Great New Wave: Sayonara to Superflat
Manabu Ikeda Regeneration 2001 Courtesy of the artist, Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo and Hamamatsu Municipal Museum of Art
From manga to Mr. Dob, the fantastical world of Japanese contemporary art exploded on to the international art scene in 2001 with the exhibition “Superflat,” organized by the now-famous Tokyo artist and art entrepreneur Takashi Murakami. While that shockwave continues to resonate, the influence of Murakami and company’s trademark Superflat aesthetic—with its hyper-exaggeration of pop culture and graphic art iconography—has given way to a new generation of Japanese contemporary artists who cast a more overtly critical, though no less fantastic, eye on historical precedents and modern cultural forms.
For the exhibition “Great New Wave,” co-curators Lisa Baldissera from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and Sara Knelman from the Art Gallery of Hamilton check in on this emerging perspective in a survey presentation of drawings, installations, sculptures, textile works and videos by six contemporary Japanese artists, many of whom are gaining an international following in their own right.
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Tabaimo haunted house 2003 Installation view Courtesy the of artist, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and James Cohan Gallery, New York / photo Robert McNair |
There are several noteworthy works among the small but satisfying exhibition’s highlights: The artist Tabaimo’s video, haunted house, which restyles the woodblock imagery of the Japanese Ukiyo-e (“floating world”) tradition into a surreal sequence of digitally-animated cityscapes picturing the daily routines (including dining, golfing and… murder) of super-sized apartment dwellers. As The New York Times reviewer Roberta Smith concludes, “Yikes.” Kohei Nawa’s glass-bead-enveloped toy tank (the result of an accumulative sculptural process he calls “PixCell”) offers a distorted, existential take on the violent state of world events. To similar effect, Manabu Ikeda’s large-scale pen-and-ink drawing Regeneration depicts a sunken Second World War–era battleship encrusted with ocean life. Finally, artist Yoshiaki Kaihatsu deconstructs cross-cultural issues and the realities of modern urban life with a contemporary version of the traditional Japanese teahouse built from Styrofoam waste and discarded milk crates sourced in the Hamilton area. (123 King St W, Hamilton ON)
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Yoshiaki Kaihatsu Happô-En in Hamilton and Falls 2008 Installation view / photo Robert McNair |
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