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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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| Fumiko Shioga: A Garden Over There |
| 8 - 20 June 2010 |
neutron kyoto
(Kyoto)
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| Shioga's artistic stance recalls the rigorous practice of a master artisan as she strives to express all the sensations -- the air, the moisture content -- of an ever-changing world in all its transient beauty. Her paintings, which seem to record every ray of sunlight reflecting off every surface, exude the odors of a hot, humid midsummer day. |
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| Yu Hanabusa: Let the Outside Indoors |
| 25 May - 13 June 2010 |
Kyoto Art Center
(Kyoto) |
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Hanabusa produced these paintings while she was an artist in residence at Silpakorn University in Bangkok from 2007 to 2009, and her motifs of monuments and buildings reflect the urban ambience of her life there. However, she has bedecked these structures with floral wreaths of the type used in Thailand as ceremonial offerings, which are normally tiny enough to fit in the palm of the hand. By inverting the relative size of these combined images, she distorts the sense of scale and engenders a delightful confusion in the viewer, causing us to wonder just what it is we are looking at.
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| Mami Fukumura |
| 1 - 13 June 2010 |
gallery morning
(Kyoto) |
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| Most of Fukumura's paintings depict scenes of activity in or near water: livestock feeding ponds, school swimming pools, the shores of Lake Biwa. Some, however, contain no figures, human or animal, at all. The impressions that stick are of colors: the green of grass, the blue of the water, the paint on the pools. It was only later that images of the glittering surface of these bodies of water floated repeatedly into this reviewer's mind, triggering memories of childhood summer days and Sundays. |
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| Toshiaki Yamaoka: GUTIC STUDY@studio90 |
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studio90
(Kyoto) |
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| When I told an artist friend that I would be visiting Yamaoka's exhibition of paintings, photos and installations, his response was, "That's the Gutic guy, right?" "What's Gutic?" was my puzzled reply. It turns out to be a word coined by Yamaoka to describe his own works, or visual phenomena as he refers to them. Apparently "Gutic" is that spirit-like something which is rarely visible, yet indubitably exists. What, he asks, is the truth that lies between what we strive to see and what we are capable of seeing? |
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| Miwako Watanabe |
8 - 13 June 2010
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Gallery Suzuki
(Kyoto) |
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Watanabe's ceramic pieces are small objects -- calligraphic tools, bowls, vases -- all decorated with glazes and hand painting of a delicacy that defies the imagination. It is not only the beauty in the line of her brush that astounds, but her compositions: every piece bears patterns and ornamentation concealed in unexpected places. It is a form of play at its most elegant.
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| Nobuyoshi Araki: Sentimental Journey, Spring Journey |
| 11 June - 18 July 2010 |
Rat Hole Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| The title of Araki's show references his 1991 photo collection Sentimental Journey, Winter Journey (Shinchosha), depicting the final days of his late wife Yoko two decades ago. This time the subject is his cat Chiro, who died this past March after 22 years (105 in cat years) as part of the Araki family. The 80 photos on the gallery walls attest to the strength of the bond between photographer and pet. The final sequence of images, shot in the last moments of Chiro's life as her eyes gradually cloud over, were surely the only way Araki felt he could bid a proper farewell to his beloved feline muse. |
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OUTRANGE 2010
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| 9 - 22 June 2010 |
Bumpodo Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Art school faculty members choose the student entrants in this inter-university group competition. This year's participating institutions were Kanazawa College of Art, Tokyo Zokei University, Bigakko (located in Tokyo), and Musashino Art University. The four designated faculty were O Jun, Naoki Nishijima, Nobuhiko Haijima, and Yoichi Miyajima, all of whom exhibited small pieces. The students' works were on sale, but this reviewer was not moved to go on any shopping sprees. |
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| Ryudai Takano: An Ignition Point |
| 18 June - 22 July 2010 |
Zeit-Foto Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| Takano's subject matter is nothing new for him, but the erotic content of the work has been ramped up. In last year's photo collection How to Contact a Man (Akio Nagasawa Publishing) he addressed male eros head-on, yet maintained a conscious distance between himself and his subjects, suggesting that desire arises from the urge to eliminate distance. In his current photo series (titled "Trembling Goldfish" in Japanese), that gap has been narrowed as Takano seeks out the point at which desire ignites upon contact. His images are graphic, yet casual. |
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| Toshiya Murakoshi / Shin Yamagata: Nagameru Manazasu |
| 4 - 22 June 2010 |
Up Field Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| This three-part show of works by ten photographers reexamines Masaharu Minato's project, "The Current Situation Concerning Landscape and Photography." In Division 2 of the series, Yamagata's stance as analytical observer contrasts with Murakoshi's subjective immersion into his landscapes, letting his thoughts roam where they may. Unlike similar exhibitions of late, this one addresses the fundamental issue of photography as a mode of expression. Japanese photographers, it hints, may need to adopt a more outward outlook even as they maintain their legacy of quality. |
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| Nobuaki Watanabe: Kofun Window |
| 15 - 27 June 2010 |
Gallery Suzuki
(Kyoto) |
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Watanabe's home sits hard by a massive, 200-meter-long keyhole-shaped kofun burial mound, and this unyielding presence makes itself known in the paintings displayed in this show. His colors, nearly oppressive in their impact, as well as the wildly expressive power of his brushwork, evoke the accumulation of time and the hardiness and ferocity of the life-force. It is a show that reminds us again of the glory of good painting.
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