Ay-O “rainbow night 4” from the series “Rainbow Passes Slowly,” silkscreen; ink on paper, H x W (unframed) 54.5 × 73.6 cm (21 7/16 × 29 in), National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Gift of Margot Paul Ernst in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Norman S. Paul, S1987.976.11, © Ay-O

“Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell” is being held at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. This is the first museum exhibition in the United States dedicated to pioneering Japanese artist Ay-O, a member of Fluxus and celebrated figure of the Pop Art movement whose ideas of exploration, sensory immersion and humor have had a lasting impact on global contemporary art.

The survey brings together over 80 works—74 of which are from the collection of the National Museum of Asian Art and the remainder from institutions across the country—to explore what the artist describes as his own “rainbow hell” (niji no jigoku), a compulsion to produce work that encompasses the full range of the visible light spectrum. Spanning much of the artist’s nearly 70-year international career, “Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell” encourages visitors to enter Ay-O’s world and find depth beneath his prismatic surfaces. It is on view March 25–Sept. 10 in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as a lead exhibition during the museum’s centennial.

America and Ay-O

Ay-O “Butterfly”, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: The Pearl and Seymour Moskowitz Collection, S2021.5.5, ©Ay-O

“The reason that it is difficult to depict heaven is probably because it doesn’t exist. But it’s easy to draw hell....We all possess an attraction to the diabolical, an inexpressible feeling of intoxication”
Ay-O

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art presents “Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell,” the first museum exhibition in the United States dedicated to pioneering Japanese artist Ay-O, a member of Fluxus and celebrated figure of the Pop Art movement whose ideas of exploration, sensory immersion and humor have had a lasting impact on global contemporary art. The survey brings together over 80 works—74 of which are from the collection of the National Museum of Asian Art and the remainder from institutions across the country—to explore what the artist describes as his own “rainbow hell” (niji no jigoku), a compulsion to produce work that encompasses the full range of the visible light spectrum. Spanning much of the artist’s nearly 70-year international career, “Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell” encourages visitors to enter Ay-O’s world and find depth beneath his prismatic surfaces. It is on view March 25–Sept. 10 in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as a lead exhibition during the museum’s centennial.

Widely recognized as the “rainbow artist,” Ay-O (b. 1931, Namegata City, Japan) began his artistic career as a member of the Demokrato Artist’s Association in Tokyo before moving to New York in 1958 where he became a major figure of the group of avant-garde artists, poets and performers known as Fluxus. It was during this period that he began to experiment with tactile experiences and other forms of perceptual art, a response to the Abstract Expressionism that dominated the New York art scene in the late 1950s. Ay-O’s “Finger Boxes”—16 of which are on view as part of “Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell”—embody this exploration, inviting participants to insert their finger into wooden boxes whose contents could not be seen, only touched, resulting in moments of sensory discovery. It was around this same time that Ay-O began to deploy colorful, rainbow-striped motifs in his work, a tactic that allowed him to break through the traditional constructs of image- making.

Ay-O’s rainbow

Ay-O《From the Dictionary 4》from the series “Rainbow Passes Slowly”, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Gift of Margot Paul Ernst in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Norman S. Paul, S1987.976.4, ©Ay-O

The artist was drawn to the rainbow for its ability to democratize the use of color and convey a sense of humor and play. Over the next six decades, Ay-O worked with specialist printers in a laborious silkscreen production technique that allowed him to achieve unparalleled saturation of color and push the medium to its limits. His work covered a range of subjects, from treatments of the human body and animal kingdom to reinterpretations of iconic artworks of the Japanese canon—such as “Red Fuji” from Hokusai’s “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” among others. The rainbow progression lends Ay-O’s subjects a sense of structure amidst a chaos of color.

“A celebration of Ay-O’s work in the United States is long overdue,” said Chase F. Robinson, Dame Jillian Sackler Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. “The exhibition provides an opportunity to highlight a singular artist from Japan and bring his international presence and impact on global art movements to the fore. Our commitment to sharing the stories of pathbreaking Asian artists like Ay-O anticipates forthcoming exhibitions the museum will host in its new gallery devoted to modern and contemporary art, set to open this summer as part of the museum’s centennial celebrations.”

“By presenting Ay-O’s rainbow silkscreen prints together with the tactile, experiential objects that he developed during his earlier career, we hope to show these works as a continuum, expressing the same ideas of sensory exploration and boundless curiosity, in terms of both touch and vision,” said Kit Brooks, The Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the museum. “By understanding Ay-O’s interest in texture, we begin to see his prints as more than just two-dimensional compositions, but truly immersive rainbow surfaces that can leave you (happily) overwhelmed.”

About the National Museum of Asian Art

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching and interpreting art in ways that deepen our collective understanding of Asia and the world. Home to more than 45,000 objects, the museum stewards one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world. Its rich holdings bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American works, providing an essential platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange between the United States, Asia and the Middle East.Its galleries, laboratories, archives and library are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and are part of the world’s largest museum complex, which typically reports more than 27 million visits each year.

About the exhibition

“Ay-O’s Happy Rainbow Hell”
Dates: March 25–September 10, 2023
Hours: 10:00~17:30 *Open throughout the exhibition period
LOCATIONAdmission: Free
Venue: Independence Ave at 12th St SW, Washington, DC 20560 / Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | Gallery 25

For more information and updates on the exhibition, please visit the museum's official website.
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art