Hey, Lesa Griffith from the Honolulu Academy of Arts checking in. You haven't seen an Academy post in a while because, well, we started our own blog, aloHAA. Curators and other staffers documented the run-up to our big summer program, Asian Sensation, an amalgam of three contemporary art shows, two film series, lectures and performance. If you're into art and were planning a trip to New York to take in the Chelsea galleries, MoMA, and PS1, think twice—in the exhibtion Shu: Reinventing the Book in Contemporary Chinese Art we've got work by superstars Xu Bing and Cai Guo-Qiang, who is the guy who is doing all the visual fireworks for the opening of the Beijing Olympics. In One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now we've got work by rising stars such as Mika Tajima, Michael Arcega and Jean Shin. That's her on the ladder installing her work Unraveling, which includes sweaters donated from Hawaii artists (that's Honolulu artist Mat Kubo in the foreground, one of the volunteers who helped Shin install her amazing work).

Also on view is Historia Naturalia et Artificialia, a three-part installation by Oahu artist Leland Miyano, who uses materials such as basalt rocks from Kapaa Quarry, old redwood fencing and dried toads (yes, dried toads, check it out!). Leland is old pals with Nobel Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin, who wrote the intro the exhibition's brochure. It's an exciting summer at the Academy!

Asian Sensation runs through Aug. 31.
Honolulu Academy of Arts
900 S. Beretania St.
808-532-8700
www.honoluluacademy.org

—LesaG, 07/08/08