Honolulu Weekly

The Contemporary Museum / Early last month, longtime Contemporary Museum Associate Curator Allison Wong returned to the Makiki Heights institution to take the post as interim director in the wake of former director Georgianna Lagoria’s departure. Already immersed in projects to improve and sustain the contemporary mainstay, Wong took some time to chat with the Weekly about her new post, the museum’s future and the active presence of contemporary art in this community.

So let’s start with what’s coming up at the museum.

OK, let’s see, we are still celebrating our 20th anniversary, which we started last fall in October, and that’s culminating this October. Right after the Yoshihiro Suda show we have an exhibit called At 21: Gifts and Promised Gifts in Honor of The Contemporary Museum’s 20th Anniversary. It will open in October. [Editor’s note: see p. 27, for a look at the show.] These are works that are given to the museum in honor of our 20th, highlighting the milestone. It’s the first time a lot of these works will be seen.

Now that you’re at the helm of the museum, what kind of changes can we look forward to? What will your focus be?

Well I used to be here at the museum for 14 years as the associate curator. It’s wonderful time to be back here on the hill. With our economic times, we’re just really looking at new ideas and partnerships with a new demographic and new constituents. We’re doing some campus beautification like some much needed repairs on the café, a patio outside, we added two new sculptures–one by John Buck and one by Deb Butterfield. Right now we’re just looking to keep our doors open and move contemporary art into the next decade.

Could you elaborate on the partnerships you mentioned?

Just different businesses, in-kind support and some of these things I’m just starting to work on. We’re trying to have yoga up here. We’re doing some jewelry events, some smaller fundraisers, just trying to find a new audience.

You keep returning to this idea of a new audience or demographic and in the past year there’s been an emphasis on 20-somethings, at least with regard to them getting free admission–is that younger audience the group you’re focusing on?

Not particularly. I think that just fit with the theme of our 20th anniversary, getting students and using the museum as a running laboratory. We’re really just kind of looking at a whole new kind of audience for exposure. There are still so many people who I run into who have never been to The Contemporary Museum. It’s like “Where are you even located?” But then they come here and they’re like, “Wow, it’s such a special place.” We’re still trying to get ourselves on the map here.

It seems there’s often a stigma or perhaps more of a barrier for some people when it comes to contemporary art.

Yes. And when I was the curator for first Hawaiian Bank space, I always wanted to say, “You don’t have to like it.” The idea is it opens your mind to experience something greater. Like our current exhibition right now, the Suda exhibit, which is extremely minimal and elegant in and of itself and people say, “What is this? There are weeds growing out of the cracks.” But it’s a stunning, conceptual, minimal exhibit. It’s not whether you understand it or that you have to like it, but the idea is it’s a transformation. It’s some type of transformation and it’s not necessarily a positive or a negative. As long as you take something away with you, I think we’ve done our job.

You describe the museum as a “laboratory” and the grounds as a “campus”–and I’ve noticed that TCM visitors are really encouraged to participate and learn and be a part of the art, not just silently or passively observe–how does this match up with your vision of the museum’s future?

Working with the community is what we do really well. With some of our installation projects because it’s kind of like this open door–not just for community artists but for children–to come in and really look at our property and think of ways to use the space. And for the artists, you look at someone like Michael Arcega who used that big monkey pod tree. I think that’s one of the reasons contemporary art is so rich; because we can draw from what’s around us today.