Giant Robot Biennale Returns to JANM on March 2, 2024

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and Eric Nakamura, founder of Giant Robot, will present Giant Robot Biennale 5 from March 2 – September 1, 2024. The popular group show, last seen at JANM in 2016, showcases diverse creative works that celebrate the ethos of Giant Robot, a staple of Asian American alternative pop culture. Three decades after its founding as a hand-assembled zine, Giant Robot continues to be a highly influential brand encompassing many aspects of pop art, skateboard, comic book, graphic arts, and vinyl toy culture. Featured artists for the 2024 Biennale will include Sean Chao, Felicia Chiao, Luke Chueh, Giorgiko, James Jean, Taylor Lee, Rain Szeto, and Yoskay Yamamoto, among others.

The exhibition coincides with the publication of Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture, to be published by Drawn and Quarterly in May 2024. The retrospective book will feature highlights from the magazine’s sixty-eight issues and previously unpublished photographs.

Born in Taipei and based in Los Angeles, Sean Chao is known for his detailed miniature sculptures of polymer clay, bass wood, balsa wood, paper, and wire.

San Francisco based artist Felicia Chiao has exhibited nationally and is also known as a respected commercial illustrator who has collaborated with clients such as the Magic Puzzle Company and A24 Films.

Luke Chueh is an artist based in Los Angeles who is well known for his bear characters and work across many genres that have been featured in galleries around the world. Employing minimal color schemes and simple animal characters, his artistic style balances cute with brute, walking the fine line between comedy and tragedy.

Giorgiko (pronounced JOR-jee-koh) is the moniker of husband-and-wife artists Darren and Trisha Inouye. Giorgiko’s work deals with the affective dimension of the human experience through their childlike characters and mysterious dogs who represent the innocence and carnality of the human spirit and soul.

In his large-scale paintings, James Jean depicts detailed cosmological worlds filled with allegorical and contemporary imagery. Jean has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Seoul, and Tokyo, and has designed film posters for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Blade Runner 2049, and other films.

Taylor Lee is a ceramicist living and working in Los Angeles. Her combination of bright colors with stoneware creates whimsical yet iconic forms that explore womanhood, genealogy, and how the ancient impacts our modern life.

Based in San Francisco, Rain Szeto creates narrative drawings of an intricately rendered fictional universe where people partake in work and pastimes surrounded by stacks of books, snacks, merchandise, and mementos.

Born and raised in Toba, Japan, Yoskay Yamamoto moved to the United States at the age of fifteen. A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements and balances his Asian heritage with urban pop art.

Exhibitions at JANM are supported by the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs, and Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

About Giant Robot

Eric Nakamura founded Giant Robot as a photocopied and stapled zine in 1994 and grew the publication until late 2010. Giant Robot magazine reached a multiracial audience interested in Asian popular culture and became known as the premier magazine in the field. Nakamura built on the success of Giant Robot with stores and galleries in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, and has curated over 300 exhibitions. Currently, Nakamura works in and owns the Giant Robot store and GR2 Gallery in Los Angeles,­­ which continues to offer pop culture goods and hold art exhibitions.

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over 100 exhibitions onsite while traveling 40 exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday–Sunday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. and on Thursday from 12 p.m.–8 p.m. JANM is free every third Thursday of the month. On all other Thursdays, JANM is free from 5 p.m.–8 p.m. For more information, visit janm.org or follow us on social media @jamuseum.