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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering commentary by a variety of reviewers about exhibitions at museums and galleries in recent weeks, with an emphasis on contemporary art by young artists. |
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15 January 2013 |
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| Chojamachi Art Planet |
| 10 - 25 November 2012 |
Chapter 2 + Chojamachi
(Kanagawa) |
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| With the cooperation of local shopowners, eight artists displayed their work in the streets and shops of the Chojamachi district of Yokohama. Jun Kitagawa hung a five-meter-high red rose in the parking lot next to a pachinko parlor. Masuo Uehata arranged solid objects made of colored paper so that they appeared to be thrusting through the beams and eaves of a shop. These and other artists like Kouki Sugiyama, who placed a massive golden sculpture in a parking garage, did a yeomanlike job, but in the end there were not enough works to lend the needed density to the show. |
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| Hiraki Sawa: Whirl |
| 23 October - 24 November 2012 |
Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery
(Kanagawa) |
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| Every fall, this gallery presents works by young, pathbreaking artists and manages the daunting task of filling up Kanagawa Prefectural Civic Hall's vast 1,450-square-meter subterranean space in the process. Recent offerings have been heavy on video art and this year is no exception. London-based Sawa's installation makes even older video works seem new; there is never a dull moment. |
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| Scenery from There
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| 5 - 17 November 2012 |
Gallery Natsuka
(Tokyo) |
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| Three artists -- sculptor Toshimitsu Ito, painter Kana Yoshida, and printmaker Haruhiko Yoshinaga -- offer works on the theme of landscapes. Of particular note are Ito's sculptures of mountains that resemble human bodies or heads. There seems to be a bit of a boom of late in landscape sculpture, but most such efforts appear to consist of craggy peaks. It would be nice if someone started sculpting flat plains instead. |
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| Oscar Oiwa: Traveling Light |
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Shibuya Hikarie 8
(Tokyo)
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| As usual, Brazil-born Oiwa's paintings are allegorical works with double images and other playful elements scattered throughout his depictions of cities, suburbs, or jungles that could be in or around Sao Paulo, New York, or Tokyo -- it's not clear where. Odd motifs pop up on the edges of urban street scenes or on the leaves and branches of trees. These are not perfunctory details added to fill in extraneous corners of his work, but seem rather to flow from an enthusiastic compulsion to highlight those very corners -- a compulsion that reveals Oiwa at his most creative. |
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| Kodai Nakahara: Drawings 1986-2012 |
| 22 September - 4 November 2012 |
Itami City Museum of Art
(Hyogo) |
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| Nakahara (b.1961) first began attracting notice in the early 1980s, but faded from the limelight around the mid-1990s, and until now had showed no signs of making a "comeback." Since 2005, however, he has resumed his production of drawings. These works are richly varied, but the several hundred on display in this show did not lend themselves easily to individual comprehension, and were best viewed as collectively forming a single "drawing." |
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| Masanori Hata / Toshiya Murakoshi / Seiko Watanabe |
| 1 - 30 November 2012 |
artdish g
(Tokyo)
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| This group show featured three artists who are releasing photo collections with artdish's new publishing imprint, A PRESS. The works on display shared certain motifs in common, notably rocks and stones, but the three photographers' styles diverge considerably. Still, other commonalities came to light, such as the fact that all three are of the same generation (born in the early 1980s), and that they share a concern with the interpenetration of words and pictures. |
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| Kaii Higashiyama |
| 22 September - 11 November 2012 |
The Miyagi Museum of Art
(Miyagi) |
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| Higashiyama (1908-99) exhibitions are always guaranteed to draw a crowd. This retrospective is particularly interesting for the early experimental works on display, produced before the painter settled into his archetypal landscape style, as well as European landscapes that reveal his affinity for the natural beauty of that continent. Viewing a cross-section of his oeuvre in this fashion, one realizes that he did not merely paint from nature, but framed it in compositions of scrupulous design. |
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| Nara Machiya Art Festival HANARART 2012 |
| 1 - 11 November 2012 |
Yamatokoriyama and elsewhere, Nara Prefecture
(Nara) |
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| This art festival occupies the old-town neighborhoods and traditional Japanese town houses of various locales in the Yamato basin surrounding the city of Nara. The setup is unique, with curators selected from nationwide applicants visiting the region numerous times and working with both artists and local residents. This year's edition, the second, offered events by 11 curators at 15 venues in six districts around Nara Prefecture. The memories, stories, and histories embedded in the artworks on display infused the townscapes with an extra dose of vitality. |
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| Raiosha Gendai Art Exhibition 9: Forest of Words |
| 15 - 21 November 2012 |
Raiosha Gallery, Keio University
(Kanagawa) |
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| Organized by students in Professor Yukio Kondo's art seminar, this 9th contemporary art exhibition held on Keio University's Hiyoshi campus featured an installation workshop, open to the public, under the guidance of artist Mai Miyake. In a space filled with potted plants, texts written by participants were strung together like an associative word game to form a veritable "forest of words." |
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| Taku Hisamura: Existing there without appearing to be |
| 14 November - 24 December 2012 |
3331 Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| The gallery was cluttered with well-worn temporary walls and platforms, arranged to leave just enough space for a single person to barely squeeze through the labyrinth. But the various parts were not arranged in parallel or perpendicular to one another, but at slightly oblique angles, so that negotiating the gaps between them required unforeseen agility. With such items as framed photos placed on the floor, as if tossed there in the course of some unfinished job, this was an installation that appeared marvelously slipshod. |
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