Missile Club (iula tavatava), Fiji, early to mid-19th century, Fiji Museum, Suva: 78.670, collected by Reverend James Royce 1857-61; given to him by Ratu Seru Cakobau, Vunivalu of Bau, photo © Fiji Museum;
Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific – LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents ‘Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific’, the first substantial project on the art of Fiji to be mounted in the U.S. December 15 – July 19, 2020.]]>
Source: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The exhibition features over 280 artworks drawn from major international collections, including the Fiji Museum, British Museum, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge), the Smithsonian, and distinguished private collections. The exhibition includes figurative sculpture, ritual kava bowls, breastplates of pearl shell and whale ivory, large-scale barkcloths, small portable temples, weapons, and European watercolors and paintings. Additionally, Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific showcases historical photographs from LACMA’s recently acquired Blackburn Collection, as well as a newly commissioned 26-foot double-hulled sailing canoe (drua) constructed in Fiji using traditional materials and techniques.
Consisting of an archipelago of more than 300 islands, Fiji’s landscape is rich, with fertile soils on most islands providing ample food crops and lagoons of extensive reef systems supplying fish and shellfish. The local environment produced the majority of materials represented in the exhibition, including a wide variety of timbers for housing, canoes, and weapons; plant materials for textiles, mats, roofing, ropes, and bindings; clay, bamboo, and coconuts for containers; and shells and other marine materials for adornments.
”Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific” showcases the range and quality of these artworks from the past two centuries and highlights the skill and creative adaptability of the artists and craftspeople who made them.
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