Ben Sakoguchi: Critical Art Theory

Ben Sakoguchi: Critical Art Theory
10th July, 2025 – 7th September, 2025
Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall St
London SE11 5RH

The Japanese American artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in Europe critically examines the history of Western art and its omissions.

Gasworks presents Critical Art Theory, the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by Japanese American artist Ben Sakoguchi. Spanning more than six decades of his practice, the exhibition offers a sharply observational take on the evolution of art history, interrogating the cultural values, political dynamics and social exclusions that have often shaped it.

Sakoguchi, born in 1938 in San Bernardino, California, is known for his visually distinctive style that combines elements of figuration, history painting and Pop art. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, he draws from a broad visual archive—including film posters, comic books, newsprint and online imagery—to assemble intricate compositions that explore themes such as media representation, state power, and cultural memory. His works often shift in tone between sardonic humour and emotional directness, blending broader political narratives with autobiographical elements.

One of those defining experiences occurred early in his life. At the age of five, Sakoguchi and his family were forcibly relocated to the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The wartime policy led to the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans on the grounds of national security. After the war, the Sakoguchis returned to San Bernardino and resumed their previous life, including reopening the family’s grocery store. Among Ben’s earliest visual influences were the vivid orange-crate labels stacked behind the shop—images whose graphic intensity and symbolic resonance would echo in his later work.

Sakoguchi went on to study art at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the late 1950s. The curriculum he encountered there, dominated by a Eurocentric and predominantly male perspective, offered little reflection on the social contexts in which art is produced and consumed. Critical Art Theory is, in part, a response to that early education—a revisionist project that seeks to broaden the scope of art history and question its received hierarchies.

The exhibition comprises 67 paintings, presented in rough chronological order, tracing artistic developments from prehistoric cave paintings to early photography. However, Sakoguchi frequently disrupts linear narratives with anachronistic insertions—contemporary figures, events, and references appear throughout—underscoring the persistent influence of historical structures on present-day society.

A central concern of the series is the role played by institutions—religious, royal and capitalist—in shaping the trajectory of artistic production. Sakoguchi’s works foreground issues such as colonialism, racial inequality, and gender marginalisation, highlighting how traditional accounts of art history have often omitted or minimised artists and moments that challenge dominant narratives. Rather than offering celebration or absolution, his use of historical imagery and symbolism serves as a tool for critical reflection.

Far from being purely didactic, Sakoguchi’s paintings are layered with nuance, wit and visual complexity. They ask viewers to reconsider how art is framed, valued and remembered—and by whom. At a time when museums and institutions are increasingly re-examining their own legacies, Critical Art Theory provides a timely and incisive perspective.

Ben Sakoguchi: Critical Art Theory opens on the 10th of July, 2025 until the 7th of September, 2025 at Gasworks

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