On Friday, the exhibit Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture will open at New York's Japan Society Gallery. Curated by superflat sensation Takashi Murakami and named after the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the exhibit explores the relationship between otaku and contemporary art. Along with exhibiting work in the gallery, the artists from Murakami's studio have installed public artworks throughout the city. From today's New York Times:
As a curious crowd gathered at the entrance to Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, a team of riggers, steelworkers and Japanese art world figures went into action. Slowly, step by step, a crane operator started moving a pair of psychedelic-yellow fiberglass elephants into place.When the mother and baby pachyderms came to rest on their lime green steel bases, their trunks beckoning toward a statue of William Tecumseh Sherman just across the way at the Plaza Hotel, an inconspicuous woman in a purple knit hat, ripped blue jeans and woolly brown jacket began proudly posing in front of the sculptures. She was Chinatsu Ban, 31, the creator of the public art sculpture, which is graced by a pile of pink, green and purple dung decorated with hearts. (Photo by Librado Romero/NYT.)
Link to today's NYT article, Link to Murakami profile from Sunday's NYT Magazine
