"Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art"

Japanese popular culture has long been infused with a peculiar quality that the Japanese themselves call kawaii: an overload of cuteness best exemplified in our country by the feline given passing reference in this show's title. The 16 artists here—ranging in age from twenty- to fortysomething, and working in a variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, installation and video—represent a generation in rebellion against kawaii's stranglehold and the stultifying effects of Japanese society in general. Look for works with a biting political edge, like Akira Yamaguchi's 17th-century-scroll–type view of the environmental depravations wrought by Tokyo's Narita International Airport.