Naoto Nakagawa 2026 Is on View at KAPOW

"Naoto Nakagawa's current show at KAPOW brings together a significant group of new acrylic paintings and intimate watercolors, situating his recent practice within both the Japanese shunga tradition of erotic art and his own six-decade exploration of perception, material culture, and the natural world. On view at KAPOW in Manhattan's Lower East Side through February 22, works across the exhibition resonate with themes that have defined Nakagawa's career since the 1960s - most notably his persistent pairing of man-made objects with organic life."

"Earlier bodies of work often approached this relationship from a cosmic or metaphysical scale, situating the Earth as one element within a vast, unknowable universe. Here, that perspective shifts decisively toward the local and the immediate. In his work, New York City - its streets, signs, and corners - becomes the site where philosophical concerns are lived out in miniature. A key painting, "Canal Street" (2025), encapsulates this turn. A lizard consumes a street crossing sign, a quintessential marker of Manhattan's commercial geography."

"Encounters unfold among pencils, toothpaste tubes, wine openers, or fragments of urban detritus in his shunga works, collapsing distinctions between desire, labor, consumption, and daily ritual. In Nakagawa's hands, sexuality is not isolated from the world but embedded within it, echoing traditional shunga's refusal to separate the erotic from the everyday. The shunga paintings and watercolors, such as "Still Life With Wine Opener, Lemon, and Pomegranate" (2025), "Tom & Colgate" (2025), and "Pencil War" (2025), further"

Naoto Nakagawa presents new acrylic paintings and intimate watercolors at KAPOW, on view through February 22. The work situates recent practice within the Japanese shunga tradition and a six-decade exploration of perception, material culture, and the natural world. Recurring pairings of man-made objects with organic life dominate the show. Earlier cosmic and metaphysical concerns give way to a focus on the local and immediate, with New York City’s streets and signs serving as miniature stages. A key painting, “Canal Street” (2025), depicts a lizard consuming a crossing sign. Shunga scenes collapse distinctions between desire, labor, consumption, and daily ritual.

Read at Hyperallergic