Exhibition & Book Showcase Japanese Artists in NY

New York, NY, July 24, 2007 – To celebrate the strong and historic cultural links between Japan and New York, Japan Society will present a large-scale group exhibition Making A Home, featuring the work of 33 contemporary Japanese artists who call New York City home, including Yoko Ono, Ushio Shinohara, Kunie Sugiura, Yuken Teruya, and Aya Uekawa. The show, curated by Eric C. Shiner, runs from October 5, 2007 – January 13, 2008. Accompanying the exhibition is a hard-covered publication, Making A Home, Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York. This collaborative book was created in the spirit of the exhibition, designed by Japanese-born and Japanese-inspired designers at Berrymatch LLC, a multicultural, bilingual, New York-based design firm. The book will be published September 2007 and available through Yale University Press.

The show comprises a broad range of media—from painting and sculpture to video and photography—and covers diverse age groups, identities, experiences, and styles that will show the breadth and depth of contemporary Japanese art as developed, practiced, and presented in New York. Visitors will go on a conceptual journey through multifaceted "homes" installed throughout the Society, illuminating the ways in which Japanese contemporary artists have made their homes and careers here since the 1950s.

The supporting book, Making a Home, Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York, features a portfolio selection of the images and essays that situate the artists and their work within the broader themes that predominate Asian and international contemporary art. With a biography and exhibition history on each artist – as well as a critical biography of Kusama Yayoi that re-examines her early years in New York—this handsome book also explores Japan Society's pivotal role in supporting the careers of Japanese contemporary artists in New York. Appropriately, multicultural design firm, Berrymatch LLC was selected to collaborate with the curator to design this book. Japanese-born designer, Yumi Asai art directed the book while Matthew Waldman acted as creative director.

Making a Home dynamically expands beyond the bounds of Japan Society. To coincide with the 40th anniversary of New York City's Contemporary Art in the Parks program, the Society presents Yoko Ono's Freight Train in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.