Under the Guard Tower: The Watercolors of Chikaji Kawakami features work by Chikaji Kawakami, who spent three years painting watercolors during his incarceration at both Tanforan Assembly Center and Topaz Internment Camp, places used by the United States government to imprison people of Japanese descent during WWII. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were imprisoned in 10 camps within the U.S. 

The exhibition presents a selection of 39 paintings by Kawakami as a visual documentary of life in the Japanese American internment camps from the perspective of an Issei, or first-generation Japanese immigrant. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, Kawakami responded to his unjust incarceration by using art to portray himself and his fellow inmates with dignity and to depict the natural beauty of his surroundings. By examining the paintings in the social and cultural context of the camps, they can be seen as performative acts to restore and assert a traditional Japanese identity that was assaulted daily.

The exhibition also includes four paintings by Chiura Obata, a prominent Japanese American artist and educator who founded and developed the art schools at Tanforan and at Topaz, where Kawakami and other artists of Japanese descent taught.  

A panel event addressing the role of art as a witness during times of oppression will take place before the opening reception on April 2nd from 5 to 6:30 pm at CCA’s Blattner Hall, located at 75 Arkansas Street. 

This exhibition is curated by Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Ph.D., Senior Adjunct faculty in CCA’s Critical Studies Program. It is organized by the Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, California, where it was on view from August 22 to December 15, 2024. Exhibition support is provided by The Tanimura Family Foundation, The Jim and Diane Coward Family Trust, Barbara Schilling and Richard Carr, and The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation.