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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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| Kenji Yanobe: ULTRA |
| 11 April - 21 June 2009 |
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art
(Aichi) |
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| The centerpiece of this installation, Yanobe's new work "ULTRA - Black Sun," features a massive object built around a tesla coil emitting dramatic bursts of sparks and lightning. But the greater impact is the cumulative one of the models, drawings and sculptures that trace Yanobe's artistic development and amply testify to his creative genius. |
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| Ryoji Ikeda +/- [the infinite between 0 and 1] |
| 2 April - 21 June 2009 |
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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| On the first floor, sculptures carved with tiny numbers float in a dark room where digital images flit across the walls, while in the basement, black sculptures sit atop white cubes. With his emphasis on contrasts, minimalist forms, and conceptualist execution, and his use of light, sound and digital media, Ikeda seems bent on incorporating all the major elements of contemporary art -- including viewer participation. |
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Artists on the Creative Edge Vol. 1 |
| 1 - 17 May 2009 |
Yokohama CreativeCity Center
(Kanagawa) |
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| Formerly utilized as an art space by the nonprofit BankART 1929 group, Yokohama's old Dai-Ichi Bank building has reopened as the Yokohama CreativeCity Center. Its inaugural event is a group exhibition of ten local artists who have used the ground floor hall's high, narrow arch windows as canvases. As always the question is whether one can create art from ideas alone when there is no money and not enough time. |
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| Taisuke Koyama: entropix |
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G/P gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Koyama uses his digital camera to peel back the skin of the city, blowing photographed fragments up into large prints or projections. Colors and forms become abstract, direct assaults on the optic nerve. In the "Rainbow Form" series introduced here, Koyama places acrylic sheets over rainbow-colored prints and shoots close-ups of the scratches and tape marks thereon. |
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| Kazuna Taguchi: It is as it is |
| 11 April - 23 May 2009 |
ShugoArts
(Tokyo) |
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| Taguchi creates photo-painting hybrids: she paints a picture on canvas, photographs it and then paints on the print. The field of stars scattered across her work "Restoring the thing I've lost" was created by covering a print with dots of white paint. The result is a dizzyingly deep space of twinkling light that reminds one of the work of aboriginal Australian artists. |
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| Noriyuki Haraguchi: Society and Matter |
| 8 May - 14 June 2009 |
BankART Studio NYK
(Kanagawa) |
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| A lifesize mockup of the tail of an A-4 Skyhawk ... a 10x5 meter pool of waste oil ... a huge, ten-ton rubber tube ... Haraguchi's massive works seem to have found their home at last in the austere spaces of this former warehouse. It is no coincidence that the black steel door guarding a third-floor gallery opens to reveal a row of square, black polyurethane objects. Art and architecture resonate perfectly. |
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| Aoi Tamura: God at Play |
| 2 - 17 May 2009 |
arton art gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| The flat color plane suggests a world where time has stopped, yet the figure and shrubbery portrayed there are supple and lively, evoking a music of deep and endless rhythms. A black background and mask motif add elements of despair, but the symmetry of composition and the humorous expression on the figure’s face combine to bring out the subtleties of the heart. |
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| Hiromix: Early Spring, Brighten of Your Mind |
| 1 April - 18 May 2009 |
hiromiyoshii
(Tokyo) |
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| In her first solo show in some time, the popular young photographer Hiromix (Hiromi Toshikawa) offers landscapes, still lifes (flowers) and portraits surrounded by sparkling particles of light. Where her earlier work suggested a child content to play with the physical attributes of light, here the light seems to glow from within, and the photographer embraces it like a prayer. |
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| Takako Hojo: Resonating Light |
| 3 April - 10 May, 15 May - 14 June 2009 |
sowaka
(Kyoto) |
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| Hojo's latest exhibition was divided into two periods; the first featured drawings, the second, paintings. One can almost hear the sounds of wind and birds, and feel the heat and humidity, in these images of sunlight filtering through trees at water's edge. Hojo's touch is light, yet intensely real; the viewer feels present in the places she depicts. |
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| Japan: A Self Portrait -- Photography 1945-1964 |
| 2 May - 21 June 2009 |
Setagaya Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| This group show of 11 postwar photographers was curated by Marc Feustel, a French historian of Japanese photography. The artists are Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Kikuji Kawada, Ihee Kimura, Takeyoshi Tanuma, Shomei Tomatsu, Ken Domon, Shigeichi Nagano, Ikko Narahara, Hiroshi Hamaya, Tadahiko Hayashi, and Eiko Hosoe. Capturing Japan's years of devastation and recovery more vividly than any other medium possibly could, these photos are a must-see for younger Japanese in particular. |
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