THE HIGH MUSEUM
Samurai: Armor from the Collection of Ann & Gabriel Barier-Mueller / Atlanta,GA - c.2023
In the summer of 2023, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art enlisted Brandon Sadler to design and build the Pop Culture Gallery and Woodblock Print Gallery – the entry spaces to the High’s Samurai exhibition (June 23 - Sept. 17, 2023). Sadler was also commissioned to paint original artworks telling the story of Yasuke, “the Black samurai”.
‘Samurai Armor from the Collection of Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller features one of the most important collections of samurai armor outside of Japan. Through a dazzling array of more than one hundred fifty helmets, swords, and other objects spanning almost nine centuries, including nearly twenty complete sets of armor, the exhibition will illuminate the exceptionally high level of design and craft dedicated to these elaborate instruments of ceremony and combat. These objects reveal the culture, lifestyle, and artistic legacy associated with the samurai warrior in Japanese society. The High is the first museum in the Southeastern United States to present this exhibition, which has traveled to cities around the world.’ – High.org
THE YASUKE STORY GALLERY
Yasuke, The Black Samurai
“This series of paintings is inspired by Meiji-era Japanese woodblock prints, which often depicted samurai as portrayed in Kabuki theater. As there is so little known about Yasuke, these images serve as a sort of theater, using fact and imagined perspectives.
The story is told in four acts. Act one depicts Yasuke being ripped from his home in Africa and forced into slavery as his fate is mourned by a mother-like spirit. In act two, he approaches the shores of Japan serving as a bodyguard to the Jesuit priest and missionary Alessandro Valignano. The third act is held in the court of Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga, where Yasuke’s chains are finally broken and he is made samurai. In the last act, Yasuke, no longer in bondage, reaches his final form as honored warrior to Nobunaga.
Fire is a theme throughout this narrative series, symbolizing a transformative force that both upends Yasuke’s life and becomes the internal energy that carries his story through time. Because the documentation of his life is limited, a greater legend of Yasuke, the Black Samurai, is born from the ashes.”
(Click images below)
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Pop Culture & Woodblock Print Galleries
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PROCESS
A look behind the scenes of Sadler’s exhibition design for Samurai
Pop Culture / Woodblock Print Galleries: Referencing his varied influences, Brandon composed a collage that was based on samurai legacy and influence on American contemporary pop culture (music, art, fashion, film, comics) and applied to the gallery walls with vinyl. Monitors were incorporated, staggered along the walls and playing scenes from American and Japanese films (1960s to modern-day), anime, and Virgil Abloh x Louis Vuitton Men’s SS22 film – all showing deep cultural ties to samurai traditions and aesthetics.
Visitors traveling to the next room were immediately immersed in a simulated bamboo forest. Vinyl was applied to the hall’s walls, providing the backdrop for a collection of woodblock prints depicting images of feudal Japan. In Sadler’s studio, full-scale Japanese provincial inspired gateways (torii) were built from plywood, and slats of pine were burned for siding, all to be installed in the threshold of both galleries. The resulting installation created an enveloping atmosphere that set the tone for the viewer’s experience upon entering the exhibition.
(Click images below)
PAINTING PROCESS
Pencil sketch, to painting in ink & mineral pigment
