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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.
16 January 2012
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Asami Kiyokawa: Bijo Saishu (Collecting Beautiful Girls)
3 November 2011 - 22 January 2012
Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito
(Ibaraki)
While attending Bunka Fashion College, Kiyokawa started working as a model, but then diversified into contemporary art, picture books, advertising, and clothing design. This is her first major solo show, however. Making optimum use of the space at Mito's Art Center, she has assembled a startling "collection" of photos of beautiful actresses and singers, which she has embroidered with colorful threads and cloth. In her latest series she poses her models with endangered species of plants and animals, to flamboyant but elegant effect.

Nobuyoshi Araki: Hito, Machi (Person, Town)
2 October 2011 - 9 January 2012;
14 January - 20 March 2012
Miyamoto Saburo Annex, Setagaya Art Museum
(Tokyo)
No longer the bad boy but the grand old man of postwar Japanese photography, Araki (b. 1940) is treated to a thorough retrospective divided into two parts. The first, which ended January 9, featured such seminal series as his debut Satchin and His Brother Mabo and the provocative Tokyo Lucky Hole and Tokyo Nude. Part 2, currently up, is a tad more restrained with Subway, Zoo, and Tokyo Story. It is a small-scale but solid show. Most impressive are the scrapbooks that contain his earliest work: their huge newssheet-size images are far more forceful than the prints on the wall.
Wajiro Kon Retrospective
14 January - 25 March 2012
Shiodome Museum
(Tokyo)
Opening in Tokyo after a run last fall at the Aomori Museum of Art, this thoroughgoing look at the diverse output of architect Kon (1888-1973) employs a cornucopia of sketches, photos, design drawings, and models to illustrate his work as a surveyor of traditional Japanese houses, a member of the artist-run "Barrack Decoration Company" following the Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and the founder of the discipline known as modernology. Less well known but amply covered here is his career as a designer.
Nao Tsuda: REBORN "Tilkus' Mountain (Scene 1)"

29 October - 26 November 2011
hiromiyoshii
(Tokyo)
In these new works, photographer Tsuda focuses on the forests and people of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. In his Smoke Line exhibition of 2008, Tsuda's images seemed to draw the viewer's eyes to the side, into horizontally expansive landscapes. Here, however, everything is vertical: trees thrust straight up out of the forests, pagodas and stupas tower above, and the young Buddhist monks stand upright.
Tomoko Yoneda: Japanese House

29 October - 3 December 2011

ShugoArts
(Tokyo)
Yoneda shot these photos inside Japanese-style houses built in Taipei, Taiwan during the Japanese occupation (1895-1945) of the island. Their former owners long dead, these edifices have undergone considerable modification -- remodeled by later Taiwanese owners, or abandoned altogether. Yet there is still something undeniably Japanese about the construction and ornamentation of the interiors, like a lingering odor from days gone by.
Time in Sculpture: the succession and transition

7 October - 6 November 2011
University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts
(Tokyo)
Sculptures from the collection of Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) fill three galleries with works running the entire gamut from (primarily wooden) statuary of the Asuka (538-710) through the Edo (1603-1868) periods, modern sculpture from the subsequent Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras, and contemporary work by Geidai instructors. The oldest pieces on display are some bronze and wood Buddhas from the late 7th century; one, a standing figure of a Bodhisattva, is an Important Cultural Property.
311: Lost Homes

2 November - 24 December 2011
Toto Gallery MA
(Tokyo)
Introducing a project initiated shortly after the March 11 earthquake by Osamu Tsukihashi of Kobe University, which suffered its own earthquake disaster in 1995, this show features plain white 1:500 scale models of towns along the Tohoku coast as they appeared before the quake and tsunami. Due to the localized nature of the models, however, it is hard to get a sense of the very complex topography of the area. The scale is biased, perhaps predictably, toward the architect or city planner's focus on urban settings. Still, the models should serve as valuable reference tools in the rebuilding of these devastated communities.

Arata Isozaki: PROCESS

9 September - 12 November 2011
Misa Shin Gallery
(Tokyo)
Revisiting Isozaki's early-sixties work and its accompanying manifesto, "Incubation Process," the avant-garde architect and critic's latest installation benefits from being augmented by drawings and text. Isozaki (b. 1931) has been exhibiting these re-executed works of twisted wire and slathered plaster for some years now; the drawings and declarations provided this time do a nice job of adding to their impact.

Makoto Aida: Be it Art or not Art

5 November - 25 December 2011
Tokyo Wonder Site Hongo
(Tokyo)
For some years Tokyo Wonder Site has showcased promising young artists through its "Emerging" series; in 2011 TWS added a new "Emerging/Master" series that spotlights more established artists as well. First up was the internationally-renowned Makoto Aida, who will have his own solo show -- his first at a major museum -- later this year at the Mori Art Museum. The TWS exhibition focuses on the early days of Aida's career, when he was still "emerging."
Makoto Tanijiri: Relation
25 October - 13 November 2011
B Gallery, Beams
(Tokyo)
Architect Tanijiri's installation -- a large white model of a city suspended in midair -- is apparently inspired by a desire to create architecture that floats. The illusion of a model without visible means of support is stunningly successful: only on closer inspection does one notice the subtle props and the delicate flexion of the model in the center. Paradoxically, this construction makes one even more conscious of the power of gravity.
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