{"id":275153,"date":"2025-04-13T17:44:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T08:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/?p=275153"},"modified":"2025-04-13T17:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T08:44:14","slug":"mr-solo-show-it-was-on-a-brilliant-day-at-perrotin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/art\/mr-solo-show-it-was-on-a-brilliant-day-at-perrotin\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Down, Mr.!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr.\u2019s solo show \"It Was on a Brilliant Day.\" at Perrotin in Los Angeles<\/h3>\r\n

I<\/span>f you could have been at Perrotin in Los Angeles that day to read my body language, capture the anime twinkle in my eye, and catch with your undivided ears the excited tone of my stuttering and trembling voice, you would have immediately registered my exclamation, \u2018Slow Down, Mr.!\u201d as meaning the exact opposite.\u00a0 There would be no ambiguity, the spontaneous comment would have immediately impacted you just as it was designed.\u00a0 All your unanswered emails, dm\u2019s, im\u2019s, wechats, that whole required world of undifferentiated, text based communication, just for one second would have been gone.\u00a0 I live for the moments full of the subtlety of body language.\u00a0 We would have had an unambiguous, IRL human experience.\u00a0 Since we weren\u2019t face to face, and you missed the shine in my eyes and tone in my voice, I will consider retitling the essay, \u201cKeep Going, Mr.!\u201d, just to make it more clear that he should never, ever stop.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Mr., Untitled, 2025; Acrylic Paint and Silkscreen Print on Canvas; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-1\"<\/a>

Mr., Untitled, 2025; Acrylic Paint and Silkscreen Print on Canvas; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Holy Akihabara, I stand before the acrylic cases of your rare gachapon and vending machines.\u00a0 Nakano Broadway, the streets of Shibuya, Shinjuku, all quantum entangled epicenters of \u304b\u308f\u3044\u3044 (kawaii) culture are compressed into the unrelenting flatness (Superflatness) of his canvases, regular and irregular alike.\u00a0 The picture surface is immovable, irrevocable and any artist with chops knows in their bones, the pinpoint between the picture plane and the receding and advancing picture space is where the painting really lives.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the center of gravity is, the \u2013JSTOR ALERT\u2013 dialectical flashpoint that determines the expression of the image.\u00a0\u00a0 GIVE ME SPACE OR GIVE ME DEATH!\u00a0 I yell this often in my sleep.\u00a0 This artist gives me both.\u00a0 Anime space.\u00a0 Onigiri death.\u00a0 It\u2019s exactly what I need at this moment in 2025 while I fear all Japanese imports to the United States may grind to a halt and my life becomes flat.\u00a0 Superflat.\u00a0 Hands off my Nintendo, assholes.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-3\"<\/a>

Mr., Untitled, 2025; Acrylic Paint and Silkscreen Print on Canvas; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Sure, there\u2019s a subtle darkness to it all, but isn\u2019t there with everything?\u00a0 Nothing is untouched by the free market, not even islands inhabited exclusively by penguins.\u00a0 Fort Tuxedo was the last to fall.\u00a0 RIP.\u00a0 One word: Tariff-fying.\u00a0 I suppose there\u2019s nothing left to do but go into denial and try to fall in love with something.\u00a0 The darkness contracts like fluid in a watershed of otaku moonlight,\u00a0 \u3064\u304d\u304c\u304d\u308c\u3044\u3067\u3059\u306d.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>The literal translation is \u201cthe moon is beautiful, isn\u2019t it?\u201d <\/sup>\u00a0In my figurative, 10-chaotic, artist-brained reality, the novelist Natsume S\u014dseki\u2019s subtextual meaning of the phrase is what matters: \u201cI Love You\u201d.\u00a0 I once had this phrase whispered into my ear while walking in a photon field of a waning gibbous and that day while in the gallery, I pass it along to the artist for making these paintings. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Mr., Untitled, 2025; Acrylic Paint and Silkscreen Print on Canvas; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

After some research, I found that Mr. was trained at the Osaka University of Arts, working in illustration and design before making the leap to the world of fine art under the mentorship of Takashi Murakami, who\u2019s known for developing the Superflat conceptual theory.\u00a0 His career took off in the late 90\u2019s as his relationship with Murakami developed.\u00a0 The visual connection is immediately obvious, their brains are like brothers, though Takashi\u2019s work is more all-encompassing and heady (read the superflat theory, baka).\u00a0 Eventually, Mr. was invited to join Kaikai Kiki, the artist collective and production company Murakami founded to support emerging Japanese artists.\u00a0 The international network helped promote his work globally.\u00a0 Mr. was also a part of the legendary show \"Little Boy: The Arts of Japan\u2019s Exploding Subculture\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-7\"<\/a>

