Cut + Paste: Experimental Japanese Prints and Photographs

Leave your assumptions about prints and photographs behind. In this exhibition, flat surfaces expand outward. Images aren’t simply printed—they are worked, reworked, and then reworked again. Paper artworks accumulate layers of unusual materials like plastic, foam, glue, and tape. In our era of media endlessly copied, reproduced, and loaded to screens, these photographs and prints beg to be viewed in person.

Cut + Paste showcases seventeen Japanese artists who pushed the limits of printmaking and photography. By combining techniques, these artists created multilayered images that challenge distinctions between mediums, art-making traditions, and notions of fine art and commercial design.

The prints and photographs in this exhibition are drawn entirely from our permanent collection and range across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These experimental works blur reality, memory, and even how we perceive space and time. Just as each artist’s approach is unique and deeply personal, so is every person’s experience of the multiple layers, angles, and textures of these artworks.