NowHere Gallery to Exhibit Works by Yoichiro Yoda
Yoichiro Yoda: The Crossing
Thursday, July 27 through Sunday, August 27
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 27 from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.
NowHere – 40 Wooster Street (between Grand and Broome Streets)
Admission: Free
SoHo gallery NowHere will host the exhibition The Crossing with recent artworks by New York-based Japanese painter Yoichiro Yoda.
Artist Yoichiro Yoda
About the Artist
Born in Kagawa, Japan, and raised in New York City, Yoichiro Yoda is an artist who is driven by fixations and obsessions. Like a storyteller of mythic tales, he has created an entire cosmology from the topics, places, and people that prey on his mind. This pantheon includes everything from old movie palaces to the stately days of luxury sea travel to George Washington and his legendary deeds to a young woman Yoda met once at a theater years ago. By deploying these things across his paintings—by bringing them to life—Yoda shows us the topology of a world of his own creation.
The Long Room (Fraunces Tavern) by Yoichiro Yoda
Compressing History
In Yoda’s reality, history is compressed, manipulated, and adorned. The eras of silent films and the Revolutionary War live side-by-side here, connected at first by the tenuous fibers of simply being paintings by the same artist. But as we see the work all together, we find common thematic concerns. Nostalgia, for one thing, is prominent. But it’s an uncanny sort of nostalgia in which things feel slightly off, misremembered, or interpreted to the point of being just strange enough that mere sentimentality, a pitfall of much nostalgia, is left behind.
Unique Sense of Humor
Yoichiro Yoda, in some ways, lives in different times at once. His loving offerings to the memories of New York’s grand movie theaters of the past, crossed with his thoroughly contemporary comics work, in which we are treated to his quite unique sense of humor, are both of our era and not. For Yoichiro Yoda, the world is haunted by the ghosts of then and now. Learn more about Yoda at his website.
Space is limited at the opening reception, so please reserve your spot through NowHere’s Eventbrite page.
Eliza’s Birthday Party by Yoichiro Yoda
About NowHere
NowHere is a hub for emerging Japanese artists. The focus of the SoHo gallery is on creatives who come from Japan to New York City, whether for a visit or to stay. They feature work from a broad spectrum of media, from digital to fashion, culinary arts to photography, and everything in between. NowHere is dedicated to building community and expanding their artists’ networks.
NowHere is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. No appointment required.
For more information, please visit NowHere’s website.
Made in Japan: 20th-Century Poster Art
Exploring the cultural and political shifts within modern Japan that influenced the functions and messaging of its advertising posters at Poster House. Photo: Nihon Buyo UCLA Asian Performing Arts Institute 1981.
Now through Sunday, September 10
Poster House – 119 W. 23rd Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)
Admission: $12 | $8 Seniors, Students, Educators, Veterans, and Visitors with Disabilities
Japanese poster design reflects the country’s rich visual culture and printmaking tradition and was used throughout the 20th century to represent the country to domestic and international audiences. Two world wars in addition to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of mass media fundamentally transformed modern Japan, and its specific journey as both an aggressor and a victim of war reinforced the nation’s efforts to revamp its image. Within this context, posters became an essential commercial art form that fused modern identity with consumerism, mirroring and shaping the social, political, and ideological values of the time.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) and World War II (1939–45), posters were designed to inspire patriotism, circulate propaganda, and encourage consumer restraint in support of the war effort. During the postwar period, however, unparalleled growth in the manufacturing sector catapulted the Japanese economy to the position of second largest in the world, creating limitless opportunities for poster advertising as Japanese corporations became household names and global brands. Following the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1970 Osaka World Expo, Japan’s international standing shifted again, emboldening Japanese artists and designers to conceive new forms of graphic media that mixed aspects of traditional Japanese aesthetics with Western design idioms. Between the 1980s and the early 21st century, Japanese posters functioned beyond the realm of the merely commercial, allowing designers to address such social issues as pollution, climate change, sustainability, nuclear disarmament, and global peace and reconciliation.
This exhibition explores the cultural and political shifts within modern Japan that influenced the functions and messaging of its advertising posters, and how those posters were subsequently received by the public.
Nihon Buyo UCLA Asian Performing Arts Institute 1981
Gallery Hours
Poster House is open Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., except on Friday, when it is open until 9:00 p.m. Admission is free on Fridays as well. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit Poster House’s website.
Made in Japan in the Poster House Shop
Poster House has a nice selection of books, notecards, and other items that feature Japanese graphic design. To purchase online, visit the shop here.