(“History of Rise and Fall” by Manabu Ikeda)
If you’re familiar with Hello Kitty, Sailor Moon and Pokemon, then you’re already aware of kawaii, a popular cultural Japanese phenomenon which began in the 1970s. The cultural shift began after school girls started doodling cute circles, hearts and Roman alphabets in between the lines of their school work with mechanical pencils in their notebooks.
The practice was so pervasive and annoying to school teachers that the Japanese school systems banned it. However, in the 1980s popular teen magazines revived the style, publishing it in their articles and injecting a new cute consciousness that spread like all over. Capitalizing on the resurgence, Sanrio published Hello Kitty merchandise. Hello Kitty’s cuteness inevitably paralleled the cuteness of idols like Japanese pop singer Seiko Matsuda whose actions and speech added made thousands of teenage girls want to be like her. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art,” is a group exhibition which opens up this Friday at the Japan Society in New York City. Curated by Joe Earle and David Elliott, the show features a mix of 16 established and up-and-coming artists from Japan (some of them showing outside of cute obsessed nation for the first time) who take issue with kawaii, or “cuteness” and Japanese culture at large.
The show is divided into three sections: “The Unquiet Dream,” about anxiety and paranoia, “Threatened Nature” where artists tackle the climate change and waste in Japanese society, and “Critical Memory” which explores the near erosion of Japan’s global economic and political influence.
Check out the following pages for images from the show and visit JapanSociety.org
[pagebreak]
“Harakiri School Girls” by Makoto Aida.
[pagebreak]
“PixCell Deer” by Kohei Nawa
[pagebreak]
Hisashi Tenmyouya’s ” Defeat at a Single Blow, Robust and Magnificent Feature, Gallant and Brave Behavior”
