral innovations 

-         the structure of post- or neo-colonial relations 

-         institutional processes of recognition or intervention 

-         indigenous movements of  political, economic or religious character

-         differently scaled ideas of nationalisms 

-         effects of internet and mobile connectedness 

-         emerging cosmopolitanism and class 

-         performative strategies and tactics in global relations

By addressing the power of the Pacific as well as Pacific powers we hope the responses will be plentiful, wide-ranging and challenging. We trust they will inspire you all to come to Bergen with an open mind and interact with the international community of Oceanists. It will be an opportunity to engage in full with the complexity and creativity of the Pacific region.

The Bergen conference will feature the Sir Raymond Firth Memorial Lecture, plenary speakers and panels, stunning performances of Pacific art, Norwegian seasonal cuisine, warm wood fires, as well as post-conference skiing and excursions.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Bergen in December 2012.

http://esfo2012.com/en

International Events and Exhibitions



10th Anniversary Exhibition: Be My Guest: 10 Encounters with Aboriginal Art
Closes January 8, 2012
AAMU, Museum for Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, Netherlands

In Be My Guest: 10 Encounters with Aboriginal Art works by major names in Aboriginal art enter into a dialogue with art from a wide range of disciplines and regions. Roy Villevoye, Tijs Goldschmidt, Maria Roosen, Edwin Jacobs, Macha Roesink, Wouter Welling, Theo Kuijpers, Bob Negryn, Kitty Zijlmans and Arjon Dunnewind are the 10 guest curators who, at the AAMU’s invitation, paired up Aboriginal art works with other contemporary art works of their choice. They have selected these works on the basis of their different perspectives as artists, academics, museum directors or curators.

The Aboriginal art works and their counterparts are very diverse, ranging from paintings, photography, installations and sculpture to sound and video. These confront and complement each other. In Be My Guest it is as though the viewer is looking over the guest curator’s shoulder. Which works did the curator choose and why? 

Examples of fascinating juxtapositions the exhibition 
features: the grande dame Emily Kame Kngwarreye and the American Sol LeWitt, founder of the Minimal Art movement; the painted map by Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri beside Guide psychogéographique de Paris by the French Situationist Guy Debord (1957); or the Ritournelle app, leading through Utrecht and created by artists Marc Tuters and Ricarda Franzen, based on the concept of the Aboriginal song lines.

Be My Guest is part of an extensive program featuring Aboriginal art, film, debate, theatre, poetry and photography in celebration of the AAMU’s 10th anniversary.

www.aamu.nl



Matau: Traditional hooks, innovative designs 
4 December 2010 – November 2012
Te Papa Tongarewa
Level 3, Free entry

From ingenious tool to ornament, souvenir, and symbol of cultural revival – this exhibition explores the changing form and function of the Māori matau (fish-hook). 

http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/exhibitions/Pages/MatauTraditionalhooks.aspx

Gaugin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise 
24 September - 31 December 2011
Art Centre Basel

A major exhibition at the Glyptotek where visitors experienced Paul Gauguin’s masterpieces side by side with the 'primitive' art of Polynesia. 

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek showed more than 50 of the artist’s masterpieces with motifs from Tahiti – many of them being exhibited in Denmark for the first time. In addition, the Glyptotek will present around 60 artifacts of Polynesian culture, which inspired him: cult statues, weapons, jewellery (some of it made from human hair and bones) as well as tattoos. 

Gauguin and Polynesia pursues the artist’s idea of the primitive, from his time in Copenhagen and Brittany on to the Tahiti period, which has made him famous. 

Oviri – the Wild Man 
Gauguin often referred to himself as ‘Oviri’ – the wild man. He invented and refined his own form of "primitive” art, equal parts abstraction and observation of the natural world. The exhibition displays his intense quest for an artistic method of making statements about the human being, the erotic and the mysteries of life. 

An icon for the future 
Posterity has shown enormous interest in Gauguin’s art, his personality and his life. His pictures from Tahiti are today icons of the meeting of European art with alien cultures, and he inspired such painters as Picasso and Matisse. With Gauguin art becomes seriously modern. 

http://www.glyptoteket.dk/gauguin-and-polynesia

Gaugin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise
Seattle Art Museum
February 9 - April 29, 2012
SAM Simonyi Special Exhibition Galleries

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) is one of the true larger-than-life figures in art history. The key feature in his personal mythology is the constant yearning for an exotic paradise. He sought it in the bohemian arts community at Pont-Aven on the coast of Brittany and later on the South Seas island of Tahiti. When that outpost of French colonialism began to feel too constraining, Gauguin moved to a still more remote location, the Marquesas Islands, where he died in 1903. His fascination with local cultures resulted in a kind of personal, syncretic iconography throughout his career.

