'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art

Home to the largest Japanese population outside of Tokyo, Brazil is a mosaic of cultural exchange. Staged at Nara Roesler in New York, a new group show constellates the work of Tomie Ohtake, Lydia Okumura, and Asuka Anastacia Ogawa. In this next chapter of the gallery’s curatorial project, the exhibition traces the artists’ careers, each emblematic of a critical period in Brazilian art history.

Japan in/out Brazil celebrates the creative continuum of Japanese-Brazilian culture. Carefully tracing diasporic history, the show captures the symbolic impact of the artists in an intergenerational display. Ohtake, a pioneer of the country’s post-war modernism, conjures movement and tonal lyricism in her swelling abstractions. Meanwhile, Okumura balances innovation and tradition, employing geometry and perceptual interaction in her site-specific works. Lastly, Asuka Nastacia Ogawa channels play in the wide gaze of her childlike subjects, taking cues from her heritage and Superflat elements.

“Japan in/out Brazil aims to state the porosity of frontiers,” the gallery says in a statement. “Emblematically global,” the show “draws a virtual figure of the world where America, Brazil, Europe, Africa, and Asia are intertwined in the resonance of three artistic lives.”

The exhibition is now open at Nara Roesler until October 5, 2024.

Nara Roesler New York
511 W 21st St,
New York, NY 10011

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'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art

'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art

'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art

'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art

'Japan in/out Brazil' Chronicles a Half-Century of Mixed-Heritage Art