Juxtapoz x Superflat

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Juxtapoz x Superflat, a dynamic exhibition conceived by the renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and co-curated with Evan Pricco, Editor-in-Chief of Juxtapoz Art & Culture, a legendary San Francisco-based magazine committed to contemporary art, design, fashion and graffiti. Featuring the work of 36 artists from Japan, Korea, China, Canada, the United States and Europe, this exhibition opens at the Vancouver Art Gallery on November 5, 2016 and runs until February 5, 2017.

Juxtapoz x Superflat is a manifesto for new creative practices that can no longer be adequately described by the traditional categories of art and modes of production. Takashi Murakami and Evan Pricco conceived the exhibition as a survey of the most exciting visual art to emerge in recent years, with a heavy emphasis on artists who operate outside of the central hubs of the global art world. Expanding upon Murakami and Juxtapoz magazine’s interest in flattening high and low cultures, this exhibition includes work by artists whose practice has been shaped by a variety of sub-cultures including skate, surf, graffiti, street art, comics, design, illustration, painting, digital and traditional arts.

“We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it.” With these words, written in 2001, Takashi Murakami famously declared that the future of Japanese art was “superflat." For Murakami the idea of “superflat” meant many things—a recognition of the formal qualities of contemporary design, anime and manga; the fundamental importance of sub-cultures in the conception of contemporary art; the persistent presence of a banal and superficial consumer culture; a flattening of traditional hierarchies; and a reconfiguration of the edges and boundaries that have traditionally shaped meaning in contemporary cultural production.

“Over the past 22 years, Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine has documented the creative life through underground art and street culture,” remarks Evan Pricco. “In recent years, with the increasing popularity of contemporary art, Juxtapoz has become the staple for accessible communication of emerging art forms, contemporary art, design, fashion and graffiti. The magazine's focus is a literal flattening of high and low cultures. In discussions with Takashi Murakami, Juxtapoz has curated a selection of artists covered in the magazine over the past two decades that encompass both growth and expansion in the sub-cultures they emerged from: skate, surf, graffiti, street art, comics, design, illustration, painting and digital and traditional arts.”

Juxtapoz x Superflat includes work by Nina Chanel Abney, Chiho Aoshima, Urs Fischer, GATS, Kim Jung Gi, Kazunori Hamana, Trenton Doyle Hancock, John Hathway, Todd James, James Jean, Friedrich Kunath, Austin Lee, MADSAKI, Geoff McFetridge, Christian Rex van Minnen, Rebecca Morgan, Takashi Murakami, Kazumi Nakamura, Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, Otani Workshop, Paco Pomet, Parra, Erin M. Riley, Mark Ryden, David Shrigley, Lucy Sparrow, Devin Troy Strother, Swoon, Katsuya Terada, Toilet Paper Magazine, Yuji Ueda, Yuji Ueno, Sage Vaughn, Ben Venom, He Xiangyu and Zoer & Velvet.

About Takashi Murakami
Born 1962 in Tokyo, Murakami earned a PhD in Nihonga from Tokyo University of the Arts School of Fine Arts. Founder and representative of Kaikai Kiki, an art production and management company, he formulated Superflat art theory in 2000. In 2008, he was selected as one of TIME magazine's The 100 Most Influential People. He is well known for his corporate branding projects with Louis Vuitton, Vans, shu uemura, and Roppongi Hills, as well as collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Yuzu. More recently, he has been working on film and video production, and released his first live-action feature film Jellyfish Eyes in 2013. He is scheduled to release an animated television series 6HP (Six Hearts Princess).

About Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine
Since 1994, San Francisco-based Juxtapoz Magazine has covered the ever-changing landscape of contemporary art, culture and design in the pages of their monthly magazine and website. Founded by famed comic and lowbrow artist Robert Williams, Juxtapoz has become the most widely circulated art magazine in the United States. Over the past ten years, the magazine has grown to become a major staple covering the international art scene as well. Telling the stories behind works of art, murals, products, books, museum and gallery exhibitions, Juxtapoz has documented the history of the underground and its rise to dominate the language of popular culture.

About the Vancouver Art Gallery
Founded in 1931, the Vancouver Art Gallery is recognized as one of the most respected and innovative visual arts institutions in Canada and is committed to strengthening ties between artists and diverse communities throughout the city, province, and beyond. As the largest public art museum in western Canada, the Gallery features contemporary and historical exhibitions all year round, and provides a global platform for British Columbia’s dynamic artistic community, including the work of First Nations as well as art of the Asian Pacific artists. Its growing collection of over 12,000 artworks represents the most comprehensive resource for art in British Columbia and is the principal repository for visual art produced in the region, as well as related works by other notable Canadian and international artists.

The Vancouver Art Gallery is a not-for-profit organization supported by its members, individual donors, corporate funders, foundations, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Juxtapoz x Superflat is organized by Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd., and High Speed Productions, and co-curated by Takashi Murakami and Evan Pricco.

Media contact:
Debra Zhou, Communications Manager

dzhou@vanartgallery.bc.ca / T 604 662 4722