MR.: IT WAS ON A BRILLIANT DAY.
Perrotin announces IT WAS ON A BRILLIANT DAY, Mr.’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, a decade since his debut institutional show in the west coast of the United States.
February 19 - March 29, 2025
This presentation, his ninth exhibition with the gallery, opens the week of Frieze Los Angeles, and highlights his practice in recent years in painting, sculpture, and work on paper. New paintings are the focal feature in the north gallery, and in the south gallery, an installation based on the artist’s studio in Saitama, Japan. If you’ve ever walked into a Japanese convenience store—Family Mart, Lawson, 7-Eleven, etcetera—you know that there is impeccable order and refreshingly high quality in the overwhelming array and density of even the most pedestrian of Japanese retail commerce.
At the multi-floor, everything-and-anything from canned beverages to rice cookers to lacy underwear and of-the-moment rubber novelties, mega-discount retail chain Don Quijote, however, things are not so Zen. Amidst the labyrinthine din of overflowing shelves and in-your-face, bubbly, neon-painted signage, you may not find what you are looking for. Nonetheless, you will probably end up buying something you didn’t know you wanted and which you definitely do not need. Mr.’s work reminds one of that—not the young women’s shopping paradise of Harajuku, not the youth hangout district of Shibuya, but rather the overgrown jungle of massproduced treasures, Don Quijote.
It is, therefore, more than a footnote that Mr. was influenced by Rauschenberg and Arte Povera when he was starting out. Rauschenberg’s flatbed and junk assemblage practices in particular, but also Arte Povera’s interest in neglected and cast-off materials, seem to have served Mr. as effective strategies for capturing the disorder of contemporary consumer identity in a state of suspended jumble.
For Mr., these aesthetic practices also have personal meaning. As he said in an interview, "In my life, I've encountered my share of unreasonableness and conflict in interactions with my blood relatives. The world of otaku culture was a place where I could soothe these wounds. For me, images of cute young girls carry the same sort of healing beauty and love that many people find in religion.”