Exhibition explores two transformative decades of innovative art created in Japan, for the world

"Framed between two decisive historical thresholds-the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989 and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster- Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010 re-examines two transformative decades in Japanese art. The exhibition challenges the idea of "Japan" as a fixed national entity, instead situating artistic practice within the fluid global exchanges of late capitalism."

"One of the first works one encounters is Yasumasa Morimura's Portrait (Futago) (1989), a landmark appropriation of Manet's Olympia (1863). By substituting Olympia with his own visage, Morimura challenges gendered and racial hierarchies while directly confronting the Western gaze. Further, by inserting his face in the Black maid figure, the artist invokes Japan's own colonial history, casting the work as both critique and mirror of ambivalent cultural identity in the atomic age."

"Tadasu Takamine's God Bless America (2002) extends this interrogation of power: a stop-motion animation of President George W. Bush's clay head, repeatedly moulded and destroyed as it sings the US national anthem. Produced in the wake of 9/11 and just ahead of the Iraq War, the piece exemplifies the exhibition's sharpest theme: how artists recalibrated cultural influence and global hierarchies through irony and parody."

Prism of the Real frames Japanese art between 1989 and 2010, linking the death of Emperor Hirohito and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima disaster as historical thresholds. The exhibition contests the notion of Japan as a fixed national entity and situates artistic practice within fluid global exchanges of late capitalism. Artists who participated in major group exhibitions in the US and Europe negotiated contradictions between tradition and technology. Yasumasa Morimura’s Portrait (Futago) interrogates gender, race and colonial legacies through appropriation. Tadasu Takamine’s God Bless America uses stop-motion parody to critique US power after 9/11. Postmodern and post-medium strategies and international residencies shaped the era.

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