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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.
1 February 2013
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Over the Rainbow: Flights of Fancy Link Here and Beyond
23 November 2012 - 24 February 2013
Fuchu Art Museum
(Tokyo)
This group exhibition introduces nine contemporary artists, including Yasuko Iba, Mizue Ogiso, Chisato Saito, and Mieko Shiomi, who use "familiar things and everyday scenes as their point of departure." Of particular interest is the work of Midori Mitamura, who in recent years has attracted notice with her globe-trotting "Art & Breakfast" project, in which an installation gradually takes form each day in the course of the artist's conversations over breakfast with visitors.

Do Ho Suh - Perfect Home
23 November 2012 - 17 March 2013
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa)
Korean-born artist Suh uses thin, delicate fabrics to reproduce the volumes of existing buildings and spaces. This large-scale exhibition features a mobile structure in which one can sleep, an outdoor installation with a house squeezed between buildings, and a scale model of houses colliding with each other.
MIO PHOTO OSAKA 2013
30 January - 3 February 2013
MIO Tennoji
(Osaka)
This open-submissions photo exhibition has been held since 1998, but last year it underwent a major overhaul and now boasts two concurrent events: an Open Portfolio Review, in which reviewers and artists discuss works submitted for the upcoming year's show, and MIO Photo Award Prime, an exhibition by three artists selected from last year's review. This year's artists are Naomi Inoue, Nozomi Yamashita, and Masaki Tsunoki.
The Universe of Rosanjin: 130th Anniversary

5 January - 3 February 2013
Akashi City Museum of Culture
(Hyogo)
Though best known for his ceramics, the multifaceted Rosanjin Kitaoji (1883-1959) was also a calligrapher, seal engraver, lacquer artist, and painter -- as well as a gourmet cook who served as chef at his own restaurant. This exhibition commemorating the 130th anniversary of his birth chooses to focus on his pottery and paintings, showcasing some 80 works from the collection of the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art.
Through the Other Side

12 January - 3 March 2013
Itami City Museum of Art
(Hyogo)
The show's title and concept are inspired by a quote from artist Hajime Imamura (b.1957): "like something leaking from a space punched through the other side of an everyday object." The theme is those various "other sides" that coexist, back-to-back and inseparably, with the visible world -- interior vs. exterior, back vs. front, dark vs. light. Highlighted are works from the museum's collection that "draw the viewer into the world of the imagination."
How Did Architects Respond Immediately after 3/11?

14 November 2012 - 2 February 2013
The Japan Cultural Institute in Cologne
(Germany)
Organized by the Japan Foundation, this exhibition has been traveling since March 2012, the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, appearing in museums and Japan Cultural Institute branches worldwide. At the current show, in Koln, Germany, a lecture on post-disaster architecture attracted particular interest in the topics of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and efforts to restore damaged structures.
MAM PROJECT 018: Yamashiro Chikako

17 November 2012 - 31 March 2013
Mori Art Museum
(Tokyo)
In her performances atop Okinawa's distinctive turtle-back tombs, or film and video works like Seaweed Woman (2008), in which she floats offshore in a bed of seaweed, Okinawa native Yamakawa channels the mythic imagination of the matrilineal societies of the Ryukyu archipelago. This show introduces her latest opus, the three-screen video A Woman of the Butcher Shop (2012). In a departure from previous efforts, this one focuses on the storytelling and can be enjoyed as a full-fledged feature film.

The Japanese Who Loved Mucha

17 November 2012 - 10 March 2013
Alphonse Mucha Museum
(Osaka)
Located on the premises of Sakai City Cultural Hall, the Alphonse Mucha Museum is dedicated to the work of the noted Czech Art-Nouveau artist (1860-1939). This show examines his influence on Meiji-era (1868-1912) Japanese artists, displaying their works alongside Mucha's and supplementing them with photographs and other documentation. A section featuring posters by Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, and other prominent fin-de-siecle artists provides a useful introduction to the Art Nouveau movement.
Erika Yoshino: Digitalis
8 December 2012 - 19 January 2013
Taka Ishii Gallery
(Tokyo)
Unlike her previous work, the images in Yoshino's photo collection Just Like on the Radio (Osiris, 2011) were shot in color, a change that adds a certain acuity -- like running one's finger over an open wound -- to her scenes of dreary streetscapes in the North Kanto area, her home territory. The works on display in this show are a sequel to that series.
somewhere between me and this world
8 December 2012 - 27 January 2013
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
(Tokyo)
This is the 11th edition of the museum's "Japanese Contemporary Photography" series, which has garnered accolades for reliably selecting and showcasing a group of young and promising photographers each year. The artists -- Tomoko Kikuchi, Kazuna Taguchi, Keiko Sasaoka, Chino Otsuka, and Masumi Kura -- share an earnest determination to scrutinize the ambiguous relationship hinted at by the title.
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