James Ulak Bücher

Another in the Abbeville's Tiny Folios series, this little book is a real gem. Another in Abbeville's Tiny Folios series, this little book is a real gem. The Art Institute of Chicago houses one of the world's most beautiful and comprehensive collections of Japanese woodblock prints in the world. Clarence Buckingham, of the famed Chicago family, donated 12,000 prints alone. The book covers this exquisite collection of work from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in four Primitives, Courtesans, Actors, and Landscapes. It includes work by well-known masters such as Hiroshige, Hokusia, and Utamaro, as well as lesser-known talents such as Shun'ei, Shunko, and Kiyonaga. While the trim size is small, none of the subtle colors, delicate paper texture, or intricate fabric design is lost.

Integrating traditional imagery and subject matter with pop art, Teraoka casts contemporary issues—from AIDS to computers, environmental degradation, and drive-by shootings—in historical guise. Humor and satire combine with a vibrant iconography drawn from Japanese and Western sources—catfish, trickster, fox, ghost, snake, ninja, samurai, geisha, Adam and Eve, punk rockers, and television. Teraoka's work moves from the indulgent pleasures of ukiyo, or the "floating world" of ancient theater and pleasure houses, to a chastened consciousness of death and evil with a majestic virtuosity unique in contemporary art.