WINTER GARDEN: THE EXPLORATION OF THE MICROPOP IMAGINATION IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE ART

until monday july 20 2009
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
T : + 81 3 344 506 51
4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku
140-0001 Tokyo
Japan

Public Relations Department
Yoko Nakamura
nakamura@haramuseum.or.jp
www.haramuseum.or.jp/

This exhibition, curated by art critic Midori Matsui, features some 30 drawings, paintings and video works by 14 artists who came of age during the latter half of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s. The subject of this exhibition is the world of "Micropop," a word coined by Midori Matsui to describe the mindset of a new generation of Japanese artists who rearrange fragments of information and knowledge to give new meaning to the outmoded and banal.

This exhibit explores the position occupied by Micropop within a world characterized by increasing uniformity spurred by globalization and individuals faced with the need to find meaning in their own lives. The challenges presented by these conditions are implied by the two contrasting images contained in the exhibition title Winter Garden: a desolate wintertime garden and a hothouse, imagery that reflects a harsh environment of economic recession and political instability in which artists use cheap materials and simple methods to break down existing structures and uncover the beauty that lies dormant within everyday things.