City Glow
At the MFAH in Houston, you can see an exhibit of the artistic origins of Japanese anime. This still is from a short film by Chiho Aoshima, done in collaboration with Bruce Ferguson. In Aoshima's work, we see an amalgamation of pop art, anime, manga, and the Japanese "cult of cuteness" (think Hello Kitty). Here is a summary from the MFAH website about the history leading up to work included in this exhibit.
In 1996 Tokyo artist Takashi Murakami established the Hiropon Factory (later renamed Kaikai Kiki), a studio dedicated to producing his increasingly large-scale sculptures and paintings. Working with a select group of extraordinarily talented young assistants, Murakami promoted a fresh approach to art and commerce. His efforts produced a dynamic new wave of Japanese Pop, embracing the pictorial style of manga (comic books) and anime (cartoons), all within the spirit of kawaii or cuteness. Japanese Pop has since become one of the most vital currents in today´s international scene and many of Murakami´s assistants have emerged as important artists in their own right.
Chiho Aoshima began working with Murakami in the late 1990s, and in 1999 she began to exhibit independently as well. Using the computer as a compositional tool, Aoshima realizes her images freely in various media, including sculpture, mural design, prints, clothing, and, in collaboration with animator Bruce Ferguson, video. Her imagery draws upon traditional Japanese scroll paintings as well as contemporary sources, blending landscape and narrative to create a vision of our planet´s potential for both creation and chaos.
City Glow, 2005, is both monumental and playfully engaging. Spanning five monitors, it opens in a garden, filled with fantastic foliage and creatures. Slowly a modern city with living skyscrapers grows from this Edenic paradise, and then as night falls, nature takes over once again. Aoshima populates this landscape with both the forces of good and evil: a graveyard filled with demonic ghosts is ultimately banished by fairytale spirits and a new dawn.
Aoshima´s poetic evolutionary cycle can be understood as a commentary on the perils of global warming. Ultimately, however, City Glow offers a promise of hope and regeneration. Aoshima´s witty animation is a delight to all ages, uniting the vivid graphic conventions of contemporary anime with ancient traditions in Japanese art and thought.
