Curated by Melanie Eastburn
The malevolent yōkai spirits of Japanese folklore have been a mainstay of the country’s visual culture since the middle Edo period, eventually fueling the J-horror boom of the mid-2000s and the global popularity of Studio Ghibli. This rich narrative field is the subject of an expansive survey encompassing some 180 works, with an artist list that runs from such luminaries as Hokusai and Utagawa Kuniyoshi to the darker visions of feminist photographer Miwa Yanagi and contemporary Nihonga painter Fuyuko Matsui. This exhibition will also feature wood carvings, ukiyo-e, cinema, animation, and installations, beginning in the An’ei era with Toriyama Sekien’s Night Procession of the Hundred Demons, ca. 1772–81, and culminating in a major presentation of recent myth-inflected work by Takashi Murakami, including two of his hulking demon sculptures.
