(Ambient noise, waves crashing) (Instrumental   music) Narrator  The first encounter with art provokes the almost  subconscious question, what is it?

We as human   organisms, identify judge and even pigeon  hole, what we see in order to understand.

This   identification process provides a rational sense  of order within us.

We recognize it, therefore we   understand it.

We know what we are looking at.

But  there are artists who challenge all of our senses   and sensibilities.

Then the questions abound, what  does it mean?

Is it art?

Why do I not like it?

Am I supposed to like it?

And what is it?

To put  oneself and one's work out there, to push oneself,   one's medium and even one's viewer, to  new perceptions is to risk, to challenge,   and this is the place of the cutting edge.

Marcia Morse  Cutting Edge, like lots of things in art, may be  an illusion.

If, for example, I present you this   tube of paper and you were to try to draw  it, you'd want to describe these lines as,   as edges, basically, of a form.

But the fact is,  there's no edge there.

There's just a continuous   surface.

And I like to think about cutting edges  as really being that way.

The artists who are on   that edge are taking us around a corner  to a place that we can't quite see yet.

Fritz Frauchiger The issues that the   people in the art world deal with sometimes are  very esoteric, and they're not always pretty, so   sometimes the cutting edge is considered ugly or  upsetting, and oftentimes that's what the cutting   edge really is.

It's pushing limits.

It's pushing,  what's common knowledge of what's propriety,   what's, what is right, what is just,  what's what is politic, what isn't.

Woman Lets take all the white ones,   all the white textured ones... Narrator  But what are these artists pushing against?

Pushing beyond?

Some are pushing against the   traditions of their art training, against the  conventional language of art from ages past,   with its vocabulary of composition, perspective  and line.

They take these and other concepts to   redefine and even create a new language  to communicate with us, their viewer.

Man Alright, yeah, these are good.

Narrator Many of these artists are   pushing within themselves, searching for a new  articulation of their inner perceptions of the   world around them.

Through their art, they speak  to us about issues of environment, physical,   social and political, and about those concerns  particular to each individual.

They are forging   their language in new images, new application  processes and even in new media.

We the viewer,   are called to listen.

There has always been  a cutting edge in the history of art.

The   tranquility of these water lilies by Claude Monet  belies the fierce public disapproval of his work   and that of his peers.

Those artists, known as  impressionists, dared in the 1880s to render their   subjects with new uses of colors and techniques.

The result was a fresh luminosity and a new way of   subjective seeing.

The viewer was not pleased.

James Jensen  When their work was first shown, it was soundly  criticized in a negative way by many of the   critics of the time, and derided and it created  a great furor, and consequently, their careers,   personal careers, suffered in terms of sales  and being able to support themselves initially.

They persevered, and as people saw more and  more of this and of the Impressionist works   through their exhibitions, they gradually came  to, I think, to to feel more comfortable and   familiar with it.

We reach the point where  today we look back on it and we, we, I think,   have a hard time understanding why people ever  reacted in the negative way towards these very   beautiful paintings.

If you look at contemporary  art today in that sort of context, at some point,   the work that's being done today will be history,  and we'll look at it in a very different way,   and we will have grown with it, and we will have  accommodated it into our culture, and it'll all   seem very natural.

And 100 years from now, people  will look back on some of the artists that are   controversial today and perhaps think, well, why  did they ever question that?

Why did they ever   feel uncomfortable with that?

Laura Ruby  I think any artist that would consider  themselves on the cutting edge should have   a thorough understanding of what traditionally  has been done in the past.

You need to know what   the past is so you can either leave it behind or  elaborate on it, or go a whole new direction.

Narrator Print maker Laura   Ruby has hiked Diamond Head crater for years.

Her  passion is the inspiration for a continuing series   of serigraphs begun in 1985.

Laura Ruby  We see Diamond Head every day from many different  perspectives in the city, and we think of it,   generally speaking, as a pristine,  beautiful, natural monument.

But yet,   the interesting thing is that once we get inside,  we see that it's riddled with military bunkers,   and this is the origins of my artwork.

That  contrast between that pristine beauty and   the almost desecration by military structures  within the natural monument.

Diamond Head always   fascinated me because it represents the Hawaiian  land and the appropriation of the land, whether by   aliʻi or contemporary 20th century military means.

It's been cut up, divided up, segmented, and given   to whoever is the controlling power or force.

