Choose any year in history and you're bound to come up with a few milestones, be they glorious or tragic. The conceit of the exhibition Back to 1972: How Japanese Contemporary Art Looked 50 Years Ago is that one year in particular, 1972, was a defining moment in Japanese art. The show, on view at the Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City through 11 December, also commemorates, with minimal fanfare, the institution's own 50th anniversary. more...
Back to Nature: Stones and Plants Take Center Stage in Shiga
Colin Smith
Like nonfiction books in the English-speaking world these days, museum exhibitions in Japan, especially thematic ones, tend to have lengthy subtitles that explain what they're all about, but not this one. Stones and Plants at the Shiga Museum of Art focuses on those two elements of the natural world from multiple angles -- as subject matter, as materials, as sources of inspiration, in media ranging from painting to basketry to video -- and the all-too-rare decision to avoid an expository subtitle (like "Exploring the Ways We Engage with Nature Through Art," say) is an excellent one. more...
The Ubiquitous Designer: Sotaro Miyagi at the Setagaya Art Museum
Alan Gleason
If you live in Japan, or have occasion to visit a Japanese office, look around -- you are very likely surrounded by the work of Sotaro Miyagi, who just might be the most prolific product designer in history. In his relatively brief 35-year career (he died prematurely at age 60, in 2011), Miyagi designed everything from cameras and kitchenware to soap dishes and staplers. From the late eighties on he was Tokyo's go-to consultant on every conceivable genre of design -- product, graphic, package, signage, spatial. more...
