Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin

The Galerie Michael Janssen Berlin is pleased to present the solo exhibition by Yoshitaka Amano. 30 new works, as well as new anime films will be on view until the end of February at the Berlin gallery space. With its 7 meters the largest painting, Deva-Loka, depicts a fabled world completely filled with psychedelic figures, On the many smaller aluminium panels fantastic characters are singled out, as if sprung from it. Juxtaposing these intricately and detailed works are a number of midsized paintings with serene superheroes, grim warriors and elfish heroines.

Amano, born in Shizuoka City, Japan, in 1952, who rose to fame via the creation of anime, manga and video game characters, began his career in Japan’s major cartoon studios in the mid 1970s. Since the 1980s he devoted himself to independent projects as a freelance artist. Yoshitaka Amano lives and works in Tokyo and New York.  

In addition to his work as the influential graphic developer and designer for the Gatchaman series
(G-Force), the Final Fantasy Cycles and many other heroic epics for the animated cartoon and the then nascent video game industry, Amano's creations have also been displayed in solo and group exhibitions at diverse locations - Barbican Art Centre, London, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai and the Kunstverein Heilbronn (Heilbronn Arts Association).  

The German Film Museum in Frankfurt will subsequently be including his works in its exhibition Anime! High Art – Pop Culture. After this, the exhibition, which will be accompanied by a detailed catalogue, proceeds to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark. A selection of Amano’s films will also be on show during the special exhibition Global Eurasia, held in the Japan Foundation in Cologne in the spring of 2008.


Press:
Yoshitaka Amano, artforum.com, 02/2008