I  think I parallel it in my Diamond Head series in   that I show fragmented sections of history, of  different cultural uses of the land, of various   artifacts being brought together in fragmented  ways, on a single fabric, on a serigraph,   a silk screen printing on paper.

But it is  a fragmentation that's brought together into   one whole.

One aspect of cutting edge, if you can  call it that, in this in these contemporary times,   is that the word appropriation is often used.

Often it means appropriation from earlier art   historical times of bringing together unusual  imagery and placing them brutally in a context   next to another image of perhaps another  time frame.

Civil Defense at Diamond Head,   is an interesting combination of the 20th century  military mentality, I guess you might say.

Everyone was afraid that there would be further  bombing here, and so all people in the state   were issued gas masks.

Above them in this military  bunker setting are the Lono figures.

These are the   warriors, if you want to call them, of peace and  good harvest.

And they are the protectors of these   civilians.

Addressing celestial navigation, that's  actually one of the life affirming ones that I did   of the first arrival of the first Hawaiians.

The sky above is the sky as they imagine it.

They probably had no particular knowledge of what  the Northern Hemisphere was like, and so they made   up their own and I used, to represent this, I  used the life affirming petroglyphs, that is,   the birth symbols, the piko holes and other  positive signs.

I think making art, or being   creative, is about bringing things together  that have not been brought together before,   allowing yourself as an artist and others,  you hope to think about things in new ways,   ways that haven't been thought about before.

Narrator  An artist on the edge selects the medium  and then pushes it beyond what's known   and expected.

Investigation of the properties of  the medium can lead to new application processes   and subsequently new images.

Kathleen Rowley, a  Honolulu paper artist, is one of those explorers.

Kathleen Rowley What I'm doing here is spraying paper pulp,   and I spray them through a gun that's usually used  for texturizing ceilings.

Compressed air forces   it out, and I can direct it in a fairly narrow or  fairly wide spray pattern, from about eight inches   to maybe about two feet wide.

The great advantage  of this is that I can use paper in a way that I   can't if I were to just form flat sheets, I  could spray it on unusually shaped objects,   like the ivory tower, or I can spray it on a large  expanse of fabric and not have any break points   where I would if I had to join pre made sheets.

Narrator  Rowley prepares her work for an exhibition in  a local gallery as the show is in a newspaper   building.

The theme is words.

Kathleen Rowley  This is a word box.

I call it Play on Words.

It's  an environment in which words can be played with,   and it's it's at ground level.

It reminds me  of sandboxes and all the kinds of games that   I would play with as a child, with  little letters all over the floor,   and then these big words, which a person  can actually play with and take out and   put around.

Words to me are, can be  abstract things that refer to ideas,   but they're also very physical and and playful,  and this is kind of a way of putting them in   a physical environment in which they have  personalities themselves, and where people   can come and and play with them and arrange  them in ways that they think they should go.

Narrator For most contemporary artists,   the meaning of their work is multi layered and  personally subjective.

This exhibition is part   of Rowley's thesis for a master's degree.

In her  research, she discovered that medieval libraries   chained books into place.

She incorporated that  image into her structure, the ivory tower.

Kathleen Rowley It had a sort of ring of truth about the   connection between the school environment and  how much time you spend there, how much time   I've spent there, the structure of the place that  kind of keeps the information in one space.

Part   of the reason I make my work interactive is so  the meaning of the work can evolve in the viewer's   presence.

It's like the difference between going  to France and seeing a movie of it.

You know,   I want the viewer not to stand away and  kind of contemplate this work and wonder,   what is this person trying to say, but to be able  to move through it, and in moving through it,   you become a part of it.

There's no way  you can't be part of what's happening.

(Techno music) Bud Leo  At the presentation company, we help our  clients to communicate with clarity so that   they can increase their sales or communicate  their message, no matter what it may be.

After we consult with our clients, we find  out what it is they need to communicate,   and then what is the best way to communicate  it.

What we found was that there was a niche   that needed to be filled in our business,  which was using computer graphics.

Darryll Akamine Before this shop was equipped with computer   graphic capability, everything was done by hand,  you would end up with a finished piece of artwork.

And then, if the changes were to be done, that  you'd have to go back and by hand, take the exacto   knife and again, cut gels and shoot negatives.

And this is very time consuming work.

We, on the   other hand, we edit instantaneously.

Clients can  be right in front of us and watch us make changes,   be it in shape, color, hue, anything.

Narrator  Unlike other flat surfaced medium, this  computer can create a three dimensional   shape from back to front.

