The WANTED ARTISTS GROUP ONLINE EXHIBITION

Hey! It's Aum!

The Japanese police made art to capture members of Aum Shinrikyo. We made art to capture the essence of a surreal modern Japan, governed by fear.

The Wanted Artists Group was established in 1998 to create collaborative works of art which were conceived as an answer to the bizarre signs and posters created by the Japanese police in an effort to capture members of the religion Aum Shinrikyo (Aum is generally referred to as a cult, but perhaps we can call it a new religion). Three members of this group are still wanted in Japan to stand trial for their suspected connection with poison gas attacks on the Tokyo subway in March of 1995.

Before the founding of this art group, the members engaged in a photography project which was dedicated to documenting these "wanted" signs and posters created by the police across the entire country. Some of these include life sized photographic reproductions attached to cardboard and dressed in real clothing. Other streets or subway stations display larger than life posters of the suspects' faces, or even flags or paper lanterns printed with the same images. In recent years it has been difficult to go to almost any public place in Japan without seeing a surreal display of some of Japan's most wanted.