Yoshie Sakai at the Vincent Price Art Museum

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Entertainment Franchise (installation view) (2023). Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2023–24. Image courtesy of the artist and VPAM. Photo: Monica Orozco.

Grandmas just want to have fun. In her first solo museum exhibition, Grandma Entertainment Franchise, artist Yoshie Sakai expands our collective view of grandmothers and the activities that fill their days (and nights, in one case). Guest curated by Dav Bell and Ana Iwataki at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM), the show features three immersive installations: Grandma Day Spa, Grandma Nightclub, and Grandma Amusement Park (all 2023). Infused with a madcap satirical bent, Sakai recreates public locales of leisure and entertainment where the elderly—a demographic that is often an afterthought—become the center of attention. Inspired by Sakai’s memories of her own grandmother, the show questions a social landscape preoccupied with chasing the elixir of youth at the expense of caring for its elderly population.

The exhibition is a maximalist playground with no corner left untouched. There’s a heart-shaped inflatable pool filled with make-believe water, enough gray-haired grandma plush toys to fill a ball pit, and a wacky merry-go-round with television sets placed in the seats. (What grandmother wouldn’t want to watch her favorite TV shows on an amusement park ride?) Visitors can also explore a replica of a nightclub restroom with flyers on the stall walls promoting events like a “Golden Club Party” for “Hot Mamas.” Sakai’s installations unfold like interconnected dioramas that imagine a world dialed into the lively inner lives of the over-70 crowd. Produced over the last three years, each of these installations can stand on its own, but together, they’re the stuff a grandmother’s dreams are made of.

One of the most prominent works, Grandma Nightclub Music Video (2022) is projected on the wall in front of luxe pink furniture. In the video, Sakai plays a particularly sassy grandmother with a cane who goes around town recruiting four of her fellow grandmothers (all also played by Sakai) for a “ladies’ night.” Their initial settings of a serene park, a relaxing backyard pool, and a comfy couch are quickly replaced with the sights and sounds of a neighborhood bar on karaoke night. Interstitials of the women doing sexy, synchronized dances against green-screened disco lights cut in and out of the bar sequence. Equally absurd and heartfelt, Sakai’s video also reveals how our obsession with youth warps our conception of aging.

In contrast, the Grandma Day Spa and Grandma Amusement Park installations center both rest and pleasure, poking irreverent fun at our limited imaginations when it comes to our elders. Many sites of entertainment cater almost exclusively to young people, effectively ignoring the needs and desires of senior citizens. Sakai presents us with grandmothers so full of vim and vigor that viewers have to feel a bit sheepish about all the times they could’ve invited their own grandmothers out on the town. Instead, Sakai envisions a world in which those missed opportunities can come to life.

Yoshie Sakai: Grandma Entertainment Franchise runs from October 21, 2023–February 3, 2024 at the Vincent Price Art Museum (1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, CA 91754).

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Entertainment Franchise (installation view) (2023). Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2023–24. Image courtesy of the artist and VPAM. Photo: Monica Orozco.

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Nightclub Music Video (video still) (2022). Single-channel video, 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Image courtesy of the artist.

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Entertainment Franchise (installation view) (2023). Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2023–24. Image courtesy of the artist and VPAM. Photo: Monica Orozco.

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Entertainment Franchise (installation view) (2023). Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2023–24. Image courtesy of the artist and VPAM. Photo: Monica Orozco.

Yoshie Sakai, Grandma Entertainment Franchise (installation view) (2023). Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2023–24. Image courtesy of the artist and VPAM. Photo: Monica Orozco.

Neyat Yohannes is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Criterion’s Current, Mubi Notebook, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Bitch, KQED Arts, cléo journal, Playboy, and Chicago Review of Books, among other publications. In a past life, she wrote tardy slips for late students.

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