With appropriate  shading.

Photographs are stored within the   computer and then are wrapped around the ball as  one wraps paper.

One of the complaints against   computer art is that it appears to be easy, too  instant, and that perhaps anyone can do it.

Bud Leo I have in my office, close to my desk,   a quotation from Colby Chandler, who is chairman  of Eastman Kodak.

It goes back to 1983 or four,   where he said to financial analysts, he said  before, where we had traditional forms of imaging,   today, we only have an ever accelerating  pace of change electronic imaging.

Marcia Morse But once you get the image,   I think that you still need to say, what are  the esthetic criteria?

What are the visual   standards that have held true all through the  history of art, and how can those be applied   to this new image, regardless of how it's been  made?

And I think that's where critics may be   very divided in terms of artists' use of new  technology.

There may be some things that are   off putting about the medium itself, maybe just on  a conceptual level.

They think this is, you know,   it's sort of the purest stance to say, if  you don't have a paintbrush in your hand,   it can't be art.

I think we've gotten  beyond that.

Basically, I'm overstating it,   but I think that you can create a wonderful image  with a computer.

You can create a terrible image   with a computer.

The computer does not make the  difference.

The artist does.

And I think that's   really the essential point.

Russell Sunabe  It's, you know, a pleasure of pushing the  paint, moving the paint, where the paint   becomes more than just depicting something just an  illustration, there's direct involvement with the   material of what it is.

Narrator  Painting as a medium, went through a period  of rejection by modern artists because it was   considered too traditional.

After working in other  media, Russell Sunabe has returned to painting to   enjoy its history and its potential.

Russell Sunabe  It's a very rich tradition and something that,  you know, I feel really connected to and want   to get to know better.

You know, it's a continual  learning process for me, and the development that   I feel is strong connection with my predecessors,  going back to Manet, actually going back as far   back as Manet and coming up through Larry Rivers.

Robert Rauschenberg, artists such as Barnett   Newman, Clifford Steele, you know, I feel a  direct relationship to them.

It's like a family.

Narrator Sunabe paints his opinions about   social justice in haunting, allegorical images.

He  is working on a painting for his atomic series.

Russell Sunabe Now I put in a lot of   passion painting these these pictures.

The reason  why I came back to painting, first of all, think   it was a way of expressing certain feelings that  I had concerning social, political situations,   including environmental and so probably, you know,  there's a lot of frustration, maybe anger built   into that.

What I found out was, as much as I was  shaping the paintings, the paintings were shaping   me too, philosophically, where I began to see that  just the act of painting, of being able to paint,   suggested some kind of sign of hope.

And then  I began to realize that I could use the human   figure as a metaphor for the human spirit.

And as  I started working along, didn't become necessary   for the painting to have the figures inside  that the painting itself became the metaphor.

Narrator For other artists,   such as Hong Kong resident Lai-Sin Ho, the passion  may not be so public.

It is a deeply internal   process that has challenged an artist trained in  traditional Chinese art to express her feelings of   life and death in metal and ceramics.

Lai-Sin Ho  I want to express the feelings about life as a  transformation process.

It transformed laterally   by the process of growth and decay.

And the  first section is representing growth stage.

The centerpiece is representing a development  stage.

This part of the piece is representing   a deteriorating stage.

This is the whole idea  of this piece.

For me, art is not only making   an object.

I think for me, art is ritual  for me, and when I combine two material,   I have different dialog with the materials, and  I also have different dialog for myself.

And I   try to mix two media together, and I also let  both material transform their usual limitation   to another direction.

I'm doing the same thing  for myself.

I want to transform myself to another   direction and try to make my art communicate.

The communication with other people is a very   important part of my work.

Narrator  But is it art?

When is it not?

These questions  were asked repeatedly during a student art show   at the University of Hawaiʻi.

One artist,  Robert Guerin, chose to sculpt his entry,   not with clay or wood, but with fresh  bread.

The public's reaction was swift.

When are you going to get real art?

I ate the bread.

Thanks.

It was yummy.

Where did you find all that bread?

I bet it  would have fed a few mouths in a needy country.

It made me think of Christ, the crucifixion.

Great way to waste bread.

Makes a stupid art piece.

The audience was confused as there was no artist  statement posted.

This commentary may be the only   verbal communication between artist and audience,  and explains the motivation behind the work.

Robert Guerin Well, as far as there not being   an artist statement, it was, it's my idea that  it's, it's not proper to me to put a statement   when you know my statement is the piece.

