Visually speaking, "Point of Purchase" has to be the busiest art exhibition in Tokyo at the moment. The pageantry of graffiti tags-cum-advertising signs is a lot of things: a throwback to yesterday's dorky company logos; a reminder that advertising is far more insidious these days; and a warning that tomorrow we may well find ourselves in a pseudo reality, dumbly and endlessly alternating, as theorists predicted 40 years ago, between production time and consumption time.
The show is steeped in a healthy measure of social cynicism, and saturated with color and energy. What's most important though is that the show -- the work of a trio of thirtysomething Americans: Todd James, Barry McGee and Stephen Powers -- is quite a lot of fun.
Now on exhibit at the Parco Gallery in Tokyo's Shibuya district, "Point of Purchase" features paintings, photography, three-dimensional works and installations -- a bit of just about everything. Some are calling it "the graffiti show," and this might be a nice way to approach the exhibition. All three of the participating artists have at some time taken to the streets with an aerosol can in hand to spray a little self-expression into their urban environment. But what sets these three apart from the typical sprayer of graffiti is the way their creations have defined a neat nexus between the American cityscape's traditional and rebellious graphic imagery.