Exquisite Corpse
It’s a party game — though sometimes it pops up as a team-building exercise or an icebreaker — that you’ve probably played, even if you didn’t know its name: Exquisite Corpse.
Three artists sit down to collaborate on one portrait: One person draws the head, another takes the torso and the last does the legs. But there’s a catch, according to Honolulu Museum of Art curator Jay Jensen.
“Each artist can only see the lines where they have to connect; they can’t see what the other artists have done,” he explains. “When you unfold (the drawing), you have a complete figure done by three different artists.”
The results are chaotic, eclectic and always interesting to behold. That’s why Honolulu Museum of Art invited 20 local artists to create their own cadavre exquis Jan. 10, with the results on display from Jan. 14 to Feb. 15.
Featured artists are Roy Chang, Hannah Day, Jan Dickey, Solomon Enos, Brady Evans, Kandi Everett, Sally French, Jon Hamblin, Ryan Higa, Yumiko Glover, Kloe Kang, Wendy Kawabata, Sanit Khewhok, Kalani Largusa, Hadley Nunes, Jessica Orfe, Cade Roster, Kristen Rae Simonsen, Laura Smith and Thomas Walker.
But party games are more fun to play than watch, which is why the museum is offering two chances for the public to draw their own Exquisite Corpses and join the display — at Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday Jan. 18 and ARTafterDARK Jan. 30 (see sidebar, right).
Three walls in the display room will be covered by the 20 artists, but the last will be open for a selection of the public’s works.
Don’t miss one of two chances to be one-third of an Exquisite Corpse …
Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18
Even if you don’t have kids, you can still enjoy some of the free activities the museum hosts — like two screening of Sita Sings the Blues (11:10 a.m. and 1 p.m., $3 for adults) and some of the wooden works on display in Conversations with Wood.
ARTafterDARK: “Modern Love” 6-9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30
Celebrate love in the technological age and catch the last shunga exhibition in Modern Love: 20th Century Japanese Erotic Art, along with live music, activities and other cultured amusements.
