Makoto aida series#

He never takes sides, but rather taunts everybody while stressing the absurdity of war and how difficult it is to divide the world between black and white, good and evil.Īida often recreates the style of the old propaganda posters, using traditional Japanese folding screens and materials like mineral pigments that he mixes with acrylic paint, photocopy on holographic paper, and collage.

Makoto aida series#

“War Picture Returns” is a series of paintings that Aida made over three years in the late 1990s.

During the press conference he even apologized for been unable to finish the huge painting he had been commissioned by the MAM, adding with a suave smile that these are the kind of things you would expect from a genius…Īida’s free-range reinterpretation of both Eastern and Western art is showcased in works which deliberately mix sublime lyricism and vulgarity, like a cherry tree painted in traditional Nihon-ga style over a collaged background of call girl stickers that are usually plastered over city walls and inside telephone booths. Indeed, more than the exhibition’s duller English title (“Monument for Nothing”, its Japanese version – “Tensai de gomennasai,” means “Sorry, I’m a genius”) perfectly exemplifies Aida’s wit and nonchalant approach to art and fame. Each room highlights a particular phase of his career so far, as well as his biting sense of humor. This time, though, the MAM has put all its considerable PR power behind him, resulting in one of the most hyped Japanese exhibitions in recent years.Īida’s multifaceted talent – and the large-scale paintings he has started to produce since 2000 – is big enough to thrive even in the museum’s cavernous spaces. With only a few solo shows abroad, he has participated in many collective projects like 2003’s “The American Effect: Global Perspectives on the United States, 1990-2003” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and 2009’s “Wallworks” at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. As for Japan, Motohiko Odani’s haunting “Phantom Limb” in 2010 has been recently followed by enfant terrible Makoto Aida’s exhibition.įor several years Aida has been one of Japan’s best kept secrets.

Guided by director Fumio Nanjo’s expert hand, the museum has been especially successful in introducing the best art from Asia – one of the MAM’s stated goals – as testified by wide ranging collective projects about India and the Arab world, and Ai Weiwei’s solo retrospective. However the initial problems were soon rectified, and now the MAM is highly regarded as one of the best contemporary art institutions in Asia. When it opened with great fanfare in 2003, it attracted its share of criticism because it seemed to favor crowd-pleasing blockbusters over thought-provoking projects. The Mori Art Museum (MAM) is part of the so-called Art Triangle in Roppongi, an upscale district (some people would say “foreigners ghetto”) in Tokyo.