To be shown at the BACC from November 2009 to January 2010, the exhibition will introduce for the first time, a major contemporary art show from Japan rooted in Japanese pop culture, inspired by such genre as manga and anime, and placing a special focus on new trends that have emerged in the Japanese subculture in recent years.

Concept

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 They propose two contrasting approaches to society, one being introvert and withdrawn, and the other being extrovert and interactive, but, nevertheless, represent two leading features of Japanese subculture developed during the Zero Nendai, or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.