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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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16 January 2012 |
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| Undressing Paintings: Japanese Nudes 1880-1945 |
| 15 November 2011 - 15 January 2012 |
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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| An ambitious gathering of paintings of naked figures by modern Japanese artists from the Meiji period through World War II, the show highlights the work of such pioneers as Seiki Kuroda, Tetsugoro Yorozu, and Morikazu Kumagai. Painting nudes was a foreign concept introduced to Japan only after the Meiji Restoration, and suppressed by the authorities in the years leading up to the war. The exhibition satisfyingly answers questions about these clashes between societal mores and artistic ambitions, as well as differences between Japanese and Western views of nudity, and changes in the portrayal of nudes over time. |
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| Yoko Asakai: Northerly Wind |
| 2 - 20 November 2011 |
NADiff Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| This solo show introduces several series of photos shot by Asakai during a visit to the northern prefecture of Aomori in the summer of 2011. "Northerly Wind" looks at the wind speed indicators along coastal roads, with such readings as "Northeast wind 2 meters." "Field Sketch" features scenes, viewed at a bit of an emotional remove, of seashores, lighthouses, grasslands, and trees full of birds. |
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| Kino Satoshi Ceramic Exhibition |
| 14 - 19 November 2011 |
Gallery Haku
(Osaka) |
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| Lined up in the gallery on tall black daises are an array of white ceramic funnels that resemble gigantic morning glories in bloom. In the far corner stands a single object that, distinct from the rest, appears to be a bud that has not yet opened. Though of substantial proportions, Kino's conical forms, with their thin, petal-like texture and their delicate veneer of pale glaze, have an air of evanescence. |
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| Yumi Yamauchi |
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O Gallery eyes
(Osaka) |
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| In the past, painter Yamauchi has employed screentone-like meshes of large dots that threaten to pierce holes in the canvas to extract what look like isolated details from landscapes she might have seen somewhere. In this new series, however, she explores the materiality of paint itself, playing with color and texture to produce works that are considerably more abstract. |
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| Ryoko Suzuki: I am . . . |
| 18 November - 17 December 2011 |
Zeit-Foto Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| In all these collages, photo-artist Suzuki has superimposed her own head or face on a naked, muscular male body. The Photoshopped juncture of the disparate parts is seamless -- provoking, the longer one gazes at the image, a queasy sense of unease in the viewer. The contrast between the female visage and the male body is just too jarring to compute. |
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| Tomoyo Inada: A parade |
| 23 November - 6 December 2011 |
Ginza Nikon Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| Photographer Inada is also a talented poet, judging by the "poem" she wrote to accompany this exhibition. Her text conjures up the mood of Taisho or early-Showa poets like Jukichi Yagi and Takuji Ote. Her black-and-white prints of wide-open spaces have the same vaguely nostalgic tinge, and indeed appear as if they could have been shot back in the Showa period.
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| Akihito Yamamoto: Yukioto (the sound of snow) |
| 30 November - 11 December 2011 |
Ricoh Photo Gallery Ring Cube
(Tokyo) |
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| Photographer Yamamoto's "Yukioto" series on the theme of cities and snow is a highly self-contained set of work, and this reviewer wondered how it would fit in the donut-like space of Ring Cube, Ricoh's gallery atop the circular San-ai building, a landmark on the corner of the Ginza. However, with a slight increase in the number of images on the wall, the suspension of cloth prints from the ceiling, and the application of "snow" made of resin, replete with shovel, the exhibition was transformed into an ingeniously contrived installation. |
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| Everyday Life / Hidden Reasons |
| 18 October - 19 November 2011 |
Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery
(Kanagawa) |
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| Subtitled "New York - Kanagawa 2011," this group show featured three young New York-based artists originally from Japan: Satoru Eguchi, Kazue Taguchi, and Midori Harima. All three produced rather spacious installations that seemed at least tenuously linked by the common theme of the everyday: Eguchi, for example, displayed a roomful of quotidian objects -- furniture, pencils, kitchen appliances -- constructed entirely of paper, while Harima projected landscape images onto a house. |
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| Morinaga's Confectionery Box: A Sweet Gift from Angel |
| 3 November 2011 - 9 January 2012 |
Tobacco & Salt Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| One of Japan's best-known confectioners, Morinaga & Co. Ltd. has been making chocolates, biscuits and caramels since 1899. This entertaining and nostalgia-inducing show (at the Tobacco & Salt Museum, of all places) traces the changes in the company's products and packaging since the Meiji period, with special emphasis on the burgeoning of the sweets market after the war. Posters, advertisements, and TV commercials are supplemented by toys and canned goods representative of different eras of modern Japanese merchandising. |
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| Yoshio Akioka |
| 29 October - 25 December 2011 |
Meguro Museum of Art
(Tokyo) |
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| This retrospective of the work of designer Akioka (1920-97) introduces his ouevre in chronological fashion. The fruit of a survey conducted by the museum since 2009 of materials found at the Akioka home, the exhibit demonstrates that the highly diverse Akioka tended to try his hand at different media one at a time, rather than all at once.
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