As part of the Seibu Museum of Art’s ongoing efforts to introduce contemporary American art to Japanese audiences, this exhibition was the first major survey in Japan devoted to George Segal, one of the leading figures of Pop Art.
From the Jasper Johns Exhibition (1978) to the present George Segal Exhibition, the museum traced an important trajectory in the development of Pop Art during the 1960s. While Pop artists explored consumer society and mass-produced media through a redefinition of the relationship between art and everyday life, Segal focused on ordinary moments of reality. He created sculptures by casting directly from the human body and placing these figures within environments drawn from everyday life, thereby presenting a compelling image of the human condition in contemporary society.
Gay Liberation (1980), exhibited in this exhibition, is now part of the collection of the Sezon Museum of Modern Art and is on permanent display.