Ironical art of a new generation

The exterior of a museum is judged like a book's cover is to the story inside. It sets a tone to otherwise encompass the body of artwork within the museum's walls. In the recent move from Expo Park to Nakanoshima, The National Museum of Art in Osaka celebrated its centrality in this often overlooked, grungier little sister city to Tokyo. Kansai expats and natives alike respect the gritty nature of a city internationally untold, and profess bold attempts to culturally enliven areas of Osaka, in a particularly modern way.

Japanese society certainly adheres to its traditions of ancient form, and of course, use its rich identity of archaic culture to inspire a generation of modernity. The current exhibition at The National Museum of Art celebrates 28 different Japanese modern and contemporary artists who use figurative painting to express a seismic shift in Japanese contemporary art that sets these artists in a category liberated from the context of western art history.

With this coexisting juxtaposition between an ancient culture still so vibrant in today's time along with a reach for modernity that often struggles to step out from the shadows of western influence, Japanese contemporary artists are asserting an ironical attitude about Japanese life. From modern sources of inspiration such as manga, picture books and the overwhelming imagery seen in Japanese advertising and daily life, these artists have come together to purport an enlivened expression of Japan from unique perspectives and uncommon attitudes of art.

A few highlights from the show:

Kato Izumi Untitled

Embryo-like figures are the recurring image of Kato's paintings as well as sculptures. He calls upon a womb-like existence, or fundamental component of human nature. He often has the shape of the embryo image extend its limbs into some sort of stem or bud, representative of a close connection between humans and nature and the cyclical behavior of living beings. What's interesting about his style is he uses his fingers instead of a paintbrush, which only compliments the functionality he's trying to capture in the connectedness of human existence. He is as connected to his art as his own fingers are his tools for construction.

His use of color is deliberate and more vibrant hues are used to emphasize the head and sex organs, an attempt to explain that humans are both instinctive and intuitive. Through our own self-reflection, we may see ourselves as an extension of what we touch, much like Kato's connection to his own art.

O JUN OCHIRUCO

The title translates into "the foreigner" and shows the flesh tone as washed out as the background. In a sense of distorted reality being upside down, many foreigners feel turned around in Japanese society. Yet, the person depicted looks Japanese herself, and in traditional school uniform, so perhaps its attributing the alienation and often sterile environment many Japanese feel within their own society, especially those of the budding youth. Aside from this particular piece, O JUN has a highly sexualized style that is depicted ironically in these soft strokes of oil paint, almost melting back into the canvas, as if some secret of the human condition is revealed to an otherwise droid-like sexual environment. However, adhering to the theme of ironic transitions, this perversity of O JUN's art isn't expressed as overtly as a western painter where society is completely inclined to such imagery. O JUN trumps the normal values of a Japanese life and challenges its very existence. It could be that this secret of human sexuality isn't a secret after all and thus the irony ensues.

Aida Makoto Blender

The sheer enormity (290 x 210.5 cm) of this image, painted in acrylic is certainly important to the piece. Aida has the mind of an otaku who has been more than influenced by the vulgarity and rawness of manga and Japanese comics. With such a strong infusion of the absurd, it is again in an ironical light that he composes this painting with the design to look like a real photograph. Inside this oversized blender is hundreds of nude women bodies, contorted and writhing with confusion. Toward the bottom, the blade had the better of them, and many of their heads and limbs are shown slushing around in blood. It is a thoughtless concept--this kind of tortured woman, trapped in a life similar to her female counterparts and struggling to make it to the top. The symbolism may have been apparent, but the execution was jarring and of course evocative--kind of like a car crash, you can't help but stare.

Kusama Yayoi Girls

One of the more veteran artists featured in the collection, Kusama has been completely influenced by western art and earlier modern movements such as Art Brut, Pop art and abstract expressionism. Nonetheless, her biggest inspiration has been her own insanity. Now living in a mental ward under her own will, Kusama continues to paint in what seems to be a surrealist style fused with a hyperbolic sense of feminism. Her most prominent feature is polka dots, which she attributes to hallucinations she had as a young woman. She would often construct paintings and installations with ideas she conceived during these bouts of mental illness. In a true surrealist sense, Kusama toys with this idea of infinity, much like Dali and Miro. In these sinuous lines that extend up like flowers and then follow the shape of a female face, the image continues into infinity, much like the aforementioned pattern of polka dots. As the image of the woman in the painting extends into that of another woman and so on, she also begins to lose her sense of direction, which would mirror her inability to delineate between reality and fantasy.

Nara Yoshitomo The Little Judge

Nara is a playful artist who is in the forefront of the Japanese Pop art movement, which started in the 1990's. He has gained a cult following around the world for his demurely designed children and animals that are often paired with unusually aggressive objects such as knives or other weapons. With influence from the crass collision of manga, graffiti and punk rock, Nara's confident yet cartoonish drawings are a sign of the darkness within the light. In a similar vein of the Children of the Corn, these children possess a potential evil, but what's ironic about Nara's work is that his children aren't self inflicting this poisonous violence, they're merely trying to protect their innocence from the rest of the world's negative space.

As each artist extends themselves to the public, a new meaning of modern is unveiled. This dichotomy of old world versus new happened so long ago for western artists (think Impressionism) that there is no longer this grappling of transition. For Japanese contemporaries, there is a louder cry for unadulterated Japanese culture--the one we know today and the one the rest of the world has to visit Osaka to find out.