What the  attempt was directed at was showing that from an   outside viewpoint how ridiculous and temporal and  socialized, institutionalized social structure can   be.

And I think I pretty much expressed that just  through the placing of the piece in the gallery   and allowing the bread to just disintegrate.

Narrator  Where can a person go to learn about something  he or she doesn't understand?

This estate in   the hills behind Honolulu is the new home  for the Contemporary Art Museum.

Opened   in the fall of 1988 this museum has a unique  mandate.

Unlike the Honolulu Academy of Arts,   this museum will only keep its art for 40 years.

Fritz Frauchiger The difference is that for us,   contemporary art has been defined as being the  last 40 years.

I mean, that's what we're going   to deal with.

We don't define contemporary art  as only 40 years, but we decided that it's enough   time for things to become sort of senior.

You  see how, how they're being taken in retrospect,   somewhat, and it also is a way in which  we won't be taken over by our collection.

Narrator Frauchiger,   with his solid background of art administration,  understands the importance of public education.

Fritz Frauchiger One of the benefits of   having living artists is that you can bring them  in to actually dialog about their work.

And one   of the things we want to do is institute lecture  programs, and eventually we'll have an artist in   residency program.

Here we have a building that  will be available for artists to come and live.

Hawaiʻi is at a moment now where there are lots of  cross cultural, cross pollinations taking place,   and they're it's like being pregnant, and we're  sort of in the ninth month.

What I want to do is   provide an arena to have these things, you know,  brew together and hopefully stimulate, if not,   the economy, certainly the minds of the people  that live here, and also for visitors, because   many visitors who come here have no idea of the  richness of the of the Hawaiian art community   through exhibitions and discussions and lectures  and bringing the school children in and all those   kind of programs let people understand that this  place is not some backwater, that we're really,   we're really the future.

Narrator  James Jensen is a curator of Western art for the  Honolulu Academy of Art.

He is responsible for the   exhibition and collection of art from ancient to  contemporary cultures in the Western Hemisphere.

The Academy owns a fine contemporary collection  which is housed in the Clare Boothe Luce wing.

James Jensen What I look for, basically,   because there are so many possibilities to choose  from, is work that that I think is is very good,   and that that moves me in some way, and hopefully  will move the public.

And one special program that   we have is called the Focus Gallery, which is a  program that is specifically intended to present   exhibitions of contemporary art, it's fairly up  to the minute or as recent as possible, to kind of   provide an opportunity for the residents of  Hawaiʻi and the visitors from the mainland to   see a sampling, selection of types of things  that are going on, not only here in Hawaiʻi,   but in particular on the mainland.

Narrator  And for those of us who are not art professionals,  how are we to look at this new work?

James Jensen I think in terms of other people looking at art,   I think they expect too much from themselves,  perhaps in their, in their attempts to come to   grips with contemporary art.

Marcia Morse  It's very important for people to remember  that if they can go and really be open minded   about looking at work, that their response  is as valid a point of departure as mine is,   or any anyone else's.

Fritz Frauchiger  If you want to understand anything about  contemporary art, you have to spend time   with it.

And it's not something you can digest  in a viewing or a couple of viewings.

It takes   regular involving with, with the work itself,  because it you have to change your way of   seeing things.

Marcia Morse  Doesn't necessarily matter that you can describe  it in terms of color, shape, form, line, I mean,   all that very traditional and and yet very useful  vocabulary, but really to just internalize it and   begin to talk to yourself in a way about  what you're seeing.

All sorts of responses   are likely to arise, and quite natural ones in  the face of work that can't be easily described,   can't be easily defined.

And I think that, you  know, you get a lot of fairly standard responses.

Typical one, of course, is, "Oh, my three year old  could have done it."

You know, that may be true,   but they didn't choose to do that, or it came  out differently.

Or, I think it's a question   of the difference between doing it once by  accident and doing it with some intention.

Fritz Frauchiger And it takes people willing to take the   abuse from the people who hate it and say, My kid  could do it and all of that, and just regularly   keep bringing people back and say, "Look at this.

Now, just consider this.

Maybe it's a little   different than you're used to, but think about  it.

You know, maybe there's something else here."

Kathleen Rowley You just give it your best shot.

You take   the chance that you know it might fail miserably.

But on the other hand, you might have a success,   and not only a success as kind of a goal or a  solid you know, plateau to reach, but another   place to explore, where no one's gone.

(Techno music)