Gallery
Upcoming Exhibitions
Shōno Tokuzō, Illusion (2007), bamboo and steel. 27 1/2 x 51 1/4 in. Collection of the Artist. Photo: Teruhiko Osaki.
New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters
October 4, 2008–January 11, 2009Over the past few years, Japanese bamboo artists have reached beyond the established boundaries of their craft. New Bamboo is the world’s first exhibition devoted exclusively to Japanese bamboo as a sculptural medium, featuring 23 innovators, old and young, who exploit to the full the tension between traditional skill and new expressive opportunities. Ranging from ethereal, computer-designed filigrees, through dramatic wall pieces to angry-looking, dirt-encrusted tangles and anthropomorphic, sexually charged sculptures, the 88 works on display demonstrate awesome technique, meticulous attention to detail, and extraordinary creativity.
View an image gallery of selected works from the exhibition.
View a checklist of pieces from the exhibition.
KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games
March 13–June 14, 2009KRAZY! will be New York’s first major show dedicated to the Japanese phenomenon of Anime, Manga, and Video Games—three forms of contemporary visual art that are exercising a huge influence on an entire generation of American youth. The exhibition, organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, will be presented in an environment designed by cutting-edge architectural practice Atelier Bow-Wow, featuring life-size blowups of popular figures from the worlds of anime and manga within an intriguing sequence of spaces that evoke Tokyo’s clamorous cityscape. Co-curated by leading North American and Japanese specialists, KRAZY! will give visitors a direct experience of new forms of cultural production and offers fresh insight into the interdependence of three art forms of the future.
Buriki: Japanese Tin Toys
July 10–August 16, 2009Drawn from a previously unknown private collection in Tokyo, Buriki focuses on toys made for the U.S. market during the 1950s and early 1960s, with the emphasis on models that celebrate, in faithful detail, the Golden Age of American automobile styling.
Serizawa: Master of Japanese Textile Design
October 2, 2009–January 10, 2010Designated a Living National Treasure in 1956, Serizawa Keisuke was one of the greatest artists of twentieth-century Japan. Dramatic in design, his textiles have an expressive power that far transcends expectations of a “craft” medium. The subject of major retrospectives in Paris in 1976 and Edinburgh in 2001, Serizawa has never before had a large-scale museum exhibition in the United States. Organized in collaboration with the Serizawa Keisuke Art and Craft Museum, Sendai.
Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
March 12–June 13, 2010Many recent critics have focused on the superficiality and infantilism of contemporary Japanese art, yet in reality a much greater drama is being played out in Japan, on a far longer timescale. This exhibition, featuring sixteen leading practitioners in a range of media, will redefine contemporary Japanese art within a broad historical context, from the point of view of the formal aesthetics expressed in traditional painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture. Curated by David Elliott, former Director of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum.
Nui: Patchwork Garments from a Sheltered Community
July–August 2010Created by a community of developmentally challenged adults in southern Japan, these extraordinary garments demonstrate an expressive power and design sense that bypass conventional means of artistic communication.
The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Painting and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin
October 2010–January 2011Widely acknowledged as the leading Zen master of the last five centuries, Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) was also the most significant Zen artist of his time. He not only expressed the mind and heart of Zen for monks and lay followers (it was he who first asked “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”) but also reached out to the entire population with his painting and calligraphy. For this first exhibition in the West devoted to Hakuin, seventy-five of his scrolls will be gathered from collections in the United States and Japan. Organized in collaboration with New Orleans Museum of Art, and curated by Professor Stephen Addiss.
Contemporary Japanese Fiber Art
March–June 2011Following from our Clay and Bamboo shows, an in-depth look at a new art form in which Japan continues to be a world leader. In development.
Atelier Incurve
July–August 2011An exhibition from Japan’s most vibrant center for Outsider Art. In development.