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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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| Hiroshi Fujii: Black Fossil |
| 27 July - 1 August 2010 |
Gallery Maronie
(Kyoto) |
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This first solo show by up-and-coming dye artist Fujii features two large 2.6 x 4.5 meter works and four smaller pieces. The contrast between gray areas with the complex texture of aerial photos of planetary surfaces and the gradation of the base from jet-black to white is nothing short of sublime. Fujii's ability to create such rich and variegated worlds out of a single color -- black -- reveals a craftsmanship that places him in the top ranks of young dyers today.
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| Keizo Tawa: Striking Iron |
| 26 June - 22 August 2010 |
Ashikaga Museum of Art
(Tochigi) |
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| This is the first retrospective for the veteran sculptor, spanning his 30-year career from early outdoor sculptures to his most famous works, which consist of relentlessly struck chunks of iron. The show is a kitchen-sink approach to Tawa's activities, with everything from photos of the Tokorozawa Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition (in which he participated six times during the 70s and 80s) to films of the artist in the act of pounding iron cubes into submission, as well as the resulting works themselves and the handmade hammers he used to shape them. |
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| Seiichi Motohashi -- Showa Entertainment: East and West |
| 21 July - 3 August 2010 |
Ginza Nikon Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| Motohashi's photographs celebrate the vast array of entertainment genres that thrived during the golden years of the Showa Era (1925-1989). Freak shows, strip shows, Rakugo storytellers, Sumo wrestlers, midget pro-wrestlers . . . all are sure to evoke either a twinge of nostalgia or the thrill of an encounter with a hitherto unknown world. The sheer liveliness of the performers makes their progressive disappearance from contemporary Japan all the more painful. |
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| Yoko Higashino: "I am aroused . . . . . Inside woman" |
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Setagaya Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| Out in the open space behind the Setagaya Art Museum, a projector beams huge images onto the grass or the museum wall. Stealthily weaving her way into their midst, Higashino describes a series of dexterous curves at mind-boggling speed. The sensation is like watching a human figure rushing around in a speeded-up silent film. |
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| Ryoko Obata: Resembling a form of prayer |
31 July - 12 August 2010
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millibar gallery
(Osaka) |
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| Obata took these photos in Kozagawa, Wakayama Prefecture, her grandmother's birthplace. Magically, these images trigger a sort of wistful nostalgia even in viewers who have never been there. On the wall, prints of varying sizes are aligned along the bottom, as if floating on the surface of a river. Other, smaller prints lie on the gallery floor, compelling visitors to shift their line of sight up and down as they navigate the room. |
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| BASARA |
| 4 - 9 August 2010 |
Spiral Garden Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Contemporary artist Hisashi Tenmyouya curated this show, which brings together 24 artists and art units of diverse genres and generations under the theme of basara. This is a word that historically refers to the gaudy dandyism of Japan's 14th-century "Northern and Southern Courts" period, when luxury and extravagance were the prevailing aesthetic principles of the day. Tenmyouya has re-coined the term to embrace the same sensibility as it has been expressed through the ages and into the present. |
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| Mao Ishikawa |
| 23 July - 21 August 2010 |
TOKIO OUT of PLACE
(Tokyo) |
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| Okinawa-born photographer Ishikawa presents two series of recent work: "Mobile Phone Self Portraits" and "Hinomaru: Rising Sun Flag in Your Eyes." In the latter, she encourages various subjects to express themselves using the Japanese flag's rising sun motif. Both series epitomize the brute force of Ishikawa's camerawork -- her ability to strip away pretense and expose human beings as what they are, in all their warts and glory. |
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| Yusuke Mashiba: majime! |
| 4 - 29 August 2010 |
Gallery Raku, Kyoto University of Art and Design
(Kyoto) |
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| Boasting two video works and masses of drawings, this is Mashiba's biggest show by far to date, and it amply conveys the appeal of the Kyoto native son. Until now Mashiba has exhibited only in Osaka, so this is his first hometown stand, and one gets the impression that he put some extra effort into it. Perhaps, too, it's a farewell gift to his Kansai region fans, of whom there are many: unfortunately for us, he will be moving to Tokyo in the fall. |
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| The World of Hamada Chimei: Elegy and Humor in Prints and Sculptures |
| 10 July - 5 September 2010 |
The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama
(Kanagawa) |
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| Renowned sculptor and print artist Chimei Hamada turns 93 this year. This retrospective presents over 300 of his works: 173 prints (including his famous copperplate "Elegy for a New Conscript" series from the 1950s), 73 bronze sculptures, and a host of sketches, studies and other materials. The chronological organization allows one to trace the shifts in his interests, from early efforts to record his war memories in engravings, to satirical commentary on postwar Japanese society, and thence to bronze sculptures giving shape to the primordial essence of humanity. |
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| Statements from Galleries: Focusing on a new generation in Tokyo 2010 |
| 26 July - 7 August 2010 |
Gallery Natsuka, Gallery Kobayashi, Gallery K, Gallery Gen, Galerie Tokyo Humanité, Ai Gallery, Nabis Gallery, Gallery Q, Gallery-58, Galerie Sol, gallery 21yo-j
(Tokyo) |
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| In this annual event organized by the Tokyo Contemporary Art Gallery Meeting, eleven galleries each selected a young artist for a series of concurrent solo shows. Noteworthy were Natsumi Tomita's lifesize human images composed of newspaper and magazine cutouts; Ayako Shizume's paintings of Tokyo's concrete jungle as viewed from a car window; and Seiko Yamamoto's installation of circuitry-like assemblages of floor plans cut out from housing flyers. |
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