Breaking rank by bridging traditions of manga and ukiyo-e with Pop in the postwar period, revered Tokyo-based artist Keiichi Tanaami shocked the collective nervous system by incorporating Western contemporary cultural references drawn from animated cartoons and commercial advertisements, giving rise to a truly modern visual language that continues to exert international influence.

Opening September 8th at Venus Over Manhattan, a new exhibition, Manhattan Universe, includes new monumental paintings; intimately-scaled canvases from the artist’s compulsively constructed Pleasure of Picasso series; and the recent video work Red Shadow—all in Tanaami’s optically dazzling style. His deployment of blazing color, dizzying layers of imagery, and a canny mixture of American and Japanese cultural references capture the movement and energy of a society at once in constant motion and in search of desperately needed peace.