RĀ’AU
What fun it was to collaborate with a good friend, and Polynesian artist that I admire, Alexander Lee, in the opening of his newest exhibition. This gave us an opportunity to offer oli and awaken the mana in the works and those in attendance, all in transformative and clearing alignment with the Makahiki season.
Rā’au is Tahitian for both wood and medicine in reference to the traditional views of plant-based pharmacopoeia. Through this new series of sculptures made from various types of reclaimed wood, Alexander Lee brings concepts and narratives from Tahiti where he grew-up into the urbanity of New York City where he has been a resident for 25 years. “If Manhattan is the urban epitome of an island in the Western construction, and Tahiti is its imaginary Indigenous opposite, how does a subject from both realities learn from it and navigates the world into the 21st century?” asks Lee.
A catalogue with essays by Maia Nuku, Curator of Arts of Oceania at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Todd Porterfield, Professor of Art History at New York University, accompanied the exhibition.