Past exhibitions have addressed Gauguin’s involvement with other cultures in a fairly superficial way. Through a balanced contextual analysis of Polynesian art alongside Gauguin’s works, this exhibition brings Polynesian arts and culture into the center of Gauguin studies. The show will display about 60 works by Gauguin (paintings, sculpture, works on paper) that fully reveal the extent of the influence of Polynesian art and culture on his work. It will also highlight about 60 works from the Pacific that exemplify the dynamic exchanges of Pacific Island peoples with Europeans throughout the nineteenth century. In contrast to earlier exhibitions, which included Pacific objects primarily as a kind of visual background to Gauguin’s development as a modern European artist, the exhibition and its innovative approach promise new insights into the relationship between Gauguin’s art and Polynesian art.

–Chiyo Ishikawa, Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture with Pam McClusky, Curator of Art of Africa and Oceania

Easter Island ‘Sans dessus dessous’ (Jules Vern)
From 22nd October 2011 to 19 February 2012

The exhibition ‘Halomancy – Poetic Material by Stéphane Halleux’ at the Museum of Science-Fiction ‘La Maison d’Ailleurs’, will include a new temporary exhibition that mainly presents a series of exceptional objects allowing a better understanding of the history and the culture of Easter Island.

http://www.yverdonlesbainsregion.ch/en/page.cfm/Manifestations/Expositions_temporaires/ile-de-paques

Maori: Their Treasures have a Soul
Closes 22 January 2012
Musee du quai Branly, Paris
Garden Gallery

The exhibition features Māori culture through 250 pieces from the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. This exhibition, never shown before outside New Zealand affirms a people’s will to master their own future by emphasizing tino rangatiratanga: Māori selfdetermination and control over things Māori.

The exhibition presents a great range of artwork, including sculpture, adornment, daily and sacred objects, architectural elements, photographs, audiovisual documents, and so on. It highlights the links between taonga (ancestral Māori treasures) and contemporary art, shedding light on important issues and debates for Māori today and presents Māori culture as seen by Māori, free of Western views and biases. The heart of the exhibition features art that addresses the political, spiritual, and aesthetic developments that have shaped Māori culture.

Origins of Western Desert Art: Tjukurrtjanu
Closes 12 February 2012
The Ian Potter Centre
National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Melbourne

Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art examines a watershed moment in the history of art when a painting practice emerged at Papunya in Central Australia. Tjukurrtjanu gives prominence to 200 of the first paintings produced at Papunya between 1971 and 1972 and also establishes the vital connection between the works of art and their sources in ephemeral designs made for use in ceremony.

Living Water-Contemporary Art of the Far Western Desert
Closes May 28, 2012
National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Melbourne

During the first decade of the 21st century, Pintupi, Spinifex, Anangu, Yulparija and Martu artists developed a dynamic and fresh expression of Western Desert Art. The male and female artists not only share close kinship, social, linguistic and ritual interconnections and lived experience of desert country built up during pujiman (nomadic, bush) days but also have parallel experiences of making art with introduced materials for the commercial market. Their paintings — bearers of sanctity — resonate with the shock of the ancient made new and tell tjukurrpa(stories) associated with special places in their ngurra(country).This dramatic new wave of acrylic painting is the focus of Living Water, comprising the NGV’s 150th anniversary gift from the Felton Bequest of 107 paintings.

Aboriginal people from across the Western Desert use the term ‘living water’ to describe water sources, including rock holes and soakage waters that are fed by underground springs. The path of these springs was created by the ancestral beings of the tjukurrpa(Dreaming) as they themselves journeyed underground, their entry into the earth often marking the site of current day water sources. ‘Living water’ is revered also because it does not seem to be affected by the harsh conditions above the ground that the people themselves have to endure.




