Bye Bye Kitty!, which closes June 12^th, brings together work by 16 contemporary Japanese artists who have taken anxiety as their muse. The show, which opened just a week after Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami disasters, explores important social issues from a personal perspective. Dark, and often subversive ideas abound here, which is in sharp contrast to the obsession with cuteness that has been the prevailing aesthetic in recent Japanese art.

Left: Kohei Nawa, PixCell Deer #24, 2011. Right: Tomoko Shioyasu, Vortex, 2011. Courtesy Japan Society.

Cuteness, or kawaii, which arose in reaction to the post-war anxiety that pervaded Japanese society, is exemplified by the Hello Kitty logo—a blank-faced cartoon-like kitten waving goodbye. As David Elliott, the independent curator who organized the show, writes in the catalog, “In a densely urbanized, highly stratified society situated in the heart of an earthquake zone, the fear that the worst could easily happen lies at the back of many minds....Here we see Japanese artists critically examining tradition and history; responding to a threatened natural world; and expressing an unquiet, even nightmarish, consciousness,” he added. “Taken together, these three approaches comprise a quintessentially Japanese response to the present and the future.”

Uncertainty, stress, and abnormality are some of the themes embodied in this collection, which defy the prevailing value placed on group conformity. Makoto Aida (b. 1965) takes traditional Ukiyo-e prints as his point of departure for Harikari School Girls, but prints in psychedelic colors onto holographic film that creates a jumpy surface with optical dissonance. Only when the eye adjusts to the layered effect does it becomes apparent that this scene depicts a ritual group suicide.

Yamaguchi Akira (b. 1969) combines traditional styles to create a critical view of the present, but in a more lighthearted style. In The Nine Aspects, he creates a modern scroll painting in which a muscular Hell’s Angel-like biker courses through a derelict wasteland on a rusting motorbike with a horse’s head. Traditional motifs, such as tile-roofed dwellings enshrouded by angular clouds are at odds with the state of decay that has overwhelmed the formerly pristine environment.

The Kimusa series of color photographs by Tomoko Yoneda (b.1965) focuses on interior views of the abandoned headquarters of the National Military Defense Security Command in Seoul. This site originally housed important Korean government offices, which were taken over in 1971 by a counterintelligence agency that interrogated, and at times tortured, its own nationals. These abstractions, reminiscent of minimalist paintings, evoke a haunting sense of almost-forgotten evils.

Well known to New York audiences thanks to his recent solo show at Asia Society, Yoshitomo Nara (b.1959), created a photograph of a beautifully maintained tomb for pets, crowned with two Hello Kitty polychrome stone “guardians.” So it seems that even Kitty has passed beyond the veil of cuteness and had to say farewell.

Works in a variety of media, including two enchanting videos by Hiraki Sawa (b. 1977); a sculpture and video installation by Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972), a taxidermized deer encased in crystal glass balls by Kohei Nawa (b. 1975), and digitally manipulated photographs by Miwa Yangi (b. 1967), among others, represent a new generation of Japanese artists responding to a threatened natural world and an often nightmarish view of society.

Hello Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art closes on Sunday, June 12. Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, NY, NY. 50% of tickets sales until June 30 for all Japan Society events, including Bye Bye Kitty!!!, will go to the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund, directly supporting victims of the earthquake and tsunamis in Japan.