We invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Beauties, Bridesmaids, and Samurai" curated by Arūnas Gelūnas, Ph.D., at the National Gallery of Art on Friday, 19 July at 6 pm.

When Does Culture Become Truly Popular? When it ceases to be accessible only to the noble and the rich and spreads among the middle and other less politically empowered social classes.

This was already the case in the 17th century in the world's largest city, Ede, whose strictly hierarchical society was one of the first in the world to establish a leisure and entertainment space of significance to the non-noble urbanites (chionin 町), the Yeshivara Entertainment Quarter. It is the birthplace of Japanese popular culture, which has enjoyed enormous success far beyond its borders.

In the historical-panoramic exhibition "Beauties, Bridesmaids and Samurai", visitors are invited to explore Japan's pop culture tradition from the Edo period to the present day. This is one of the few attempts (and the first in Lithuania) to show together in a museum space and to reveal the interconnectedness of what has not been usually, and often not even today, shown together: ukiyo-e prints, historical giga cartoons, erotic Shinhua books, commercial hikifuda posters, pre-war and post-war manga comics, children's game menko cards, posters of animated films and computer games, promotional videos for products of the famous cosmetics company Shiseido, an animated historical kabuki curtain, and excerpts from famous animated films. Finally, you will see works of Japanese contemporary art (including the sūpā furatto movement) - painting, printmaking, photography, animation and sculpture - that reflect, sometimes ironize and question all this.

The works of more than 70 artists are grouped into three categories - images of beautiful beauties (bijin), frightening or humorous stories of bridesmaids (yokai), and feats of samurai (bushō, samurai).