February 19, 2026
ArtCenter College of Design Presents 2-YOKAI By Andy Fedak and Bruce Yonemoto
New Multimedia Installation
On view March 7, 2026 through August 1, 2026
In the College’s Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery
Opening Reception: March 7, 2026 from 5–7 p.m.
Los Angeles, CA - ArtCenter College of Design announces 2-YOKAI, a new multimedia installation by artists Andy Fedak and Bruce Yonemoto. On view at the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery from March 7 through August 1, 2026, the exhibition brings together animation, film and installation to explore the Japanese mythological spirits known as Yokai, specifically the Kappa and the Nurikabe, through surrealist narratives that draw on Japanese folklore to understand our own contemporary world.
A featured work is Hikikomori-0 (2025), an animated series of six vignettes by Fedak, starring Brucio—a composite of artist Bruce Yonemoto and a popular Japanese video game character. Set in present-day Tokyo, Brucio experiences a dilemma: he is simply trying to go outside, but finds himself blocked from doing so by the Nurikabe. Blending contemporary cultural motifs with Japanese folklore, Fedak’s animations explore the real-world phenomenon of hikikomori (Japanese for pulling inward, being confined), a form of social withdrawal affecting young people who isolate themselves for months or sometimes years, and the accompanying shame of not living up to one's goals in a time and place wherein such goals are nearly impossible to achieve.
Fedak represents the Nurikabe—a folkloric creature likened to an invisible, impassable wall—as the problem itself, showing up as an invisible barrier Brucio cannot cross in each scene. The work connects myth with the global phenomenon of self-seclusion that was originally defined by the Japanese. A series of six high-end, handcrafted 3D-animated films, utilizing cutting-edge motion and facial capture, brings Brucio to life in performances that are interminably sad yet also hopeful. While Brucio is trapped, he may finally find his way outside with the help of his friends: a small green lizard and his brother.
Also on view is Kappa (1987), a beguiling film that deconstructs the myth of Oedipus within the framework of an ancient Japanese folk story. Conceived and created by Bruce Yonemoto with his brother Norman Yonemoto (1946-2014), and produced in collaboration with Mike Kelley (1954-2012), this landmark work crafts a highly charged treatise of loss and desire. Quoting from Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, alongside references to pop media and art, Kappa places representations of Western psychosexual analytical theory in a cross-cultural context, juxtaposing the Oedipal and Kappa myths in a film that has become commonly described as “a delirious collusion of form and content.”
The Kappa, a malevolent Japanese water imp, is played with eerie intensity by artist Mike Kelley, while actress Mary Woronov plays Jocasta as a vamp from a Hollywood exploitation film. Narrated by Keye Luke (1904-1991) and featuring an appearance by artist Ed “Eddie” Ruscha, both the Kappa and Oedipus legends are presented in highly stylized, purposefully "degraded" forms, reflecting their media-exploitative cultural contexts. In this ironic yet oddly poignant essay of psychosexual compulsion and catharsis, Kappa demonstrates that cultural archetypes hold the power to move and manipulate, even in debased forms.
Accompanying the screening of Kappa are related ephemera, including archived illustrations and storyboards by Mike Kelley, as well as Kappa figurines from Bruce Yonemoto’s research collection.
Andy Fedak is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator who works with image, sound, and computer graphics on projects that blur the line between contemporary art and the Hollywood blockbuster. Dealing with subject matter of social unrest and anarchist utopias, Fedak utilizes photorealistic computer-generated elements to open a space of creativity that would otherwise be impossible due to cost, size, or public safety. He received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and his BFA in Film and Television from New York University. His work has been shown at LAXART (now The Brick) in Los Angeles, The Palace of Fine Art in Mexico City, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and other venues in the Americas and Europe. He currently serves as Professor and Area Coordinator, Game Art, Animation, and Immersive Media at California State University, Fullerton.
Bruce Yonemoto has worked extensively as a video and digital media installation artist, educator, writer and curator. Having received his MFA from Otis, he began working in the late 1970s in collaboration with his brother, the late artist Norman Yonemoto. His early single channel videos explore the effects of mass media on perceptions of personal identity and romantic love. Since 1989, his solo work has comprised experimental cinema and video art within the context of installation, photography and sculpture. Yonemoto has long been a proponent of the integration of fine arts and media, developing in the past three decades bodies of work positioned among the overlapping intersections of art and commerce. He believes that the composition of mass media has become a new historical site of the domination of human behavior.
Yonemoto has been honored with numerous awards and grants, from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Maya Deren Award for Experimental Film and Video. In 1999, Yonemoto was the focus of a mid-career survey exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Additional solo exhibitions include venues such as Alexander Gray Gallery in New York; Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo; the InterCommunication Center [ICC] in Tokyo; the Institute of Contemporary Art [ICA] in Philadelphia; the St. Louis Art Museum; and the Kemper Museum in Kansas City. Major group exhibitions include Los Angeles 1955-85 at the Pompidou Center, Paris (2006); and the 2008 Gwangju Biennial.
EXHIBITION DATES & OPENING RECEPTION
2-YOKAI
March 7 THROUGH AUGUST 1, 2026
Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery
ArtCenter College of Design, South Campus
1111 S. Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena, CA 91105
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday | Noon–5 p.m.
Admission is FREE
Opening Reception with the Artists
Saturday, March 7, 5–7 p.m.
RELATED EVENTS
Artists Talk
Saturday, March 7, 4 p.m.
About ArtCenter Exhibitions
ArtCenter Exhibitions includes the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at the Hillside Campus in Pasadena above the Rose Bowl, the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery, the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography Gallery and the Hutto-Patterson Exhibition Hall at the South Campus a mile from Old Pasadena. These curated spaces embody ArtCenter's institutional will to understand artistic thinking and design strategies as levers in promoting social advancement, the pursuit of humanitarian innovation, and the use of critical inquiry to clarify objectives and truths. Using the lens of contemporary art and design, the mission of ArtCenter Exhibitions is to ignite emotional resonance, provoke intellectual dissonance and conjure unexpected pathways of thinking.
About ArtCenter College of Design
Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. With a mission to educate, inspire and empower creative and design leaders, the College is renowned for its undergraduate and graduate degree programs spanning industrial design, media and technology, as well as visual and applied arts. With deep industry relationships, state-of-the-art facilities and a strong faculty roster, ArtCenter provides real-world experience aligned with industry needs. Through rigorous, hands-on, practitioner-led instruction, the College prepares students for meaningful creative careers. For nearly 100 years, ArtCenter alumni and faculty have shaped many of the world’s most iconic products, vehicles, campaigns and creative works, leaving a lasting impact across art, design and culture.
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