?Winter Garden? goes against stereotypes of Japanese art. The works in the show respect traditional art forms. They also exhibit the pressure of the hierarchical social structure, the fighting spirit and the susceptibility to transitions, but rather on the other end of the spectrum, in the realms of the negative. Instead of stability, there is splintered identity, a search for roles. We find objects and functions, art forms and forms of communications reinterpreted on a basic level.
The language of form appears to be the same for many of the 14 artists in the show. The traumas of adolescence, for example, appear in the works of Makik Kudo and Mahoni Kunikata. Surrealistic visions expand out of the pictures and proportions are constantly changing. With the tools of the painter, they build consumer products and advertisements into a world alive with colour.
Another aim of some of the work is to tear down communication barriers. A very effective example is the Chim?Pom group?s video in which they write on asphalt with a flame. Lyota Yagi expands the cosmic presence through restructured audio, placing records of ice on a record player.
Beside the denials, question marks and uncertainties, one traditional Japanese character remains intact in the show: a number of the works contain a gentle, but powerful, pantheistic spirit that is close to nature.
?Winter Garden - The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art? is showing at the Ernst Museum from June 10 until August 28, 2011.
Author: Eszter Götz