11th Festival of Pacific Arts, Solomon Islands 2012: Culture in Harmony with Nature
1-14 July 2012 
Honiara, Solomon Islands

In an attempt to combat the erosion of traditional customary practices, the idea of a Festival of Pacific Arts was conceived the Pacific Community.  Since 1972, delegations from 27 Pacific Island Countries and Territories have come together every four years to share and exchange their cultures at each Festival.

In July 2012, it is expected that more than 3000 artists and cultural practitioners from Pacific countries will converge into Honiara to showcase their arts and cultures in a program featuring a wide range of traditional and contemporary visual and performing arts – music, dance, oratory and story telling, theatre and film, handicrafts, literature, tattooing, fire walking, culinary arts, navigation and canoeing, fashion, photography and healing.

http://www.festivalofpacificarts.com/
http://www.festival-pacific-arts.org.sb/

For further updates on conferences and/or exhibitions that may be of interest, please visit the Announcements page of the PAA website. 


Publications of Interest



Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans
Wendy S Arbeit
ISBN978-0-8248-3476-0
$75
University of Hawai'i Press, November 2011
1-808-956-8255; Fax: 1-808-988-6052
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8561-9780824834760.aspx

The work of Hawaiian artisans at the time of Western contact was woven seamlessly into their everyday lives and culture—the details of which are now lost. Although we can no longer comprehend the objects left to us with the same depth of understanding as early Hawaiians, we can appreciate their aesthetic qualities and the skill used in their construction, particularly when numerous pieces of the same type are viewed together. 

Links to the Past makes this possible by reuniting more than a thousand eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Hawaiian artifacts from over seventy institutions and collections worldwide. Numerous pieces presented here have rarely or never been seen in print. The book will prove invaluable to those involved in the study and creation of Pacific art and visual culture and readers interested in early cultural exchange and pattern and design among indigenous cultures.

Living Water: Contemporary Art of the Far Western Desert
Judith Ryan
2011
AU$14.95 
National Gallery of Victoria Shop +61 3 8620 2243

Tropical art, GUAM
Simeon Palomo
ISBN-13: 9780615531984
ISBN: 0615531989
$40  
Simeon Manibusan Palomo, October 2011
Available through Barnes and Noble, 1-800-THE BOOK
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tropical-art-guam-simeon-palomo/1033494677

Fish Hooks of the Pacific Islands 
By Daniel Blau and Klaus Maaz 
info@hirmerpublishers.co.uk

Postal Mail:
Daniel Blau 
Odeonsplatz 12, 80539 
Munich, Germany

PRICE: 100 euros if ordered before 31 December 2011 or 150 euros if ordered after 31 December 2011.




Pacific Arts Journal

The most recent Journal, 2011 New Series Volume11, features the following contributions:   "Collections Across the Divide" The Ethnographic Collections of James Edge-Partington (1854-1931) and Willam Ockleford Oldman (1879-1949); by Roger Neich, with special introduction by Christian Kaufmann; Traveling Ahead with the Ancestors: Re-directing Tertiary Art Education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Promotion of Contemporary PNG Art (1979-2009)by Pamela Rosi; The Iconography of the War Shields of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea: An Interpretation Recorded by Malinowski and Explained by Paramount Chief Pulayasi  - by Harry Beran; Shields of Melanesia by Paul Roscoe;   

The Journal also includes the following reviews: The Art of Oro Province of Papua New Guinea: A Preliminary Typology by Anna-Karina Hermkens; Vukumo: Art and Life o the Kilenge: A Personal Perspective: Papua New Guinea by Karen Stevenson; Re-counting Knowledge in Song: Change Reflected in Kaulong Music by Borut Telban; Mangareva, Panthéon de Polynésie by Carol Ivory

A note from Pacific Arts Journal Editor, Anne E. Guernsey Allen 

Dear members of the Pacific Arts,

I just wanted to update you on some developments concerning the next three volumes of Pacific Arts. Volumes 12 and 13 of the Journal will appear as a double set to be guest edited by Ross Bowden and Barry Craig. These will be sent in two separate mailings (in December and January.) Since Volume 13 is technically the first for 2012, the next (#14) will arrive in early fall of that year. Please make sure that your dues are paid so that you do not miss out. Also, keep in mind that we are always looking for peer reviewers and articles for the journal.  If you are interested in reviewing, have an essay to submit or just have a question, feel free to contact me. 

