EXHIBI­TIONS

CHIM↑POM FROM SMAPPA!GROUP

Over the past two decades, the artist collective Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group has built an avid following for its bold interventions in public space. In this exhibition the collective builds on recent works exploring the idea of naraku as an inherent structure of contemporary society. Deriving from the word for “hell” in Buddhist terminology, naraku refers to the area beneath the stage of a Kabuki theater as well as any space evoking the abyssal “hole” at the bottom of hell. Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group’s new works reread the city through the idea of the naraku as the unseen or hidden underside of the urban stage, using it a device for rethinking binaries of good and evil or clean and unclean. In doing so, the collective hopes to arrive at a planetary perspective that can grasp city and society at both macro and micro levels and even expand the framework of ethics itself.

ANOMALY

Launched in 2018, Anomaly celebrates art that deviates from the norm, common order, or rule. Responding to the conditions for contemporary art in Japan and Asia, it presents a diverse program of exhibitions, performances, and events that emerge from research and dialogue. In doing so, Anomaly seeks to cultivate a fertile ground for seeding cultural change and expanding creativity beyond the existing framework of traditional art galleries.