Otaku Exhibit

This spring the Japan Society and the Public Art Fund will collaborate on an exhibition that will fill the society's galleries on East 47th Street and spill out into the city. It is the first collaboration between the two institutions, the first time the nonprofit Public Art Fund will be involved in an indoor exhibition and the first time the Japan Society will have input on outdoor projects. It will also be the first time any part of the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's SUPERFLAT series will be shown in New York. The series, actually a trilogy of exhibitions, has been organized by Murakami, 42, and includes both his own works and those of emerging and older Japanese artists. The show coming to New York, "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture," is the third and last in the series, which began at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2001. The title refers to the code name invented by the United States military for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The show reflects the artist's interpretation of Japan's popular culture and graphic arts over the last three decades, influenced by the country's wartime memories. The show explores otaku, the Japanese subculture obsessed with fantastic and apocalyptic science fiction, videogames, manga comic books and anime. It will include live-action film and animation as well as paintings. In addition to the installation at the Japan Society, the work of Japanese artists will be popping up elsewhere around the city. Chiho Aoshima, 30, a Tokyo-based artist, will transpose her fantastical landscapes filled with waifs, animals, insects and plant life onto vinyl printed like wallpaper, which will fill the advertising space in the Union Square subway station. Chinatsu Ban, 31, who, like Aoshima, is part of Murakami's Kaikai Kiki studio in Tokyo, has created a pair of toylike elephants - one about 12 feet tall, the other 4 feet - with oversize bodies and stumpy legs, which are to be installed at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. For more information, visit www.japansociety.org/events/upcoming.cfm [1].