A marriage of trauma and kitsch: intermingling Hiroshima and Hello Kitty, the recent exhibition "Little Boy" offered a provocative look at postwar Japanese culture.(IMPORT/EXPORT)

The exhibition "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture," seen earlier this year at New York's Japan Society, evoked contradictory responses. On one hand, it was among the most exciting and thought-provoking shows of the season. In an art world inured to cultural tourism, national origin often seems little more than a colorful doodad attached to works that speak an otherwise deeply familiar international Esperanto. "Little Boy," by contrast, offered something new, fresh and (it would appear) culturally authentic. (This may seem like an odd thing to say about works…