ART ON VIEW
nial offi cers and administrators that followed in
their wake. But singular works in the exhibition
were received by Europeans as gifts; for Pacifi c
peoples the idea of the gift and the reciprocal
relations it engenders has remained a constant.
Consistent with protocols of exchange across
the region, the formal presentation of high-status
72
gifts has in some instances allowed for
things to continue to circulate, acquiring
new histories and biographies that both
enhance the status of the giver and create
a debt that binds each party irrevocably to
the other.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Oceanic
art was eagerly consumed by a host of
European avant-garde artists engaged in a
reimagining of modernity. Pablo Picasso,
Jacob Epstein, André Derain, and Henri
Matisse were among those inspired and
delighted by its radical aesthetics and bold
interpretation of form. Today our parameters
for understanding these compelling artworks
continue to expand. Collaborative
research between museum ethnographers
based in Europe and new generations of
Pacifi c scholars, artists, and cultural practitioners
has led to fresh and invigorated
appraisals. Such exchanges underscore the
ongoing resonance of ancestral treasures
(taonga in Maori) for current generations
living in the Pacifi c. Customary traditions
and protocol remain powerfully alive in
the Pacifi c region. Indeed, many of the major
loans for Oceania are accompanied by
tribal elders who have been overseeing appropriate
cultural protocols for these ancestral
treasures when they are installed at
the Royal Academy. These treasured heirlooms
are not valued simply because they survive from
an earlier era; they are understood as vectors of
spiritual power, or mana. As remnants of the
past, they bear the traces of the ancestral hands
that fashioned them. Yet they are understood as
not just made by ancestors—they are ancestors.
Ritual protocols include the rhythmic and steady
recitation of chants by elders skilled in the arts
of oratory and serve to animate and activate ongoing
relationships between the living and the
dead, with those who have gone before, but who
are recognized as continuously present in the
cultural heirlooms and artworks on display. In
this sense, Pacifi c artworks can be understood as
having agency. Bridging the past with the present,
they actively engage the community with its
past, channeling and invigorating ancestral relations
at appropriate times.
The monumental works featured in the Royal
Academy’s exhibition demonstrate the
richness, vitality, and accomplishment of
Pacifi c civilizations. The startling creativity
and level of skill in executing even the
smallest of fi shhooks are also remarkable.
Nothing was deemed unworthy of
extreme care and attention. In Western
traditions of philosophy and science, humankind
sits atop an evolutionary ladder
that classifi es nature as a distinct and
separate category, sanctioning humans’
right to exercise dominion over plant and
marine life, over the birds and animals.
In contrast, Pacifi c peoples understand
their relationship to nature and the environment
as one of close kinship. Genealogies
extend beyond tribal affi liations to
an identifi cation with the divine bird-like
beings that emerged from the darkness
eons ago, during the era of creation when
islands were vigorously birthed into being
and the fi rst generations of gods and
chiefs sprang from the tendrils and roots
of tubers that sprouted up from the rich
and fertile soil of the muddy earth. For all
things—animate and inanimate—possess
mana.
As the youngest descendants of a living
chain of being, the current generation
plays a crucial role as caretakers (and
guardians, kaitiaki in Maori) of our most valuable
resources: water and land. The relationship
of Pacifi c peoples with the ocean continues to
be a vital and energetic one. In this globalized
era of hypermobility and consumption, when
climate change threatens the very existence of
many of these island nations, raising the profi le
of these uniquely eloquent Pacifi c arts has never
been more important. This exciting new exhibition
presents us with a timely opportunity to
reframe and revitalize our relationship with this
most majestic of oceans as a vital connector of
all our intersecting worlds.
FIG. 7 (below): Tattooed
female fi gure. Aitutaki,
Cook Islands. 18th or early
19th century.
Wood, pigment. H: 58 cm.
Five Continents Museum, Munich.
Photo: Marianne Franke.
FIG. 8 (top right): Tene
Waitere (1853–1931), ta
moko panel. Maori, Lake
Rotoiti, New Zealand.
1896–99.
Wood, pigment. H: 78 cm.
The Museum of New Zealand, Te
Papa Tongarewa, inv. ME004211.
FIG. 9 (bottom right): Tuai,
drawing of Korokoro’s
moko (facial tattoo), 1818.
England.
Ink on paper. 20.6 × 16.1 cm.
Sir George Grey Special Collections,
Nga Pataka Korero o Tamaki
Makaurau
– Auckland Libraries, Auckland,
inv. GNZMMSS-147-5.