The Pocket Monsters ― or Pokemon ― franchise, which debuted with a video game release in 1996 and now boasts a globally popular card game, anime series spanning over two decades and a series of animated films, will collaborate with a contemporary artist for an exhibition at the Nanzuka contemporary art gallery in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.
The exhibition hall is on the building's B2 floor, which you reach by descending a set of pitch-black stairs that make you feel as though you're going through a mine. At the end, you'll reach the exhibition area surrounded by pure white walls.
Pikachu, Eevee, Mewtwo, Charmander, Squirtle ... 15 stone and bronze statues of the Pokemon you know and love are on display in this first-of-its-kind event.
If you look carefully, you'll see there are some areas on the statues that appear damaged by the passage of time. This is to give the illusion of them having been discovered in the year 3020, a thousand years into the future. They haven't turned into bones and shells, but have been preserved in stone in their original forms. The gemstones that peek out from the decayed areas, such as rose quartz, amethyst and pyrite, imply that a long amount of time has passed.
The statues were created by Daniel Arsham, an artist based in New York. Working around the concept of archaeology based in fiction, he's created many pieces such as helmets, cameras, basketballs and sneakers in stone.
This series of collaborative pieces follows that trend. He's been a fan of the Pokemon franchise since the beginning. After Shinji Nanzuka, representative of the Nanzuka gallery, discovered a piece with a Pikachu motif that Arsham had been secretly making, the idea of a collaboration came to be.
Just as clay figurines that were contemporary for people in the Jomon period (ca 10,000 B.C.-ca 300 B.C.) have become the subject of achaeological study, the characters immortalized here may allow those who see them to have the impression of staring at 2020 from the future.
Arsham is also doing participating in a collaboration with Uniqlo, selling T-shirts with drawings and designs used to make his statues, both in stores and online.
The exhibition will run through July 4, closed Sundays and Mondays. Due to anti-virus measures the gallery is following, those who wish to see the exhibit must make reservations on Nanzuka's website. For more information, call Nanzuka at 03-3400-0075.
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