Mr. at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Mr. at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, NY. "...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 artist's euphoric girls.
The Otaku subculture emerged in Japan in the 1970s and consisted mostly of males who were consumed by manga comics, anime animation, sci-fi literature and video games. Mr.'s large-eyed characters and flat color fields are influenced by this movement and its Lolita-esque fascination with adolescents. The cheerful boys with their pants down and girls in short skirts appear sexually provocative, asking the viewer to question whether the work is a comment on Otaku culture or an exploration of Mr.'s fantasy world."