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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.
1 February 2012
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Ryota Uemura and Enk De Kramer
30 January - 11 February 2012
O Gallery eyes
(Osaka)
This dual exhibition brings together two artists whose works normally generate utterly disparate impressions -- which should make for an intriguing gallery ambience (the show was not yet up as we went to press). Whether applying the techniques of etching, drawing or painting, both Uemura and De Kramer have a disposition toward employing reddish hues and layers of complex lines that produce disturbing images.

Kansai 6 Exhibition in Osaka: Onomatopoeia
26 November 2011 - 14 February 2012
de sign de > (Nakanoshima Design Museum)
(Osaka)
Kansai 6 is a group of contemporary architects, based in western Japan, who share an interest in designing structures for the "Asian era." Here each has chosen an onomatopoetic word that he feels expresses his style as reflected in the models on display. Thus we have GURUGURU from Shuhei Endo, GUIGUI from Katsuhiro Miyamoto, MAZEMAZE from Youngil Lee, JIWAJIWA from Dai Nagasaka, ZIGZAG from Kiyoshi Takeyama, and GUNGUN from Akira Yoneda. The second-floor gallery offers the added pleasure of a river view. On the first floor, the same six architects exhibit some impressively large models of ready-built houses.
The Ossu! Shugeibu and Hideki Toyoshima: Jiga Daizessan - My Artwork Amazes Me
23 November 2011 - 20 March 2012
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa)
The reviewer found it impossible to guess from the title what kind of show this might be, but it proved an apt description. The Ossu! Shigeibu (literally "Yo! Handicraft Team") is the brainchild of Shoichi Ishizawa, an artist who organized this group of seven "gallant young men" with no handicrafts experience whatsoever and set them to work making things. This exhibition of their playful handiwork has been designed and installed by another artist, Hideki Toyoshima. The result is certainly entertaining, although one elderly visitor was heard to murmur, "Why is this stuff being shown in an art museum?"
Silent Echoes: Collection Exhibition II

17 September 2011 - 8 April 2012
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa)
Initially this show may strike one as context-challenged: a hodgepodge of unrelated works by artists ranging from Anish Kapoor and Tse Su-Mei to the late graphic designer Kiyoshi Awazu and the avant-garde GUTAI movement's co-founder Tsuruko Yamazaki (still alive and kicking at 86). It turns out, however, to be a fairly inspired, albeit loosely organized, selection from the museum's collection. The addition of Hokuriku-region favorite sons Kenji Kuze and Kazuo Kadonaga highlights the strength of the local art community as well.
Yayoi Kusama: Eternity of Eternal Eternity

7 January - 8 April 2012
National Museum of Art, Osaka
(Osaka)
Showcasing some 100 of Kusama's recent works, ranging from the "Love Forever" series of silkscreen prints of marker-pen line drawings, to the violently colored paintings of the "My Eternal Spirit" series, to her latest self-portraits, this show offers a thorough look at Kusama World in its current incarnation. Human faces, eyes, dots, and prickly patterns of what appear to be plants collide in chaotic profusion, exuding an implacable lifeforce and a hint of sorcery. The paintings are substantial -- one meter square -- and testify to Kusama's unquenchable desire to create. It's hard to believe she's eighty.
Yukio Suzuki and Dance Company Kingyo: Evanescere

3 - 5 February 2012
Setagaya Public Theatre / Theatre Tram
(Tokyo)
Butoh-influenced dancer and choreographer Suzuki presents two new works this month under the thematic rubric "Volatile Body." Evanescere is a solo dance by Suzuki, while the second piece, whose title loosely translates as Witness to a Secret Ritual, features four female dancers. This reviewer looks forward to seeing what Suzuki means by "volatility" and how it will be realized in these new performances.
Toshiki Teramura: The Fiction Inside You

7 January - 11 February 2012
Mori Yu Gallery Tokyo
(Tokyo)
Teramura paints scenes that look just like frames extracted from a movie, but are actually composites of images the artist has culled from various media. This solo show supplements the finished works with preliminary sketches, which indeed resemble film storyboards. Clearly Teramura does have cinema on his mind: another clue is the dimensions of the paintings, which mimic those of a wide screen. Just as digital technology has made it impossible to distinguish between true live action and special effects in films these days, Teramura's work skillfully blurs the boundary between reality and fiction.

Neri Kitchen presents "Feast Concert: Winter Stars"

23 December 2011
Common Cafe
(Osaka)
This was the third annual year-end concert at Osaka's Common Cafe by thereminist Saori Kojima and kotoist Reiko Imanishi, the latter known for her collaborations with electronic music artists and contemporary dancers. In this four-woman "Winter Stars" configuration, they worked once again with food and tea "artists" Neri Kitchen and Chaonna to produce a magical event that appealed to the eye and palate just as much as to the ear. The wealth of multisensory input in turn enhanced the audience's enjoyment of the sounds they created.

Usagikko Club: UTEN KEKKO

16 - 25 December 2011
island MEDIUM
(Tokyo)
Ai madonna, Satoru Otsuka, and Takashi Sakurai are three young artists who make up the fanzine circle Usagikko Club. For this show they juxtaposed famous works of art with manga, sewed worksuits covered with Louis Vuitton patterns, drew pictures of Akihabara in ruins, and generally seemed to have a fine time without regard for trivialities like copyrights or copycat tendencies. Nor do they appear concerned with tweaking the viewer's consciousness on any level. This may not be art that could compete in the "real" art world, but the group obviously enjoys indulging in the opportunity to play outside that milieu anyway.
Jun'ichi Mori: trinitite
24 November - 24 December 2011
Mizuma Art Gallery
(Tokyo)
Trinitite is the name given to the glasslike substance that was formed of sand fused by Trinity, the first atomic bomb test, which took place in the New Mexico desert in 1945. The same type of bomb was dropped three weeks later on Nagasaki, sculptor Mori's hometown. Shadow, his black ceramic bust of the Virgin Mary, is modeled after the "Bombed Maria" of Nagasaki's Urakami Cathedral. With a surface melted at high temperatures, this work, too, could be said to be a kind of trinitite. To this visitor it seemed a fitting image with which to herald the end of 2011, a year too full of tragedy and trauma.
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