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Twist and Shout: Contemporary Art from Japan
Artist(s): Motohiko ODANI, YANOBE Kenji
Date: 20 Nov 2009 - 10 Jan 2010

 

Japanese popular culture has produced manga and anime characters which have transformed into global icons, such as Pokémon, Hello Kitty, and Doraemon. Apart from this trend, TV dramas, novels, manga, and anime, which touch on sekai-kei narratives and ketsudan-shugi ideology, have attracted some faithful followers among non-Japanese audience. These two new imagined worlds emerged as ways to alleviate the stagnant state wrought by existential anxiety and negative facets of contemporary society. They propose two contrasting approaches to society, one being introvert and withdrawn, and the other being extrovert and interactive, but, nevertheless, represent two leading features of Japanese subculture developed during the Zero Nendai, or the decade from 2000 to 2010. In this exhibition, the ambiguous nature of the Japanese youth culture is interpreted as a consequence of young people’s need to “twist” and “shout.” The 17 exhibiting artists present paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and installations that incorporate popular and familiar images and expressions, on the one hand, but intently confront the actual and urgent issues in Japanese society, on the other. In the recent years, globalization has accelerated the assimilation of youth culture in Asia, and the difference between visual cultures in Thailand and Japan has become less prominent than before. Therefore, it would be interesting to see how the Thai audience responds to Japanese contemporary art, when presented in the capital city of Bangkok where Japanese pop culture is widely accepted. The artworks may succeed in betraying the conventional view on Japanese contemporary culture, and, hence, prompt Thai perception on Japan to be renewed.

 

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