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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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| Sakae de Tsunagaru Art |
| 1 - 3 November 2008 |
Kamigo Mori-no-Ie
(Kanagawa) |
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| BankART School's first foray into Yokohama's southern Sakae Ward, this event at the bucolic Mori-no-Ie (House in the Forest) in Kamigo was one of a series of workshops conducted in outlying parts of the city by the downtown-based art project. Held in tandem with the Yokohama Triennale, Sakae de Tsunagaru Art featured such participants as artist Jun Kitagawa and the design team Namaiki. |
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| Homage to Cezanne: His Influence on the Development of Twentieth Century Painting |
| 15 November 2008 - 25 January 2009 |
Yokohama Museum of Art
(Kanagawa) |
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| The Japanese title, "Cezanneism," might lead one to expect an exhibition that failed to assemble enough works by the artist himself and filled up the leftover space with his disciples or imitators. But far from it; this is a fascinating show that focuses from the outset on Cezanne's influence on other artists. Among them are the Japanese painters Soutaro Yasui, Ryusei Kishida, and Chikkyo Ono. |
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Mika Ninagawa: Earthly Flowers, Heavenly Colors |
| 1 November - 28 December 2008 |
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| This show brings together some 300 works by popular and prolific photographer Ninagawa (b. 1972), from her college days to the present. The subtitle is critic Midori Matsui's attempt to describe the vivid but evanescent imagery (she is partial to flowers and goldfish) of Ninagawa's work. |
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| Shizuka Yokomizo: I Can Feel It (But I Can't See It) |
| 18 October - 29 November 2008 |
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Wako Works of Art
(Tokyo) |
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| These dark photos of female nudes, a new series by Tokyo-born, London-based Yokomizo, are gloomy in mood as well as lighting. The women are anything but beautiful; their skin hangs loosely on their bodies. It turns out that the models are prostitutes photographed by Yokomizo in their workplaces. |
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| Art Project 2008: Koto no Enishi |
| 18 October - 8 November 2008 |
Former Sakamoto Primary School
(Tokyo) |
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Organized by the Graduate Department of Oil Painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai), this site-specific exhibition provided each artist with an entire classroom in an unused primary school building in the nearby Ueno district. Some 30 artists, most of them affiliated with the university, participated.
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| Ryuta Iida: Ewiges Equivalent |
| 8 November - 13 December 2008 |
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
(Chiba) |
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| Iida is a young sculptor (b. 1981) who cuts up old books and maps to create alternative forms with these paper information media -- a particularly enjoyable kind of conceptual art. Iida's works have an aura of completion enhanced by their placement in this large exhibition space. |
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| Fresh |
| 8 - 13 November 2008 |
R2 (Urban Back-Side Laboratory)
(Chiba) |
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| "Fresh" is a group exhibition with a weekly rotation of artists at Urban Back-Side Laboratory, an alternative space occupying empty rooms in a building in Tokyo's northeastern suburb of Kashiwa. The unifying theme is the search for expression by a new generation of 21st-century artists who grew up during Japan's post-bubble economic decline and the advent of an advanced information society. |
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| Let's Search for Tobiwo-chan in Kashiwa Town |
| 1 - 30 November 2008 |
Kashiwa Information Center
(Chiba) |
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| Created by painter Maki Takemoto, Tobiwo-chan is a pensive-looking cartoon character of indeterminate gender who has apparently morphed into over 100 likenesses that appear here and there on the streets of Kashiwa. Children and adults alike are encouraged to compete to see who can find the most Tobiwo-chans. |
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Mukou no Sakura
(Starry Sky Exchange Project) |
| 24 October - 9 November 2008 |
Sakura City Museum of Art
(Chiba) |
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| "Mukou no Sakura" (The Sakura Beyond) is a project initiated by Hokkaido-based artist Michiyoshi Isozaki linking the city of Sakura, Chiba Prefecture, with its namesake town in Hokkaido. This year's exhibition at Chiba's Sakura City Museum of Art features a starlit-sky mirror ball constructed by the students of Sakura Primary School in Shihoro, Hokkaido. |
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| Toshiya Motai: Window -- Image KY OB AS HI |
| 4 - 26 November 2008 |
INAX Gallery 2
(Tokyo) |
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| Upon entering this installation you first confront a white wall with two or three holes in it. Peeping through one, you see an eye staring back at you -- that of another viewer on the other side. In his "Prospect Cottage for Painting" series, Motai has constructed a number of "visual experience devices": windows in various formats that break the field of vision into unexpected components. |
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