The Contemporary Museum is the only Museum in Hawaii that solely exists for the collection, interpretation, and display of contemporary art. The Museum provides its visitors an access for provocative and dynamic forms of visual art in a setting that encourages interaction with the art pieces as well as other artists in a special Island environment. The Museum’s exhibits and educational programs are houses at the historic Cooke-Spalding House in residential Honolulu and at First Hawaiian Center at downtown Honolulu.

The Contemporary Museum exists to encourage people to appreciate and understand contemporary art through these exhibitions and educational programs, through its collection and preservation of art it has been doing since 1940. It also aims to achieve the preservation and maintenance of the historic Cooke-Spalding, Cooke-Peterson, and Cooke-Johnson residences as well as the surrounding gardens so that residents and visitors could enjoy them.

The Museum’s collection features works dating back to 1940 up to the present. It contains works by fine artists like Vito Acconci, Josef Albers, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Sol Lewitt, Mark Tobey, Richard Tuttle, Kara Walker, and many more.