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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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| Shintaro Tanaka, Kenjiro Okazaki, Kodai Nakahara: Articulating Form |
| 25 April - 22 June 2014 |
BankART Studio NYK
(Kanagawa) |
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| Large works by Tanaka, Okazaki, and Nakahara utilize the cavernous spaces of BankART's retooled shipping warehouse to contemplate the nature of form. The curators' choice of these three artists of disparate generations and approaches is intriguing. Their quest for form leads to connections with architecture, design, and other diverse genres. The trio's essays in the exhibition catalog are also worth a read. |
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| Nobuaki Date: Send-off Exhibition for the Toyonaka Municipal Civic Hall Send-off Exhibition |
| 9 - 26 June 2014 |
Gallery wks.
(Osaka) |
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| Nobuaki Date is known for the ukuleles he builds from materials found in demolished buildings, which he describes as traces of the memories of people associated with the structures. This past February he held a "send-off exhibition" at a gallery in his hometown of Toyonaka for the local civic hall; the show included parts of the dismantled building, construction documents, and city p.r. magazines. As a reconstruction of and sequel to the first show, this one was a "send-off of the send-off." |
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| Sakiko Kurita: The Iris in the Rain |
| 16 - 29 June 2014 |
Fukugan Gallery
(Osaka) |
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| Most of these paintings depict birds or animals of one sort or another. In Satsukiyama Trickster a cat sits on a display shelf amid rows of small objects; in Rubbing Dog a Shiba dog stands next to a tray with a votive offering of fruit. These curious situations and titles stick in the memory. The varying gradations of color and the compositional rhythm generate a sublime mood in which several periods of time seem to coexist collage-like in the same picture frame. |
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| i WANT YOU |
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Enokojima Creates Osaka
(Osaka)
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| In this joint effort by Takuma Uematsu and Yuki Hayashi, Uematsu supplies a scaffolding-like installation of cable ties and lumber, onto which Hayashi's video works are projected at an oblique angle, or with the monitor hung upside-down. Thus the viewer is unable to face the images straight on, leaving an impression of jumbled fragments. With the curator also involved in its layout, the collaboration exudes a happy aura of teamwork. |
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| Izuru Kasahara: Fluffy Limbo / Treatment |
| 10 June - 6 July 2014 |
Traumaris
(Tokyo) |
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| During the nineties, Kasahara began featuring his trademark "Smiles" -- ghostlike creatures with smiling faces -- in sculptures and installations. Since 2006, however, he has focused on painting. The current works are all square canvases on which he has painted out-of-focus images, captured on the Internet, of such objects as Mt. Fuji and crockery, then covered them with rows of gold-foil Smiles. It is hard to tell whether the little critters are laughing at the Fuji below them, or cheering the mountain on. |
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| Yui Sakamoto: hide-and-seek |
| 24 - 29 June 2014 |
Kunst Arzt
(Osaka) |
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| Sakamoto says her creative motifs these days are the vague sensations of loss and anxiety experienced in everyday life. Her layering of multiple colors is eloquent as always, but it is the force of her lines that astonishes. Several of these canvases appear to have warped under the impact. Every picture tells a story, forming a single temporal axis that runs through the entire gallery space. |
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| Shigeru Onishi: Elusive Avant-Garde Photographer |
| 26 May - 7 June 2014 |
Galerie Omotesando
(Tokyo) |
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| A "late arrival" to the postwar avant-garde photography scene, Shigeru Onishi (1928-94) vanished from it almost as quickly as he appeared. The 20 prints shown here demonstrate why he earned the praise of Art Informel proponent Michel Tapié, who loved Onishi's abstract use of sumi ink. These works brim with elements that burst out of the confines of conventional photography. |
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| Mitsugu Onishi: Drainage Channel |
| 18 June - 1 July 2014 |
Ginza Nikon Salon
(Tokyo) |
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| The Arakawa Canal was dug out during the first decades of the 20th century. Today a pall of desolation hangs over the waterway, which is lined with the blue sheets of homeless encampments and the remains of bonfires. A palpable current of rage runs through Onishi's images, an impression reinforced by the photographer's comment that "it frustrates me that Tokyo's coastal landscapes have been abandoned to their fate ever since the Great East Japan Earthquake." |
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