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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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1 December 2009 |
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| From Home to the Museum: Tanaka Tsuneko Collection |
| 8 September - 8 November 2009 |
The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama
(Wakayama) |
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| This unusual show consists of works assembled by a single private collector. Housing scholar Tsuneko Tanaka first approached art collection as a means of improving the quality of home life. Now the owner of some 1,000 works by over 100 artists, she seems to have made collecting her life's work. Though Tanaka advocates picking art according to personal taste, not popular trends, her purchase of early works by such contemporary luminaries as Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, and Kohei Nawa testifies to her discerning eye. |
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| hyper tension with uneasiness |
| 22 September - 4 October 2009 |
Contemporary Art Space Osaka
(Osaka) |
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| The art unit "uneasiness" consists of Masato Ashitani, Arimichi Iwasawa and Tatsuo Osawa. Each pursues a distinctly individual vision, but they share a commitment to polishing their craft through frequent exhibitions, to which they make a point of inviting numerous guest artists. This show features a total of eight, all stubbornly outside the contemporary mainstream. Paintings predominate but mixed media work and photography are also prominent. The work is all at a superlative level, above that seen in most galleries, an impression augmented by the excellent design of the show. |
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Ikuno Oohata x Koji Suzuki |
| 13 - 25 October 2009 |
Self-So Art Gallery
(Kyoto) |
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| Known for their wild and crazy picture book illustrations, Oohata and Suzuki both produce work that leaps giddily off the page, yet displays meticulous attention to line and color. Their colors remind one of the unnameable hues we used to create as kids by mixing red, blue and yellow together, hoping to produce pink, purple or green. The motifs and characters in these pictures, too, exude a primeval force barely contained by the old machiya row-house on a quiet Kyoto alley that serves as the gallery. |
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Shinji Ohmaki: Vacuum Fluctuation |
| 1 August - 8 November 2009 |
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Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya
(Tokyo) |
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| As part of his Garbage Project, installation artist Ohmaki combines three large works on the theme of waste and the environment. In "Vacuum Fluctuation: Skyline," a conelike mass (reminiscent of Mt. Fuji) on the first floor of the gallery proves to be the drippings from a heap of slag filtering down hourglass-like through a hole from the floor above. A video installation, "Silent Vaticination," pans over a "black sand beach" composed of more slag, created by Ohmaki in what seems to be a critique of the superficially pretty "white sand beaches" of conventional art.
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| Stitch by Stitch: Traces I Made with Needle and Thread |
| 18 July - 27 September 2009 |
Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| This exhibition brings together eight artists who work with needle and thread, including Sayaka Akiyama, Zon Ito, Kei Takemura, Aiko Tezuka, and Ruriko Murayama. Standouts are works by Tsunao Okumura, who created his abstract needlework images while employed as a night watchman, and Atsushi Yoshimoto, who sews countless little knots and balls of thread in intricate patterns. Both artists seem to be engaged in closed, intimate conversations with themselves, yet their works have the power to draw in the viewer, thereby opening them up to dialogue with the world at large.
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| Yugo Isaji: bottle |
| 28 September - 3 October 2009 |
Gallery K
(Tokyo) |
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| Isaji takes everyday objects and manipulates them so as to reveal a previously hidden beauty. He might melt the tip of a ballpoint pen so it balloons into a sphere reminiscent of handblown glass, or use a cutter to incise geometric patterns into the surface of a detergent bottle. Imbued with life in this manner, these inorganic, artificial objects seem to embody the distortions of our own everyday habits and biases. |
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| Daisuke Kawakami: "approach to signs" |
| 29 September - 4 October 2009 |
Gallery Yuragi
(Kyoto) |
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| Kawakami walks in the mountains, searching for animal trails. When he finds one he places a slab of potter's clay in the path and waits for a week, then retrieves it. The footprints and fallen leaves embedded in the clay become the art, which he displays in this exhibit. Straddling ceramic art and land art, Kawakami's work defies categorization, but its originality and expressive potential are undeniable. With text or video added to chronicle its origins, it would also have great documentary possibilities. |
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Metamorphosis - Objects Today: Vol. 4 Yuichi Higashionna
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| 12 September - 10 October 2009 |
gallery alphaM
(Tokyo) |
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| The fourth in a series of shows curated by Kazuo Amano of the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, this one features the entire panoply of Yuichi Higashionna's media of choice, ranging from his famous fluorescent-light chandeliers to stripes, drapes and moiré fabric. One new development is the use of wood-grain flooring to panel the walls horizontally. The contrast with the vertical stripes and moiré patterns befuddles the eye, and the overall interweaving of light, line and color turns the exhibit space itself into a painting. |
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| Takayuki Ono: Blue Portrait |
| 29 September - 5 October 2009 |
Nikon Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| Ono's close-up photographs of the faces of homeless people are unstinting portrayals, full of wrinkles and mucus, that eloquently tell of the hardships of life on the street. But his full-body shots reveal another side -- the inimitable fashion sense of his subjects. Ironic, perhaps, but their sartorial instincts produce combinations of color and style that are virtually indistinguishable from what we think of as thrift-shop chic. |
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| Hidetoshi Nagasawa: Dove tende aurora |
| 10 October - 13 December 2009 |
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
(Osaka) |
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| Nagasawa is a world-famous sculptor, but because he makes his home in Italy, his name recognition among young Japanese leaves something to be desired. This retrospective, his first in Japan since 1993, is an impressive attempt to remedy that. With 2,000 square meters available to display 20 pieces, his large sculptures get plenty of elbow room, yet their energy fields still manage to overlap, generating a pleasant tension. Arranging sculptures in the same space occupied by visitors is more of a challenge than hanging paintings on a wall, but this show, designed by the artist himself, succeeds admirably. |
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