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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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| Taro Okamoto: The 100th Anniversary of His Birth |
| 8 March - 8 May 2011 |
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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| A larger-than-life force in Japan's avant-garde art world, Okamoto (1911-96) was also a popular icon known for his declaration that "art is explosion." This birth centennial retrospective treats his career as a series of "confrontations" and categorizes the 130 works on display (paintings, sculptures, photographs, and designs) according to seven "objects" of confrontation, which range from war to Picasso to consumer society to Okamoto himself. If nothing else, the conceit is a clever way of confronting the visitor with fresh perspectives on Okamoto's relevance to the world we live in today. |
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| The Golden Age of Color Prints: Ukiyo-e from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
| 26 February - 17 April 2011 |
Yamatane Museum of Art
(Tokyo) |
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| Boston's MFA boasts one of the largest and finest collections of Japanese art outside Japan. At its core is a superb collection of ukiyo-e: some 50,000 woodblock prints, 700 paintings, and thousands of print books. The exhibition at the Yamatane focuses on three masters -- Kiyonaga, Utamaro, and Sharaku -- of the Tenmei and Kansei eras (1781-1801), generally regarded as the golden age of colored ukiyo-e. This is the first time most of these works have been shown in Japan since their acquisition by the MFA. [For a detailed review see this month's "Here and There" column.] |
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| Yutaka Sone: Perfect Moment |
| 15 January - 27 March 2011 |
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Los Angeles-based Sone's exhibition has two contrasting sections. One contains two relatively prosaic video works he made in the 1990s; the other offers five rather astonishing marble sculptures. The centerpiece is a mesa-like model of the island of Manhattan, complete with streets and buildings carved in scrupulous detail. Other sculptures of things that ordinarily defy sculpting include a Ferris wheel and the fascinating "The Light between Trees," in which marble light rays radiate prism-like from between trees on a snowy mountainside. |
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| Keiko Minami: 100th Birth Anniversary Exhibition |
| 8 January - 21 March 2011 |
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Musée Hamaguchi Yuzo: Yamasa Collection
(Tokyo) |
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| Copperplate print artist Minami (1911-2004) was born in Toyama, Japan but spent most of her postwar life in Paris and San Francisco. Her delicately etched, sometimes bright, sometimes poignant work, frequently featuring young girls, trees, animals, and medieval-looking edifices, has often adorned UNESCO and UNICEF publications. This show also includes abstract drawings from her sketchbooks, exhibited in public for the first time. |
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Typographic Posters of the 20th Century
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| 29 January - 27 March 2011 |
Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| These 113 typography-highlighting posters were selected from the massive poster collection of the Takeo Paper Company. Spanning the entire 20th century, the works are roughly divided into four periods according to printing technology and style of expression. All told, they testify to the expressive diversity and stylistic evolution of typography over the past century. Posters for events by public entities or design groups tend to predominate, but even the commercial posters emphasize image over product promotion. |
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| Shiko Munakata: Prayers and Journeys |
| 11 February - 27 March 2011 |
Shizuoka City Museum of Art
(Shizuoka) |
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| One of Japan's most famous 20th-century woodblock artists, Munakata (1903-75) was closely associated with the Mingei folk-art movement. This retrospective of 330 works commemorates the 35th anniversary of his death. Though woodcuts make up the bulk of his oeuvre, Munakata was an eclectic artist, as the oil paintings, ceramics, and works he dubbed Yamato-e ("ancient-style Japanese pictures") in this exhibition attest. |
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| Takashi Honma: New Documentary |
| 8 January - 21 March 2011 |
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa) |
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| Photographers sometimes seem overly concerned with being artists. Honma betrays this ambition in his current show, which bears the clear stamp of the syntax of contemporary art. Images like one of bloodstains on a snowy field are intentionally stripped of context, forcing the viewer to fill in these provocative "traces" of a larger story. Such enforced minimalism or ambiguity is, indeed, a common trope of contemporary Japanese art. But art is more diverse, and society itself far more complex, than that. If Honma is serious about creating a "new documentary" genre, shouldn't he be addressing the chaos of contemporary reality head-on? |
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| Naoki Ohji: Kawasaki |
| 15 January - 27 February 2011 |
photographers' gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| For years now, Ohji has been exhibiting monochrome snapshots of street scenes in Kawasaki, a gritty industrial city wedged between Tokyo and Yokohama. The current series shows him at the top of his form, brandishing a powerful "aesthetic of the contact strip." Ohji himself says that he has slowed his walking pace; whatever the reason, his new work reflects a change in the way he addresses the images he encounters.
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| Kokoro Oura: Interweaving |
| 5 January - 27 March 2011 |
Fukuoka Art Museum
(Fukuoka) |
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| The ninth installment in the series "Artist in Fukuoka in the 21st Century," this one introduces the watercolor paintings and charcoal drawings of Oura (b.1960), a Fukuoka resident. In these new works, her stroke is sometimes warm, sometimes harsh. Always, however, her work invites us to interact with her world on several levels. |
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| Fujio Akatsuka: 72 Years of Gags |
| 11 February - 27 March 2011 |
Akita Senshu Museum of Art
(Akita) |
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| One of Japan's most beloved cartoonists, Akatsuka (1935-2008) was a pioneer of comical manga. Known as the "gag manga king," he produced such enduring hits as Osomatsu-kun and Tensai Bakabon. This retrospective offers ample opportunity to reappreciate Akatsuka's legendarily wacky personality as well as immerse oneself in the wild world of his imagination. |
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