Ben Sakoguchi's 'Only in America' Exhibition Explores Racism and Xenophobia in U.S. History
The Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara, in collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum, is co-organizing 'Ben Sakoguchi: Only in America.' This traveling survey exhibition showcases the sixty-year career of Pasadena-based artist Ben Sakoguchi, whose work meticulously chronicles the contradictions and complexities of American life. Sakoguchi's art, which includes paintings, prints, and installations, merges history, advertising, social commentary, and satire. His tableaus depict 'America the beautiful' while simultaneously highlighting harsh subtexts of racism, exploitation, state-sanctioned violence, and xenophobia. The artist's personal experience as a Japanese American incarcerated at the Poston concentration camp between 1942–45 deeply influences his cynical perspective on the myth of American exceptionalism.
