In his show, “Blessings and Curses of this World,” Gajin Fujita masterfully plays with the codes of American popular culture and interweaves them with pictorial elements of the diverse ethnic cultures in a globalized world. Logos of multinational companies are fused with motifs reminiscent of the woodcuts and Ukiyoe paintings of the Edo period, the tribal signs of graffiti form the background for Raphael’s putti, creating a truly contemporary cosmos of hyper-entanglement.
The extensive painterly oeuvre of the Japanese-American artist is notable for its striking synthesis of traditional Japanese motifs and techniques with those of contemporary Western graffiti art, as well as its engagement with the rich histories of both Western and East Asian painting. Fujita thus calls into question the visual codes that underpin our supposedly stable cultural identities. By employing a distinct visual vocabulary that highlights the inherent contradictions associated with globalized cultural forms, the artist introduces a dynamic motion to the works.
Gajin Fujita emphasizes the tension between tradition and the present by using gold leaf for the background, as was used for precious paintings from the Orient to the Occident. In European medieval panel painting, the gold ground iconographically separated the sacred space from the profane space. In Fujita’s work, it serves as a background for graffiti tags and bright lacquer colours.
Gajin Fujita’s oeuvre represents the expression and outcome of a contemporary, multifaceted production of culture and images. His pictorial space demonstrates the coexistence of markedly contradictory cultural signs that are characteristic of the globalized reality of our contemporary era. The consistently popular work of the Californian painter is thus in tune with the times without losing sight of history.
Blessings and Curses of This World is on view through November 9th at Buchmann Galerie at Charlottenstraße 13, 10969 Berlin.