SHINJI MURAKAMI

GOCA by Garde is pleased to present its summer group exhibition, "Stand clear of the closing doors, please." Taking its title from the familiar announcement heard in the New York City subway, the exhibition captures the vivid present as experienced by three Japanese artists living and working in New York. In a world where global borders are increasingly "closing" like doors, the show proposes a renewed opening—of the human spirit and cultural diversity.

At a time when the world is progressively sealed off by geopolitical fragmentation, cultural exclusivity, and restrictions on the flow of people, goods, and capital, this exhibition addresses the unseen "doors" that surround and divide us. Through their distinct practices, Yuya Saito, Shinji Murakami, and Hiroshi Masuda offer a critical perspective from New York—asking what it means to remain open in an age of closure.

Shinji Murakami is an inventor of a new form of landscape painting rooted in 8-bit video game aesthetics. Using the universally accessible visual vocabulary of the Atari 2600, he constructs a unique world where nostalgia and the cutting-edge intersect. His works invite both contemplation and interaction, revisiting the concept of universality in our post-pop era. For this exhibition, Murakami draws inspiration from Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo—a hallmark of Japonisme whose cultural resonance profoundly impacted artists such as Van Gogh and Whistler. By connecting past and present, Murakami encourages dialogue between viewer and artwork, transforming video games into a foregrounded artistic medium and generating new visual experiences that transcend generational and geographic boundaries.

Despite their distinct media and backgrounds, all three artists share a commitment to accessibility, fluidity, and interconnection—values that stand in direct contrast to the isolating tendencies of contemporary society. Together, they issue a quiet yet powerful resistance to the doors that divide us, reimagining how we might open them once again.

Artists: Hiroshi Masuda, Shinji Murakami, Yuya Saito