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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering short reviews of 20 exhibitions at museums and galleries throughout Japan over the past two or three months, with an emphasis on contemporary art by young artists. |
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1 December 2007 |
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| Biwako Biennale 2007 -- Spirit of Place: Genius Loci |
| 30 September - 18 November 2007 |
Omi Hachiman Old Town
(Shiga) |
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| Held in the old quarter of Omi Hachiman, a city on the shore of Lake Biwa, this art event utilizes such spaces as a 100-year old townhouse. With over forty artists from Japan and abroad participating, its theme is the relationship of art to the surrounding buildings and environment. |
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| Noriko Yamaguchi: Peppermint Mother |
| 13 October - 3 November 2007 |
MEM Gallery
(Osaka) |
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| The photos and videos in this exhibit feature a prone woman covered with pieces of chewing gum. Whereas Yamaguchi's previous work "Keitai Girl," in which the artist appeared in a costume of cell phones covering her body, suggested a theme of communication, this one explores deeper issues of the formation of human character. |
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| Christopher Bucklow: Tetrarchs |
| 13 October - 25 November 2007 |
Gallery Mssohkan
(Hyogo) |
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| British contemporary artist Bucklow creates lifesize aluminum-foil silhouettes of people he has seen in dreams, puncturing the foil with 25,000 pinholes, each of which functions as a pinhole camera when held to photographic paper to create beautiful monotype images. The number 25,000 is inspired, he says, by the number of days in a human lifespan according to the "three score years and ten" of the Bible. |
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| Natsunosuke Mise: Nihonga Revival Theory |
| 18 September - 7 October 2007 |
Gallery Meihodo Blanc
(Aichi) |
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| Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) artist Mise, having recently participated in the "Nihonga Metsuboron (Ruin Theory)" show, now introduces his "Nihonga Fukkatsuron (Revival Theory)," creating a festive mood by adding images of the city of Florence, Italy, where he is currently living, to conventional Japanese landscapes. |
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| Ushio Shinohara and Chu Enoki: Gyu and Chu |
| 2 October - 24 December 2007 |
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art
(Aichi) |
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| Two pioneers of Japan's contemporary art scene, Shinohara (1932-) and Enoki (1944-) collaborate to fill this huge space with their massive, powerful works. Shinohara surrounds his 3-meter-high, 8-meter-long cardboard motorcycle sculpture with murals inspired by Greek mythology, while Enoki displays a battleship-like piece made of 14 tons of crushed film cartridges and another work resembling a fortified city made of discarded metal parts polished with a lathe. |
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| Takayuki Mitsushima: Pictures Transmitted through Words |
| 11 - 16 September 2007 |
Gallery Haneusagi
(Kyoto) |
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| Mitsushima lost his eyesight as a child, and says that he relies on memory to select the colors in his compositions of cutout pieces of line tape and cutting sheets. The bright lines of color and organic shapes of his work have a musical rhythm to them. Untitled, the works are intended to encourage viewers to articulate in their own words what they see. |
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| Koichi Watanabe: Yoshito Ono On An Earth 2007」 |
| 17 - 29 September 2007 |
Gallery Kobayashi
(Tokyo) |
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| In this multimedia installation Watanabe juxtaposes a lifesize statue of the famous butoh dancer Yoshito Ono with images of Ono both in action and at rest projected onto a wall covered with a glacier-like texture of cloth and plaster. The still Ono on the wall is a projection of the still Ono of the statue. Thus three Onos coexist in the same space. |
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| Kouichi Sakao: Gifts of the Ginza |
| 3 - 26 September 2007 |
INAX Gallery 2
(Tokyo)
| These works consist of images from the Ginza district of Tokyo reproduced by the frottage technique, in which Sakao covers an object with paper and traces it with colored pencils. While the patterns vividly evoke the mix of old and new found in the Ginza, the eye is drawn more to the painting-like composition of the colors than to the surface textures reproduced there. |
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| Mon: Monotype |
| 21 September - 3 October 2007 |
art project room ARTZONE
(Kyoto) |
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| Half of the art duo Doppel, known for its live paintings and wallpaper art, Mon is running six concurrent solo exhibitions in the Kyoto-Osaka area. The ARTZONE show features large mural-size paintings along with photos and videos of the work in progress. Mon's works are a hybrid of organic forms, aboriginal designs and abstract patterns composed at remarkable speed. |
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| Chen Wenling: Metamorphose |
| 8 September - 4 October 2007 |
Makii Masaru Fine Arts
(Tokyo) |
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| This is the first Tokyo show for Chen, who has exhibited at the Shanghai Biennale. His bronze sculptures of human and animal figures are at once weighty and mangaesque. The bright red, very Chinese coloring and the plastic-like sheen of his statues augment this unnerving combination of heaviness and lightness. |
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