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Mr. at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Mr., one of my favourite artists from Takashi Murakami’s KaiKai KiKi Co., Ltd. has his first New York solo exhibition. From the press release in Lehmann Maupin’s current exhibition section:

Lehmann Maupin Gallery will present the first New York solo exhibition of the artist Mr., whose work typically examines Otaku culture in Japan with cartoonish, anime-like two- and three-dimensional representations of joyful adolescents. For this exhibition, the gallery will be filled with large-scale, intricate paintings and sculptures, the largest of which will be an imagined environment within the oversized head of one of the artistÂ’s euphoric girls…

…Mr. lives and works in Saitama, just outside of Tokyo. He graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, Sokei Art School in Tokyo in 1996. Mr. was discovered by Takashi Murakami in 1995 and since then has been involved with MurakamiÂ’s art organization Kaikai Kiki, as both a represented artist and a pivotal staff member. Recently, Mr.Â’s work was on view at the MusÃ©e dÂ’Art Contemporain de Lyon with fellow Kaikai Kiki artists Chiho Aoshima and Aya Takano. In 2005, he was included in the acclaimed exhibition Little Boy: The Arts of JapanÂ’s Exploding Subculture at Japan Society in New York. Mr.Â’s work is represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide.

Lehmann Maupin
540 West 26th Street (b/w 10th + 11th Avenues)
On view: May 3 through June 23, 2007.
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m.Â– - 6:00 p.m.
Ph: 212.255.2923