The exhibition’s most striking encounter is the one that Arsham stages between classical statuary and Pokémon, the latter of which marks the first major collaboration between a contemporary artist and the storied Pokémon company. Here, both are subjected to the artist’s signature decay. It’s as if he were enacting the half-life of these icons: trophies, meet entropy. The classical works are drawn from Arsham’s collaboration with the august RMN-Grand Palais, in Paris (also featured in his exhibition “Moonraker” at the Musée Guimet), while Pokémon is Pokémon. Two different cultural universes, in a highlow, head-on crash. Or is it a crossroads? Two trajectories arriving to the same point: ancien sculpture is so venerated that it has become cliché, the stuff of museum gift shops, while the creatures of Pokémon, which seem to be influenced by Japanese mythology, have morphed into their own 21st century version of the sacred.

After a 5 year hiatus, Kato returns to New York with an ambitious exhibition of new mixed-media sculptures, installation, and paintings. Many of his sculptures, which are formed from various materials including wood, soft vinyl, and textiles, incorporate disembodied parts — a second head with a missing mouth stacked atop another, for example, or a smaller twin humanoid held in the hand. While his creatures are creations in their own right, there are vaguely familiar associations to be made, such as wide-eyed figures and semi-recognizable bodily shapes. Many of the materials the artist chooses to work with, including stones and textiles (which are often sourced from local markets in the place where each project is to be exhibited), have historic precedent in folk art traditions, fusing a backward glance with futuristic overtones. Kato is alert to his medium’s seductive powers. The instant back and forth between commonplace and uncanny sharpens the experience if these works.