See BYE BYE KITTY!!! before it closes!!!
The attention-grabbing exhibition “BYE BYE KITTY!!!” at Japan Society is designed to buck our modern day association with Japanese art with otaku (punk/goth/sailor moon/anime-style) and kawaii culture (cute/babydoll/victorian/Murakami-bright/happy face/ice cream cone-style). Curator David Elliot, founding Director of the Mori Art Museum, compiled sixteen emerging and mid-career Japanese artists whose work engages historical traditions in painting while “challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.” Makoto Aida’s collages, for example, may feature short-skirted cartoon school girls, but they’ve been lampooned and are shown enacting the ancient samurai practice of ritual suicide. Yoshitomo Nara works in a similar vein with his untitled Hello Kitty memorial, complete with matching grey stone cartoon sentinels, guarding the not-so-cute tomb.
Not to miss are Yamaguchi Akira’s intricate pen and watercolor pieces that almost resemble traditional Japanese versions of Where’s Waldo. Akira uses humor and a traditional drawing aesthetic to touch on subjects like war, as in “Postmodern Silly Battle: Headquarters of the Silly Forces,” or “Nanta International Airport” (below), which “uses gentle irony to show the urban rape of contemporary Japan.” Also on display is Manabu Ikeda’s breathtakingly detailed photo-realistic paintings. More astounding than their realism, perhaps, is their size. “Existence,” which measure almost seven-feet tall, is filled with the whorled knots and twisted bark of a tree of life (below).
What’s really remarkable about this exhibition is that all sixteen artist are so vastly different. In addition to works on canvas and paper there’s film, photography, sculpture and installation, none of which abides by the cloying, shiny pop-culture-heavy aesthetic we typically associate with Japan.
Akira’s “Nanta International Airport”
Ikeda’s “Existence”
