Products bearing the image of the mouthless cat Hello Kitty make millions each year for the Japanese company Sanrio. This provocative exhibition of art and artifacts makes the case that the 'œappallingly cute little figure' actually represents a nation's powerlessness and its 'œsublimated hysteria,' said Mark Stevens in New York. Masterminded by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, 'œLittle Boy' is essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand contemporary Japan. Surveying flatly drawn pictures of puffy animals, pre-pubescent girls, and Godzilla's inner anatomy, Murakami makes the argument that, 'œfar from being just sugary kitsch, Japanese pop represents the strange, even psychotic response of a population traumatized by World War II.'
Murakami treats fine art and commercial products as equally compelling, said Matthew Gurewitsch in The Wall Street Journal. Sex-filled Japanese comic books (manga) and vintage toys stand side by side with Murakami's own contribution to the show, Time Bokan'”Black. This painting 'œreads simultaneously as a death's head and a mushroom-shaped cloud.' It looks like a reaction to Japan's unique position as a post-nuclear nation. But it is also a faithful rendering of the regular apocalyptic finale of an animated children's TV show from the '70s called Time Bokan. Millions of kids tuned in regularly.
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