Film & Art Night: Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month

Friday, May 19, 6-9 pm ET

Join us for a lively evening celebrating Japanese and Japanese diasporic creatives in conjunction with Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. Featuring a film screening of Totally F***ed Up, directed by one of Asian American cinema’s prominent artists, New Queer Cinema icon Gregg Araki; free admission to Japan Society Gallery’s current exhibition on the Japanese American artist, Kyohei Inukai; and a special installation of What Is Your Name? (2020), a sound and sculpture work created by contemporary visual artists Natsuki Takauji and Haksul Lee. 

The gallery and art installation will be open to the public for free admission from 6–9 pm for Free Friday Nights. Drinks are available for purchase on site. Tickets to the film screening are required. Please purchase tickets here for the screening of Totally F***ed Up.

About What Is Your Name?
What Is Your Name? is a community-engaged art project by two New York-based interdisciplinary artists, Natsuki Takauji and Haksul Lee. Through sculpture and sound installation, this work compiles the names of people around New York City, including at LaGuardia Airport, where the artists undertook the ArtPort residency program organized by the Queens Council on the Arts and the Port Authority of NY & NJ. In addition to presenting the names in their original language in both writing and voice recording, the artists transcribed them into the International Phonetic Alphabet, reflecting the coexistence of individual and collective identities in society. The work was featured in The Immigrant Artist Biennial virtual exhibition, Mother Tongue, and will become part of the permanent collection of the Port Authority of NY & NJ.

About Totally F***ed Up
A camcorder confessional focusing on the private lives of six queer Los Angelenos, Gregg Araki’s seminal exploration of alienated youth—and the first of his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy (followed by The Doom Generation, Nowhere)—presents their fragmented desires and nihilistic musings in Godardian fashion. Terminally bored and unmoored in the media-saturated wasteland of ‘90s America, the group navigates the urban malaise of adolescent life, reconciling with the meaning of it all as they face homophobia, failed romance and existential dread. Featuring Araki’s signature needle drops, including This Mortal Coil, Red House Painters, and The Jesus and Mary Chain, Araki’s anarchic teenage ode to a doomed existence aims to “represent the unrepresented.” 

Dir. Gregg Araki, 1993, 78 min., DCP, color. With James Duval, Roko Belic, Susan Behshid. 

Kyohei Inukai
March 17–June 25, 2023

Kyohei Inukai is the first institutional solo exhibition of Kyohei Inukai (1913–1985), a largely unknown, yet prolific Japanese-American artist. Presenting key bodies of work—many of which have never been shown before—this exhibition highlights Inukai’s paintings and screenprints of illusionary, abstract lines and shapes that defined his artistic style during the latter years of his career, from the 1960s through the 80s. These works are juxtaposed with a series of sumi-e, or Japanese ink paintings, that dovetail Inukai’s distinctive curvilinear forms and nuanced color palettes with traditional Japanese art. This rare presentation of an underrecognized artist’s legacy builds upon Japan Society’s ongoing mission to embrace and showcase diverse narratives of art and artists of Japan and the Japanese diaspora.

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Japan Society programs are made possible by leadership support from Booth Ferris Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Film programs are generously supported by ORIX Corporation USA, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and endowment support from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund.

Additional season support is provided by The Globus Family, David Toberisky, Akiko Koide and Shohei Koide, Geoff and Fumi Matters, Laurel Gonsalves, and David S. Howe. Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the exclusive Japanese airline sponsor of Japan Society Film.

Kyohei Inukai is supported, in part, by a grant from the Vilcek Foundation.

Exhibitions and Arts & Culture Lecture Programs are made possible, in part, by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund; the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; The Masako Mera and Koichi Mera, PhD Fund for Education and the Arts; Peggy and Dick Danziger; Thierry Porté and Yasko Tashiro; and Friends of the Gallery. Support for Arts & Culture Lecture Programs is provided, in part, by the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund. Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the exclusive Japanese airline sponsor for Japan Society gallery exhibitions.