Japanese artist Aida Makoto plays the devil’s advocate, tweaking his nation’s collective conscience by opening a Pandora’s box of issues from which most of his compatriots typically avert their eyes. For example, his “War Picture Returns” series, 1995–2003, resuscitates gruesome events from the Pacific War, such as the Japanese occupation of Korea, the crushing imperialism imposed on regional neighbors under the fantastical guise of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the waste of countless young lives in a hopeless war effort. These paintings allude to the genre of “war pictures”