The Royal Orchid Sheraton Riverside Hotel Bangkok, in collaboration with River City Bangkok, SYNCA Creations, Kafae Dam, and MUSIC BOOM, is hosting “Hiroshi Nagai: Summer Dreaming,” the first-ever solo exhibition in Thailand by the Japanese artist.
Nagai is widely regarded as the founding figure of the “City Pop” visual style that defined Japan’s 1980s music scene.
During Japan’s 1980s economic boom, Nagai’s album cover art shaped the look of a generation. His work paired bright, breezy imagery with the synth-driven sound of City Pop, turning vinyl covers into art in their own right.
Nagai’s paintings depict a dreamlike, sun-drenched world inspired by American landscapes reimagined through a Japanese lens. Sapphire-blue pools, palm trees and mid-century architecture appear under clear skies, rendered in sharp lines and saturated colour.
The scenes are deliberately empty of people, leaving space for viewers to imagine themselves within them.
The exhibition marks the first time Nagai’s work has been shown in Thailand. It brings together three archival works spanning four decades alongside four new paintings created specifically for the Bangkok show, offering a close look at brushwork and detail not visible in reproductions.
Visitors will be able to see how Nagai’s paintings, many of which began life as record sleeve art, connect to the music they were created for. The exhibition traces the link between his landscapes and the City Pop sound that shaped them.
The show places City Pop’s visual and musical history side by side at River City Bangkok, offering a look at the lifestyle and aesthetic that defined the genre.
The exhibition is open with free entry from August 4 to September 4, 2026, at RCB Galleria 1, 2nd floor, River City Bangkok, daily from 10am to 8pm.
More about the artist
Hiroshi Nagai was born in 1947. A road trip across the United States in 1973 introduced him to the California sun, vintage cars and mid-century architecture, which he brought back to Japan and reworked into a distinct pop art style built on saturated colour and clean, graphic composition.
His breakthrough came in 1981 with the cover art for Eiichi Ohtaki’s album “A Long Vacation,” which became closely associated with his signature look: deep blue pools, sharp palm silhouettes and vivid colour gradients.
Nagai’s landscapes are intentionally free of people, a choice he has kept throughout his career to invite viewers into the scene themselves. Originally created during Japan’s 1980s boom, his work has since found a new global audience, and now comes to Bangkok for the first time.
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The story Hiroshi Nagai’s Summer Dreaming exhibition brings City Pop art to Bangkok as seen on Thaiger News.
