CHAPEL HILL, NC.- The Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presents two new exhibitions of 20th and 21st century Japanese art. The exhibitions "Yayoi Kusama: Open the Shape Called Love," and “Toriawase: A Special Installation of Modern Japanese Art and Ceramics” are on view from Friday, Jan. 31 through Sunday, April 12, 2020.

“Yayoi Kusama: Open the Shape Called Love”
Visitors to “Open the Shape Called Love” will experience a smaller-scale, more contemplative, handmade side of Yayoi Kusama, a revered contemporary artist known primarily for her large-scale blockbuster installations. Included in the Ackland’s exhibition are early works on paper, intimate “dot” and “net” paintings, provocative sculpture and multimedia work, and a tabletop mirror box, all of which provide insight into Kusama’s later artistic output. While Kusama’s famous “Infinity Rooms”—mirrored environments illuminated with colored lights—have had art lovers the world over clamoring for a few seconds of coveted viewing time, this exhibition offers a more relaxing experience than other recent shows of Kusama’s work. There will be no need to compete for timed tickets, admission is free, and visitors are invited to stay and look at the exhibition for as long as the Museum is open. “Yayoi Kusama: Open the Shape Called Love” features more than 22 works from the distinguished collection of James Keith Brown ’84 and Eric Diefenbach. This exhibition has been organized by Peter Nisbet, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs. The Ackland will be publishing a 64-page hardbound exhibition catalog by the organizer, including a biographical sketch, an essay, and scholarly entries on all exhibited works.

“Toriawase: A Special Installation of Modern Japanese Art and Ceramics”
“Toriawase” is a Japanese concept that loosely means to choose and combine objects with exquisite care. “Toriawase: A Special Installation of Modern Japanese Art and Ceramics” draws on the Ackland’s holdings, as well as three major private collections: James Keith Brown ’84 and Eric Diefenbach, Mina Levin and Ronald Schwarz, and Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz.

“Modern and contemporary Japanese painting and sculpture are not often displayed or considered alongside ceramics of the same period,” said organizer Peter Nisbet, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs. “We approach the combination of modern art and ceramics in this spirit, aiming less for a historical or scholarly approach and more for an intuitive, experiential orchestration of relationships and correspondences.” The exhibition includes the work of 28 artists. This special installation has been organized by Peter Nisbet, Nathan Marzen, Head of Exhibition Design and Installation, and the assistance of Daniele Lauro, a recent graduate from the PhD program in the History Department, UNC-Chapel Hill and 2019 Richard Bland Fellow at the Ackland Art Museum.