A special festschrift issue of Pacific Arts in honor of Phillip Lewis has been proposed by Barry Craig who has offered to edit and contribute to it.  The Journal is seeking contributions from people who have worked in New Ireland (Phillip’s field, out of which came his ground-breaking The Social Context of Art in Northern New Ireland) or have benefited in their research by access through Phillip to the collections of the Field Museum

For further information: http://pacificarts.org/node/753 and http://www.pacificarts.org/node/466
For further publications of interest please visit: http://www.pacificarts.org/announcements/related_publications?page=2

Please make sure that your dues are paid so that you do not miss out on these editions. 

Call for Articles

A call for articles on the art of the Pacific region, especially papers on all topics pertinent to the visual and performing arts of the peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, and Indonesia, for future Journals remains in place along with a request for suggestions for special issues devoted to particular topics or regions, as well as for books, exhibitions, videos, etc., for review. 

For more information on submission of articles please visit: http://www.pacificarts.org/journal

Volunteer Peer Reviewers are still welcome!

The Pacific Arts Journal continues to seek volunteers to peer review articles submitted to the journal, with the hope of compiling a list of qualified individuals. If you are interested in reviewing or have an essay to submit or just have a question, please feel free to contact Anne Allen.

PAA Member News

In Memoriam

Norman Paul Hurst
1944-2011

For over 30 years, Norman was the proprietor of Hurst Gallery in Cambridge, MA.  The gallery has been a unique fixture in Harvard Square, where Norman introduced countless patrons to the beauty and significance of non-Western arts. 

He was a member of the International Society of Appraisers and the Appraisers Association of America, organizations in which he earned special certification for his expertise in non-western arts.  Hurst lost a lengthy battle with cancer at his home in Newton on July 27, 2011.

http://www.pacificarts.org/node/705

Phillip Harold Lewis
1922-2011

Phillip Lewis participated in expeditions to Papua New Guinea, studied Melanesian culture and brought hundreds of items, including masks and other pieces of art, back to Chicago for display at the Field Museum.  As a curator of anthropology at the Field Museum for nearly 40 years, Mr. Lewis oversaw the museum’s collections of what was known at that time as “primitive art".  “He was the first and only curator of the museum to focus on the concept of how art and society relate to each other,” said Ryan Williams, associate curator and current chair of the anthropology department at the Field Museum. “Over the long duration of his service at the museum, he helped bridge the gap between what natural history museums do and what art museums do.”

Mr. Lewis died of natural causes on Dec. 10 at a nursing home in Evanston, He was 89.

http://www.obituarychicago.com/?p=353

PAA Membership Information

Members of PAA receive Pacific Arts journal by mail, and The Pacific Arts Newsletter online, each issued twice yearly. Memberships and all of their benefits are for a calendar year and expire on December 31st.

You must be a member of the Pacific Arts Association to become a member of PAA-Europe and/or PAA Pacific.

Annual Membership Fees, Questions, Contributions:
Professional, institutions, museums, libraries, collectors, dealers: $50
Artists, students and retired persons: $35
PAA Europe: €10

Questions about dues? Contact Christian Kaufmann.
Change of address? Contact Christina Hellmich.

For more information, to join, renew by Pay Pal, or make a contribution and help Pacific Islanders attend future international meetings, please go to http://www.pacificarts.org/membership.

 
A note from Interim Treasurer, Christian Kaufmann

To all those of you wondering why you haven't received the latest issue (vol. 11, no. 1) of Pacific Arts, please go to our Website (pacificarts.org/Membership) and send us your Membership Fee for 2011 (US$50.00 for regular members, or US$ 35.00 for those entitled for a reduced rate) using our PayPal account. Otherwise, address a check, payable to Pacific Arts Association, c/o Christina Hellmich, de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.

Thank you for your cooperation. 

Best regards,

Christian

From the Editor

Dear PAA members,

This year is drawing to a close and the PAA newsletter brings you the prospect of next year's events, together with summaries of the last few months' activities.  

With worldwide exhibitions, symposia and conference participations, the Pacific Arts community has been very prolific. Please do not hesitate to send me information or comments to be included in the next newsletter, as they are always read with interest by members.

I would like to thank, Frances Barrow of Tel Aviv, and the Israel Museum's technical department for their assistance in brining this issue to you.   

Best wishes for the holiday season and may 2012 bring you all good things

Dorit Shafir