By now, we all seem to have come to terms with the fact that the Internet is primarily a repository for cat GIFs — and accordingly, arts institutions have begun to jump on the feline bandwagon, from the Walker Art Center’s infamous “Internet Cat Video Film Festival” to the Brooklyn Museum’s “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt” exhibition, and who could forget the live animal participants in Rhonda Lieberman’s “Cats in Residence” show? Now, the Japan Society is joining in on the zeitgeisty fun with “Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection,” a two-part exhibition, with the first half on view from March 13 to April 23 and the second half from April 29 to June 7.Focusing in on the Edo period (1615-1867), curator and Japan Society Gallery director Miwako Tezuka has selected a number of rare “ukiyo-e” woodblock prints, including the earliest image of a cat in Japanese literature (Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s 11th-century “The Tale of Genji,” illustrated by Utagawa Kunisada), along with pieces by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Utagawa Yoshiiku, and Katsukawa Shun’ei, among others. Sure, the cats in these images may not be clambering for cheezburgers, but they appear just as endearingly temperamental, sometimes cuddling under their owners’ sleeves, sometimes wrecking their possessions and pilfering their food stashes — that is, when they’re not standing in for Kabuki actors or transmogrifying into tigers. To hear more about the “playful heart” (or, “asobi gokoro”) of these feline-happy prints, swing by on opening night at 6:30 pm for a conversation between Tezuka and Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation director Mitsunobu Satō — and meanwhile, click on the slideshow above to see a selection of the images.
↧