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Manga drawing of a girl upside down. Black background.

80WSE Gallery Exhibition: Beetles, Cats, Clouds

Wed Sep 10
12 am - 11:59 pm ET
-
Sat Jan 24
12 am - 11:59 pm ET
80 Washington Square East, NYC

Beetles, Cats, Clouds

Tsurita Kuniko, Yamada Murasaki, and Kondoh Akino

Curated by Ryan Holmberg in collaboration with 80WSE

September 10, 2025–January 24, 2026
Opening Reception September 10 6–8PM
80WSE

Beetles, Cats, Clouds features three women manga artists—Tsurita Kuniko, Yamada Murasaki, and Kondoh Akino—whose work defied the reigning gender conventions within Japanese comics from the 1960s into the 2000s. Against the stereotypes of melodramatic romance in shōjo manga (girls’ comics) and sexual objectification of women characters in shōnen (boys’) and men’s manga, these artists explored gender issues and new languages of artistic expression in ways that challenged the social and aesthetic norms of their day.

While active in a variety of venues, and in some cases in multiple media, all three are best known for their work in alternative manga periodicals, namely Garo, COM, and Ax. This exhibition focuses on original drawings from their comics, supplemented by sketches, illustrations, animated shorts, and printed books and magazines.

Emerging in the 1960s as part of the era’s vibrant counterculture and in opposition to the commercial and artistic strictures of the mainstream comics industry in Japan, alternative manga provided a platform for young artists to respond to rapid social change through experimental visual and narrative styles, autobiographical fiction, and anti-establishment themes. Though alternative manga was initially hampered by the same male-dominated hierarchies that governed the rest of the manga industry, over time women artists and editors reshaped its magazines into spaces where women contributors could explore issues that mattered to them personally in a voice that was their own—be it on gender norms, sexual freedom, patriarchy at home and in the workplace, the trials of marriage and motherhood, or elder care. Tsurita, Yamada, and Kondoh were each at the forefront of this gradual revolution in their respective eras.

Curated by historian, editor, and translator Ryan Holmberg in collaboration with 80WSE.
 

Produced by Jon Huron.

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