Pacific Art in Detail introduces the riches of Oceanic art through astonishing close-up views of rarely seen treasures, allowing behind-the-scenes insight into this vibrant work that no conventional gallery tour affords. Carefully selected pieces from the world-renowned Oceanic collection at the British Museumâe"by artists employing a wide variety of materials and techniquesâe"illustrate such major themes as the role of artistic creation in land and ocean management, political and spiritual power, and connections to gods and ancestors. Jenny Newellâe(tm)s introduction addresses the question âeoeWhat is Pacific art?âe while short texts place each individual object into its cultural context. Handsome photographs of each complete work are displayed alongside these fine details, to allow for intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated objects and media. Evoking the hand and eye of the most accomplished Pacific artists and craft workers, past and present, these details spur the creative imagination and serve as an astute introduction to Oceanic collections in museums around the world.

With more than one hundred illustrations--most in full color--this volume offers a stimulating and insightful account of two dynamic artistic cultures, traditions that have had a considerable impact on modern western art through the influence of artists such as Gauguin. After an introduction to Polynesian and Micronesian art separately, the book focuses on the artistic types, styles, and concepts shared by the two island groups, thereby placing each in its wider cultural context. From the textiles of Tonga to the canoes of Tahiti, Adrienne Kaeppler sheds light on religious and sacred rituals and objects, carving, architecture, tattooing, and much more.

Includes detailed chapters devoted to each of the five major cultural regions of the Pacific: Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the islands of Southeast Asia.

"This volume is published for the occasion of the Getty's citywide grant initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980 and accompanies the exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture 1950- 1970, held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles."

This groundbreaking anthology is the first to navigate the interconnections between the rhetorics and aesthetics of the Pacific. Like the bright and multifaceted constellation for which it is named, Huihui: Rhetorics and Aesthetics in the Pacific showcases a variety of genres and cross-genre forms—critical essays, poetry, short fiction, speeches, photography, and personal reflections—that explore a wide range of subjects, from Disney’s Aulani Resort to the Bishop Museum, from tiki souvenirs to the Dusky Maiden stereotype, from military recruitment to colonial silencing, from healing lands to healing words and music, from decolonization to sovereignty. These works go beyond conceiving of Pacific rhetorics and aesthetics as being always and only in response to a colonizing West and/or East. Instead, the authors emphasize the importance of situating their work within indigenous intellectual, political, and cultural traditions and innovations of the Pacific. Taken together, this anthology threads ancestral and contemporary discursive strategies, questions colonial and oppressive representations, and seeks to articulate an empowering decolonized future for all of Oceania. Representing several island and continental nations, the contributing authors include Albert Wendt, Haunani-Kay Trask, Mililani Trask, Chantal Spitz, Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio, Flora Devatine, Kalena Silva, Steven Winduo, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Selina Tusitala Marsh, ku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui, Craig Santos Perez, Gregory Clark, Chelle Pahinui, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Michael Puleloa, Lisa King, and Steven Gin. Collectively, their words guide us over ocean routes like the great wa‘a, va‘a, waka, proa, and sakman once navigated by the ancestors of Oceania, now navigated again by their descendants.

Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their disp.

"Recent years have witnessed a surge in interest the Pacific world as a hub for the global trade in art objects. Yet, the history of art and architecture has seldom reckoned with another profound aspect of the region's history: its exposure to global conflict. Art and War in the Pacific World provides a new view of the Pacific world, and of global artistic interaction, by exploring how the making, alteration, looting, and destruction of images, objects, buildings, and landscapes intersected with the exercise of force during the British and U.S. military incursions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries"--Provided by publisher.

The Art of Clothing: A Pacific Experience is a collection of richly textured and tremendously engaging empirical studies of cloth and clothing in colonial and post-colonial Pacific contexts. By challenging readers to reconsider the very nature of the materiality of clothing, the editors productively situate this volume at the intersection of a number of ongoing interdisciplinary projects that are coalescing around an interest in cloth and clothing. The book as a whole speaks lucidly to issues of current concern in a wide range of academic fields - including cultural studies, material culture, Pacific history, art history, history of religions, and museum studies.

Pacific Encounters brings together for the first time many stunning Polynesian objects collected by voyagers and missionaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Illustrated are over 270 items gathered from the major regions of Polynesia. Many are from the British Museum, which houses fine and rare material from the expeditions of Captain Cook, Captain Vancouver, and members of the London Missionary Society. Ranging from massive images of gods to small fish hooks, they are discussed in the contexts of their local use and meanings, and their journeys to museums all over the world. These pieces have remarkable stories to tell of encounters between humans and their gods, between Polynesians and Europeans, their respective chiefs and priests, beliefs, and technologies. Pacific Encounters is a groundbreaking book that conveys the wonder and excitement not only of the objects themselves, but of the fascinating Polynesian cultures that produced them.

As social, locative, and mobile media render the intimate public and the public intimate, this volume interrogates how this phenomenon impacts art practice and politics. Contributors bring together the worlds of art and media culture to rethink their intersections in light of participatory social media. By focusing upon the Asia-Pacific region, they seek to examine how regionalism and locality affect global circuits of culture. The book also offers a set of theoretical frameworks and methodological paradigms for thinking about contemporary art practice more generally.