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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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LOCUS Art Initiative Project: Exhibition as Media 2008 |
| 1 - 24 November 2008 |
Kobe Art Village Center
(Hyogo) |
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| Launched last year as a second-stage project of the ten-year-old Kobe Art Annual, Locus showcases young artists who have previously appeared in the latter event. Priority is assigned to the planning process, with participants meeting frequently and developing the exhibition together. This year's artists are Junko Kido, Takashi Kunitani, Sakiko Kurita, Hidekazu Tanaka and Saori Miyake. |
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| Toride Art Project 2008 |
| 1 - 16 November 2008 |
Ino Apartment Complex, Toride
(Ibaraki) |
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| A huge housing complex in this city northeast of Tokyo is the site of a project launched in 1999 by Toride citizens and Tokyo University of the Arts. Artists take up residence in vacant apartment units where they create and display their works in progress. One such "work" (experiment?) by the Shinya Satoh Studio involved adding one new resident a day to a small apartment until 23 people were sharing the same space. |
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Ikuko Nishimura |
| 11 - 23 November 2008 |
Gallery Suzuki
(Kyoto) |
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| White cloth is torn into ribbons which are tied together into a large net and suspended from the ceiling in a whirlpool of fabric. Varying shades of purple appear here and there, as well as spots that look discolored or soiled. The artist says that she wants to express the way in which others' words or presences affect our feelings and behavior in the course of our daily lives. |
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| Kazumi Yoshimine: Passage |
| 10 - 15 November 2008 |
ASK? art space kimura
(Tokyo) |
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| These new paintings by Yoshimine, who studied art in London, are landscapes of a very abstract sort, but landscapes nonetheless. Their images seem to emerge from the surface at the same rate at which the paint was applied to the canvas -- which may be entirely natural, but not at all easy to achieve. |
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Léonard Foujita |
| 15 November 2008 - 18 January 2009 |
The Ueno Royal Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| This retrospective commemorates the 40th anniversary of Foujita's death by introducing four major works (The Wrestlers I, The Wrestlers II, Composition with a Lion and Composition with a Dog) that went missing for many years after Foujita painted them in 1929. The show also features rarely seen works by the Japanese-born resident (and eventual citizen) of France, including sketches for frescoes on a chapel wall in Reims. |
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Takehito Koganezawa: Between This and That |
| 1 - 29 November 2008 |
Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery
(Kanagawa) |
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| In the gallery's largest hall, over a dozen projectors spew out a dizzying array of light trails. That's it. There are no other objects in the room. Among Koganezawa's video works, "Untitled/Gridlock" stands out as a masterpiece. |
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Nao Matsumoto |
| 25 - 30 November 2008 |
Art Space Niji
(Kyoto)
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| In these new works, Matsumoto superimposes drawings on pinkish wallpaper covered with textile pattern-like landscapes that evoke rocketships or fragments of fairytales. The show makes one feel privy to a display of interior decor stealthily created in a very private space. |
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Hiromi Matsuura: H avant-garde |
| 25 - 30 November 2008 |
Gallery Haneusagi
(Kyoto) |
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This young (b. 1982) Kyoto-born painter mixes a hodgepodge of motifs (images that resemble girls' comic book and anime characters, logos, text, day-glo paint) to generate a surprisingly powerful impact. The Op Art influence is evident, but Matsuura's work has an extra something, an anxiety-provoking sensibility that captures the attention.
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Yokohama Art & Home Collection |
| 28 - 29 November 2008 |
Yokohama Home Collection
(Kanagawa) |
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| This art fair took place in 17 model houses at a typical home display site, which might sound like an odd venue. But the organizer was the Yokohama Museum of Art, which managed to keep the focus squarely on the art and reduce the commercial ambience to a minimum. The 23 participating galleries, mostly Kanto- or Kansai-based, were dominated by representatives of the Tokyo contemporary art scene. |
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Lim Jae-Kyoung & Ding Shan |
| 17 - 29 November 2008 |
space B, Osaka Seikei University
(Kyoto) |
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| This dual show features works by two foreign students majoring in information design at Osaka Seikei University. Lim is from Seoul and Ding from Beijing. Lim expresses her love for Japanese flowers through paintings and traditional Korean costumes, while Ding offers photographs of Beijing street scenes inspired by the twin traditions of apital styleفin Beijing and Kyoto.
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