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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering short reviews of exhibitions at museums and galleries in recent weeks, with an emphasis on contemporary art by young artists. |
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| Tadanori Yokoo: Be Adventurous! |
| 19 April - 15 June 2008 |
Setagaya Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| Though focusing on Yokoo's work after the legendary graphic designer's sudden switch to painting in 1982, this show also features plenty of the original art for his earlier posters and illustrations. Dramatic shifts in style notwithstanding, his current works share much in common with those from the sixties. Above all, this retrospective testifies to the prodigiousness of Yokoo's output. |
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| Galle and Japonisme |
| 22 May - 13 July 2008 |
Suntory Museum Tempozan
(Osaka) |
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French glass artist Emile Galle was active at the height of the Japonisme boom in 19th-century Europe. This show demonstrates how Galle's interest in Japanese art evolved from the appropriation of superficial motifs into a deep understanding of Japanese aesthetics. His humorous images of animals and insects and his meticulous decorative work are interesting enough, but by following the exhibit in sequence one can see how Galle acquired a unique perception of nature that transcended merely "Japanesque" design values.
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Choe U Ram: Anima Machines |
| 27 May - 28 June 2008 |
SCAI THE BATHHOUSE
(Tokyo) |
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| Choe U Ram, who hails from Seoul, Korea, uses his expert knowledge of robotic engineering to explore the meaning of organic forms created through technology. The "lifeforms" displayed here are, indeed, disturbingly lifelike. "Anima" in this case is the Latin word for life principle or soul. |
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| Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye |
| 28 May - 28 July 2008 |
The National Art Center, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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Kngwarreye began painting on canvas in her late seventies; by the time of her death eight years later she had painted over 3,000 works. That and the fact that she was an Australian Aborigine would be enough to automatically label her an outsider artist, but her work transcends such labels and come closer to modernism. Indeed, her abstractions bear similarities to the likes of Yayoi Kusama and Brice Marden. But 3,000 works in eight years averages out to about one a day: clearly Kngwarreye was impelled to paint without worrying, as too many modern artists do, about what direction she should take next.
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| Hiroko Yamamoto |
| 29 May - 7 June 2008 |
Gallery 21+Yo
(Tokyo) |
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| This show consists of four sculptures and four related works on canvas. The sculptures use wire to form the Kanji characters for blood, flesh, bone, and skin respectively; behind each sculpture is an abstract painting composed of color fields that, on closer examination, spell out the same word in English: BLOOD, FLESH, BONE, SKIN. |
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| Atsuo Nakagawa & Mimi Murai / Naohiro Gonda: Chat |
| 31 May - 28 June 2008 |
Fukugan Gallery
(Osaka) |
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| This is a busy show, jam-packed with works by three artists: drawings and sculptures by Gonda, and collaborations between video artist Murai and Nakagawa, who covers gallery walls with black-pen drawings of proliferating "monsters." Murai's flowing video work, accompanied by rhythmic music, has a dreamlike impact. |
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| Hiroyuki Miyamoto: Trifle |
| 2 - 7 June 2008 |
Ai Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| A can with its lid partly ajar invites the visitor to peek inside, setting off a sensor: a birdsong fills the room. What appears to be a small black dot on an otherwise blank canvas proves on closer inspection to be... a ladybug. It is hard not to like an installation of "trifles" like these. |
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| Toshiaki Kurahashi |
| 2 - 14 June 2008 |
Gallery Kobayashi
(Tokyo) |
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| A single massive work of thirteen 1 x 2 meter panels occupies two walls of the gallery, covered with what appears to be abstract expressionist brushwork in sumi ink. But it turns out that the surface lies atop layers of washi paper with other, faintly visible paintings lurking below: a truly sophisticated mode of composition. |
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| Noriyuki Haraguchi |
| 2 - 21 June 2008 |
Gallery GEN
(Tokyo) |
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| A massive black monolith -- 2.5 meters high, 4 meters wide, 30 cm thick -- leans at an angle against two walls, filling the tiny gallery with a presence that seems overweening and peremptory. How on earth did they get it in here? you may wonder -- but its sheer overwhelmingness quickly banishes even such questions. |
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| Kenjiro Sano: Ginza Salone Osaka Seikei Uni |
| 2 - 22 June 2008 |
Space B, Osaka Seikei University
(Kyoto) |
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| This compact but comprehensive show offers the full gamut of red-hot art director Kenjiro Sano's ubiquitous oeuvre: advertising posters, commercials, trendy goods and characters. There is not a soul in Japan who has not been exposed to his simple, expressive, and highly marketable designs. Products that feature his work, particularly when parlayed into engaging patterns and series, are nearly irresistible. |
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