Contemporary works by Mari Matsuda and Matt Wedel join the collection

In June, HoMA’s Collections Committee and board of trustees approved the acquisition of two works aligned with the museum’s accessions strategy to add works that build bridges between cultures and time periods, have local relevance, and explore wider social issues of our day. Hawai‘i artist Mari Matsuda’s series of large-scale linocut prints entitled “For the Future” focuses on moments of social activism in Hawai‘i’s history, from the Great Sugar Strike of 1946 to the Mauna Kea protests of 2019.

“This is a significant acquisition from a new voice in the arts of Hawai‘i,” says Alejandra Rojas Silva, HoMA’s works on paper, photography and new media fellow, who was instrumental in the purchase of the prints. “Matsuda references a 20th-century iconography of social protest to connect contemporary audiences to the history of social activism in Hawai‘i. Her work encourages viewers to recognize that they have a stake in this history.”

Matsuda’s “For the Future” continues a long history of artists using prints for politically engaged artwork. They are reminiscent of Käthe Kollwitz’s anti-war prints during World War II or José Clemente Orozco’s etchings in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, such as those seen in After the Revolution in Gallery 9. The focus of her art is perhaps unsurprising given Matsuda’s distinguished career as a pioneering law professor and a leading voice in the development of critical race theory. She is emeritus professor of law with the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and was the first female Asian American tenured law professor in the US. She earned her masters of fine arts this year from the University of Hawai‘i.

The second acquisition is a ceramic sculpture that was created at the Honolulu Museum of Art School by artist Matt Wedel during his 2023 HoMA artist residency. Wedel generously donated all the works he made in Honolulu to the school, and the museum selected Flower Tree to become part of the permanent collection, joining the Wedel sculpture Figure with Child, which is in Gallery 2. The entire group of ceramics will go on view in the Mediterranean Courtyard in November.  

Flower Tree provides an opportunity for museum visitors to experience an important theme in Wedel’s ongoing body of work that explores organic, floral elements. The artist was also inspired by the coral reefs he observed during his time on O‘ahu. “Wedel sees his process as a kind of conversation between his own body and the materials of clay and glaze,” says Tyler Cann, HoMA’s senior curator of modern and contemporary art, “His work involves meditative forms of repetition, but is also open to improvisation and accident.”  

The work joins HoMA’s strong collection of 20th-century figurative ceramics, by artists such as Viola Frey and Robert Arneson. 

Image credit
Mari Matsuda. E Aloha E, 2023. Linocut print. Honolulu Museum of Art, Purchase (2024-01-01).
Mari Matsuda. ILWU Fishing Committee of the Great Sugar Strike of 1946, 2023. Linocut print. Honolulu Museum of Art, Purchase (2024-01-05) 
Matt Wedel. Flower Tree, 2023. Glazed porcelain. Honolulu Museum of Art