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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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| Ay-O: Rainbow 77th Birthday |
| 6 January - 11 February 2009 |
Mitaka City Gallery of Art
(Tokyo) |
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| Born in 1931, avant-garde artist Ay-O (born Takao Iijima) is known for his use of colorful rainbow patterns in painting all manner of objects. This retrospective traces Ay-O's highly idiosyncratic career from his early days as an active member of Fluxus to his current oeuvre of (shockingly) monochromatic works. |
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| Nyokyu Makishima |
| 8 November 2008 - 12 January 2009 |
Ashikaga Museum of Art
(Tochigi) |
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| Makishima (1892-1975), who studied icon painting at a Russian Orthodox seminary in Tokyo, created religious paintings with a bizarre mixture of Christian and Buddhist iconography. His approach necessitated mixing the materials, motifs and styles of Western and Japanese painting as well. Among the results are a hanging scroll of the Madonna and Child and an oil painting of the death of the Buddha. |
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magical, TV |
| 13 January 2009 |
magical, ARTROOM
(Tokyo) |
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| Founded by psychiatrist and art collector Satoshi Okada, the "magical, ARTROOM" gallery celebrated its third anniversary this January with an event at Roppongi's Super Deluxe club. The intrusion of the Web-TV program DAX LIVE!! into the event forced the live performances into a TV-studio frame of reference, an intentional act of Television eating Art. |
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| Ryo Takahashi: Forest |
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neutron
(Kyoto) |
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| Takahashi's "forest" consists of human and animal figures, skeletons, and dream images sprawling across huge sheets of rough washi-like paper. The images exude the raw odor of life and death, leaving an overall dark impression that is, however, brightened by the lyrical, dreamlike texture of the traditional Nihonga-style pigments and paper. |
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| Happiness in Everyday Life |
| 25 October 2008 - 18 January 2009 |
Art Tower Mito
(Ibaraki) |
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| Art Tower Mito's Contemporary Art Center presents 14 artists from Japan and elsewhere whose works (paintings, videos, installations, sculptures, photos) address the quotidian in different ways. The idea is to stimulate a reexamination of the viewer's own daily life, particularly the familiar minutiae we tend to overlook.
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| Domani: The Art of Tomorrow 2008 |
| 13 December 2008 - 26 January 2009 |
National Art Center, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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| Billed as an exhibition of "the achievements of the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists provided by the Agency for Cultural Affairs," this 15-artist show spans the spectrum of painting, sculpture, textiles and photography. Works by Shintaro Tanaka, Katsura Funakoshi and Yoshiaki Kaihatsu are standouts. |
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| WA: The Spirit of Harmony and Japanese Design Today |
| 22 October 2008 - 31 January 2009 |
Japan Foundation
(Paris) |
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Held at the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris, this Japan Foundation-sponsored exhibition featured some 160 items from a variety of fields representing the best in contemporary Japanese product design, categorized under six keywords: kawaii (cute), craft, texture, touch, minimal, and sensitivity.
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| Kyotaro Hakamata: 1000 Layers |
| 15 November 2008 - 1 February 2009 |
Fuchu Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| This innovative museum in a western Tokyo suburb hosts sculptor Hakamata as its 44th "Open Studio" resident artist. While on-site, Hakamata demonstrates his novel process of sculpting figures from layered compositions of multicolored acrylic boards. The museum Website has a page (see the link above) illustrating the process in detail. |
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| MOTOKO + Hideki Inoue: The Den-en Dream |
| 9 January - 1 February 2009 |
shin-bi
(Kyoto) |
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| Photographer MOTOKO and editor Inoue visited a farming village in Shiga Prefecture (near Kyoto), where they studied the local culture and engaged in some actual farming. This exhibit of photos and text chronicling their experience warmly testifies to their empathy with people who work on the land. |
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| Soshi Matsunobe: Nissed |
| 27 January - 1 February 2009 |
gallery ITEZA
(Kyoto) |
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| The exhibition title is dessin (the Japanese term for "sketch" appropriated from the French) spelled backwards. Instead of portraying three-dimensional objects as realistically as possible in two dimensions, Matsunobe attempts the opposite, using solid objects to create a flat effect. The various objects on display here are bordered with black tape like cartoon frames. |
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