Following on from their series of exhibitions Hiroshima, which began in 2009, artist collective Chim↑Pom have curated a show featuring the work of 15-year-old Yasuki Ooe (a member of the afterschool club Borderless Art Space HAP) and their mentor Makoto Aida. Before and After: The Dropping of the A-Bomb takes the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, more commonly known as the Atomic Bomb Dome, as a specific place of interest explored through Ooe’s sculptures depicting the building both before and after the attack. Alongside this will run the equally dark, if not more taboo subject of erotica in modern Japanese culture in Makoto Aida’s film version of Mutant Hanako. Sitting somewhere between the reality of the Pacific War and an increasingly ‘gamification’ of conflict through video games, Mutant Hanako was originally published as a manga in 1997 as part of his series War Picture Returns, and its film adaptation has been narrated by himself, his wife and other artists such as Akira Yamaguchi, Hiroyuki Matsukage and Yuko Okada (as well as Chim↑Pom members Ryuta Ushiro and Yasutaka Hayashi). The two works shown together will reflect on the traumatic history of the Pacific War and its impact on modern Japanese society, seen across two generations.
Read our feature on Don’t Follow the Wind, a group exhibition initiated by Chim↑Pom, published in ArtReview Asia vol. 4 no. 1
15 July 2016.