Mr., Hikari and Cat \u2013 At Dusk, 2025; Iron, FRP, urethane paint, acrylic paint, and plywood base with MDF surface finish; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

\u00a0I feel compelled to flex my Japanese one last time: \u3042\u306a\u305f\u306f\u3068\u3066\u3082\u3055\u3044\u306e\u3046\u306e\u3042\u308b\u30a2\u30fc\u30c6\u30a3\u30b9\u30c8\u3067\u3059.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>The mass-culture component of Mr\u2019s conceptual framework asks the work to develop expansively, plastic and infinitely, just like otaku culture itself.\u00a0 Form and Content are linked, just as two words in Japanese are linked with a particle.\u00a0 The clarity of meaning develops as a result.\u00a0 The very character of his body of work emerges from the culture and projects the image of otaku right back to the people who want it the most, namely the West.\u00a0 It\u2019s very easy to fall in dumb-love with Superflat artists (I did), and it would be fascinating to drink with them and convince them to spill the tea about irony, the United States, the performative image of the artist, and traditional \u65e5\u672c\u753b (nihongo) <\/span>style painting.\u00a0 Shall we have another Shochu Sour?\u00a0 Revelations like that don\u2019t come without a nasty hangover, but I\u2019d be a wiser person for it, then do it again the next night.\u00a0 I suppose every artist has a cynical, market driven side, but when compared to so much of what I see, Mr.\u2019s work seems to succeed on so many levels where others fall short and come off as just more art or content or whatever that\u2019s endlessly produced to fill the space.\u00a0 There\u2019s a real failure in that type of art.\u00a0 And while I'm studying his work, I see and feel something about people, paint and the specificity of desire and style and joy.\u00a0 Yet when other painters' capabilities are so limited, they only ask me to look without doing the real work of getting me to feel, I unconsciously begin to drift and think about ultra processed foods and the microplastics accumulating in my scrotum.\u00a0 That\u2019s my cue to move on.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-4\"<\/a>

Mr., Untitled, 2025; Acrylic Paint and Silkscreen Print on Canvas; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-6\"<\/a>

Mr., Let\u2019s Gather at the Park, 2025; Acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>

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Mr., 2025; Installation, Mixed media and various wood components; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-8\"<\/a>

Mr., 2025; Installation, Mixed media and various wood components; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>

\"adf-web-magazine-mr-slow-down-9\"<\/a>

Mr., 2025; Installation, Mixed media and various wood components; \u00a92025 Mr.\/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

INFO<\/span><\/h3><\/div>\r\n

MR. 'IT WAS ON A BRILLIANT DAY.'
\r\n<\/strong>Feb 19 \u2013 March 29, 2025<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

From the Press Release:<\/p>\r\n

Perrotin announces Mr.\u2019s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, a decade since his debut institutional show in the west coast of the United States. This presentation, his ninth exhibition with the gallery, opens the week of Frieze Los Angeles, and highlights his practice in recent years in painting, sculpture, and work on paper. New paintings are the focal feature in the north gallery, and in the south gallery, an installation based on the artist\u2019s studio in Saitama, Japan.<\/p>\r\n

If you\u2019ve ever walked into a Japanese convenience store\u2014Family Mart, Lawson, 7-Eleven, etcetera\u2014you know that there is impeccable order and refreshingly high quality in the overwhelming array and density of even the most pedestrian of Japanese retail commerce. At the multi-floor, everything-and-anything from canned beverages to rice cookers to lacy underwear and of-the-moment rubber novelties, mega-discount retail chain Don Quijote, however, things are not so Zen. Amidst the labyrinthine din of overflowing shelves and in-your-face, bubbly, neon-painted signage, you may not find what you are looking for. Nonetheless, you will probably end up buying something you didn\u2019t know you wanted and which you definitely do not need. Mr.\u2019s work reminds one of that\u2014not the young 1: Perrotin HK (2018) Mr., People misunderstand me and the contents of my paintings\u2026Press release. link women\u2019s shopping paradise of Harajuku, not the youth hangout district of Shibuya, but rather the overgrown jungle of mass-produced treasures, Don Quijote...\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

For more information contact Perrotin at
\r\nURL: <\/span>https:\/\/www.perrotin.com\/<\/a>
\r\n<\/span>Instagram: <\/span>@perrotin<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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