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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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| Kyohei Sakaguchi: Practice for a Revolution |
| 17 November 2012 - 3 February 2013 |
Watari-um
(Tokyo) |
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| Judging by the scads of drawings on display, Sakaguchi is not so much an architect as an outsider artist. Known for his homeless-inspired Zero Yen House, as well as Zero Center, a ramshackle home in Kyushu he has offered up as an alternative government seat to replace Japan's "dysfunctional" post-Fukushima administration, Sakaguchi engages in street art that, while not exactly novel, is inarguably intrepid. He gets points for opening a new Zero Center close by the Watari-um Museum in Tokyo's toney Aoyama neighborhood. One craves more. |
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| To Create Is to Live: Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Aid |
| 17 - 27 January 2013 |
KIITO Design and Creative Center Kobe
(Hyogo) |
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| This is the Kobe edition of a project launched in the aftermath of the March 2011 disaster. Among the standouts: Noboru Tsubaki, whose massive 30-meter-long balloon sculpture addresses Japan's nuclear issues; Naoya Hatakeyama, who photographed the devastated city of Rikuzentakata both pre- and post-tsunami; and Ryuji Miyamoto, whose photos of Kobe after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 are projected onto a huge screen. |
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| Masumi Kura: "my favorites" |
| 18 January - 23 February 2013 |
Zeit-Foto Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| There are resemblances between this photo collection and Garry Winogrand's Women Are Beautiful (1975), but Kura's work clearly demarcates the temporal and geographic distance between her and Winogrand's countercultural- and feminist- influenced imagery. Moreover, "my favorites" is hardly a freewheeling glorification of manhood, but evinces a vaguely gloomy vibe. |
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| Eri Morimoto |
| 22 January - 9 February 2013 |
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Sai Gallery
(Osaka)
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| Morimoto's approach involves the repetition of seemingly random, irregular motifs so that they appear to be following a complex set of rules. Her recent exhibition introduced paintings composed of countless dots, as well as small objects formed by linking intricately cut rings of paper. |
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| Sota Kotajima: TIME 8 closed circle |
| 22 - 27 January 2013 |
Kunst Arzt
(Kyoto) |
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| Eight "pictures" consisting of sheets of used sandpaper hang in the gallery's subroom. The visitor refers to these as clues in searching for the traces where Kotajima has sanded the walls and floor of the main gallery with those same sheets. The recorded sounds of the artist's sanding activities are played back in the gallery. The uniquely expressive format and keen sensibility of this site-specific installation has a surprisingly strong impact on the viewer. |
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| Furansowa Fujii |
| 7 - 19 January 2013 |
O Gallery eyes
(Osaka) |
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| Master of bizarre motifs in traditional settings, Furansowa (Francois) Fujii did not disappoint in this recent show. Screen paintings in his Hyakki Yagyo (Night Parade of 100 Demons) series featured his hallmark tsukumogami (artifact spirits), while smaller works crossed animals with traditional Japanese candies. There were also two large works, Tsuki no Kobukobura (Kobukobura Moon) and Koza Ryujin (Seated Dragon God), the latter of which is an anomaly in Fujii's oeuvre for its portrayal of an actual human figure (albeit a divine one). |
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| Satoshi Kino Ceramic Exhibition |
| 14 - 26 January 2013 |
Gallery Haku 3
(Osaka) |
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| Kino produces precisely-formed works of white China clay on a wheel. These are neither objects for daily use nor objets d'art, exactly, but rather creations unique to the world of ceramics. While paying homage to the techniques, history, and spirit of ceramic art, his pieces are a marked departure from what has gone before -- which is, no doubt, the artist's objective. |
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| Kaori Tanaka: Niwajima (Garden Island) |
| 4 - 16 January 2013 |
gallery near
(Kyoto) |
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| Tanaka paints with fluorescent pinks, greens, and oranges to create a vivid world of trees, floating islands, and sacred mountains. The effect is that of a sweet confection chock-full of artificial flavoring and coloring. Tanaka says her theme is "human impressions of artificial nature" -- in other words, a contemporary take on the distinctively Japanese perception of nature reflected in formal gardens and bonsai trees.
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| Sachi Yoshioka |
| 15 - 20 January 2013 |
Gallery Keifu
(Kyoto) |
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| Yoshioka is known for her colorful, mannered paintings of fruit, banana plants and the like. This recent show, however, revealed an entirely new approach characterized by bold, rough strokes in sumi ink. Some works utilized the decalomania-like technique of painting on one half of a folded sheet of paper and making a composition of the blotted image.
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| Yohei Shimada: Shigotoba (Workplace) |
| 8 January - 3 February 2013 |
Kobe 819 Gallery
(Hyogo) |
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| This 14-photo exhibition portrayed people in their workplaces -- carpenters, auto mechanics, chefs, rakugo storytellers, kamishibai paper-play performers -- in a series reminiscent of August Sander's People of the 20th Century. Shimada's style, however, is the diametric opposite of Sander's, epitomizing as it does the consummate skills -- particularly in lighting and retouching -- he has acquired in his years as a commercial photographer. A comparison of Sander's 20th-century approach and Shimada's 21st-century methodology would make for an interesting lesson in the history of photographic technique. |
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