UPCOMING EVENT
Screening & Gallery Talk: Alex Ito X Howie Chen
Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 2-4pm
525 West 26th St, Ground Floor
Join us for a special screening of Half Life (2020) by Alex Ito, followed by a conversation with curator Howie Chen.
In commemoration of Day of Remembrance (February 19)—marking the issuance of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, which led to the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II—SEIZAN Gallery presents Ito’s Half Life. This 12-minute video work dreamily weaves together 3D animation and footage from the artist’s visit to Gila River, Arizona, where his grandparents were incarcerated, alongside imagery from a nuclear waste site in New Mexico, Trinity Site at White Plains Missile Range and a family home.
Following the screening, Howie Chen, director and curator at 80WSE Gallery (NYU), will engage in a discussion with Ito about his ongoing exploration of family memory, war, and displacement. The talk will also delve into Ito’s works currently on view in the group exhibition LIFE STUDIES, including Western Verbiage V (Risk Management)—a site-specific assemblage in dialogue with works by Miné Okubo and Hiroshima-based photographer Aya Fujioka.
About the Speakers:
Alex Ito is a fourth-generation Japanese American artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores the visual cultures of violence, war, and industrialization. His work reflects on historical memory, inviting viewers to recognize the precarious frameworks of life within a world of uncertainty and possibility. Ito’s art has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including Other World/s at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon, currently on view through March 15, 2025.
Howie Chen is currently the director and curator of 80 Washington Square East (80WSE) gallery at NYU and the founding director of Chen’s, a Brooklyn townhouse gallery. Formerly at the Whitney Museum and MoMA PS1, his work spans curatorial practice, publishing, and research. Chen is currently the director and curator of 80 Washington Square East (80WSE) gallery at NYU is the editor of Godzilla: Asian American Arts Network 1990-2001 and curator of Legacy: Asian American Art Movements in New York City (1969-2001) at NYU’s 80WSE Gallery.
A mixer with refreshments will follow the talk.
To learn more and RSVP, click here.
Miné Okubo: Portraits
January 9 – March 1, 2025
Opening reception: January 9, 6-8pm
We are pleased to present Miné Okubo: Portraits, the gallery’s first solo exhibition featuring work by one of the most influential Japanese-American artists of the 20th Century. From January 9 through March 1, 2025, works by Okubo will be on public display, some for the first time, including eleven portraits completed in the late 1940s.
Born in Riverside, California, in 1912, Miné Okubo achieved early success as an artist and continued to be extraordinarily prolific throughout her life until her death in 2001. She is most renown for Citizen 13660, a groundbreaking memoir that combines visual art and narrative to record her experience living in Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. From 1942 to 1944, Okubo was detained at the Tanforan Relocation Center in San Bruno, California, and at the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. While in these camps, she created over 2,000 drawings using charcoal, watercolor, pen, and ink. During this time she taught art to others in the incarcerated population, alongside Chiura Obata and other notable artists. Published in 1946, Citizen 13660 includes nearly 200 illustrations documenting daily life in the camps. It received the American Book Award in 1984.
After her release from the Topaz Camp in 1944, Okubo relocated to New York City, where she went on to have a successful career as a commercial illustrator for prestigious publications while continuing her painting practice. Portraits—especially of women and children—remained a central focus of her work. In “Personal Statement” she wrote “From the beginning, my work has been rooted in a concern for the humanities.”
The eleven portraits featured in this exhibition were created in the late 1940s, just a few years after Okubo’s release from the camps. These bold, powerful works share stylistic connections with her earlier charcoal drawings from the internment period, which are also displayed in the gallery. While her camp drawings often convey the despair and trauma of the incarcerated, the later portraits—rendered in colorful pastel—capture energy, strength, and compassion. The anonymous figures exude vitality and humanity, celebrating everyday life and signal an early transition to Okubo’s iconic, color-rich style.
We extend our gratitude to Seiko Buckingham, The Miné Okubo Charitable Corporation, and Dr. ShiPu Wang, professor of art history at the University of California, Merced, for their support in making this exhibition possible.
To learn more, click here.
LIFE STUDIES: Vincent Chong, Aya Fujioka, Alex Ito, Charlie Mai, Homer Shew
January 9 – March 1, 2025
Opening reception: January 9, 6-8pm
We are pleased to present LIFE STUDIES, a group exhibition featuring works by Vincent Chong, Aya Fujioka, Alex Ito, Charlie Mai, and Homer Shew. Coinciding with Miné Okubo’s solo exhibition, on view January 9 through March 1, 2025, LIFE STUDIES explores the diverse varieties of contemporary life and identity as experienced by individuals of Asian descent and diaspora in New York and beyond.
Vincent Chong (b. 1992, Binghamton, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, painting, drawing, and performance art. The exhibition features their intimate portrait paintings of close friends.
Aya Fujioka (b. 1972, Hiroshima, Japan) presents selected works from her new book of photography, LIFE STUDIES, forthcoming this spring. The series documents her life as an emerging artist in New York, 2003 to 2013.
Alex Ito (b. 1991, Los Angeles, CA) has created Western Verbiage V (Risk Management), a site-specific assemblage of curated objects. It includes an ikebana-inspired sculpture, atomic science books, and photographs and documents belonging to his grandfather.
Charlie Mai (b. 1995, Arlington, VA) presents new works from his Chinese Figurine series, inspired by souvenir ceramic dolls sold in Chinatowns. With a playful yet critical lens, the artist examines the tokenization of identity and cultural expectations.
Homer Shew (b. 1990, Chicago, IL) is renowned for his evocative portraits in oil on canvas of Asian Americans. On view at SEIZAN are recent works that delve into the social dynamics of Asian American communities in New York and explore how individuals navigate contemporary cultural landscapes.
To learn more, click here.
About the Gallery
Since its founding in Tokyo in 1996, Seizan Gallery has represented artists who work in a variety of media and styles. Based in Ginza, in the heart of culture and luxury business in Tokyo, Seizan represents nearly fifty contemporary artists as well as the estates of modern masters. After inaugurating its first overseas exhibition space in 2018, in Chelsea, NYC, the gallery has presented the work of artists who produce artworks with universal aesthetic appeal yet possess a strong connection to traditional roots. Such artists include Yasuko Hasumura, Kengo Takahashi, Emi Katsuta, Toko Shinoda, Toshiyuki Kajioka, and Yasushi Ikejiri. Located in vibrant cultural centers in both East and West, Seizan Gallery works with emerging artists to fulfill their vision and potential to contribute to the art world.