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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 December 2014
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The Japan Fine Arts Exhibition
31 October - 7 December 2014
The National Art Center
(Tokyo)
The hoary (since 1907!) annual art show known as Nitten appears to be striving for a new look, given that the Japanese title of this year's edition includes the words "reorganized," "new," and "first." A new director -- Nihonga artist Sayume Okada -- has also come on board, as well as a number of jurors brought in from "outside." We'll see if all this commotion translates into real change.

Architecture Since 3.11
1 November 2014 - 10 May 2015
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa)
This reviewer had the opportunity to help the museum's assistant curators assemble one of Shigeru Ban's much vaunted instant-partitioning systems for evacuation centers. It turns out to be a very efficient system indeed -- even simpler and quicker than I had imagined.
Motohiko Odani: Terminal Moment

11 November - 14 December 2014

Kyoto Art Center
(Kyoto)
Contemporary sculptor and video/installation artist Odani is the focus of this KAC show, part of Kyoto's "Rimpa 400th Anniversary Festival." Confronting the problems of sculpture has been a persistent theme of his three-dimensional work; here he scrutinizes the relationship between "omission" in sculpture and the human figure, presenting new works that juxtapose issues of movement and sculptural icons.
Nobuyoshi Araki Ojo Shashu: Photography for the Afterlife - EasternSky, PARADISE

22 October - 25 December 2014

Shiseido Gallery
(Tokyo)
This tour-de-force show is a fitting conclusion to what has been a frenetic and fruitful year for the 74-year-old photographer. His 13-print "EasternSky" series captures the dawn sky on successive mornings from his apartment window. The melancholy tone suggests a kind of requiem for the dead.
The Paintings of Sengai and Nabeshima Ceramics

4 October - 14 December 2014
Hosomi Museum
(Kyoto)
Known for his one-of-a-kind, laid-back approach to sumi ink painting, Sengai was also a master of the single-stroke circle, that hallmark of Zen calligraphy. Next to one such image appears the text, "This would go well with a cup of tea" -- and indeed, his circle looks like nothing so much as a soft, puffy dumpling. Sengai was clearly someone who had experienced the broad-minded aspect of Zen teachings firsthand.
Born Here, Yet to Be Born Here

29 October 2014 - 15 February 2015

Nakamuraya Salon Museum of Art
(Tokyo)
The new museum's inaugural show presents works -- primarily oil paintings and sculptures -- by artists who gathered at the salon of the legendary eatery Nakamuraya a century ago. Highlights include Morie Ogiwara's Miner and Woman, Kotaro Takamura's Hand and Self-Portrait, Tsune Nakamura's Nude Girl, Goro Tsuruta's Eroshenko Blind, Teijiro Nakahara's Young Caucasian, and Yaichi Aizu's calligraphy.
project N 58 Yoriko Takabatake

10 October - 23 December 2014
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
(Tokyo)
Takabatake layers her canvases with thin-squeezed lines of oil paint in a warp-weft grid of floral or abstract patterns. The paint functions like threads that form what appear to be torn fragments of fabric. Since the canvas is also made of woven hemp, the result is in effect a double layer of weaving. When she applies these "threads" in many colors, her works begin to resemble television screen patterns.
From the Terada Collection: Delights of Abstraction

18 October - 23 December 2014
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
(Tokyo)
From its own Terada Collection of postwar Japanese art, the gallery has selected 63 abstract works by some 30 artists, among them Shinro Ohtake, Mitsuo Kano, Tadaaki Kuwayama, Yuko Shiraishi, Kumi Sugai, Shuzo Takiguchi, Hisao Domoto, Tatsuoki Nanbata, Kazuo Shiraga, Gyouji Nomiyama, Tomoharu Murakami, Masaaki Yamada, Jiro Yoshihara, Quac Insik, and Lee U-fan.
Between the Art and the Print - Chiossone, Fontanesi, and Japan in the Meiji
18 October 2014 - 12 January 2015
Printing Museum
(Tokyo)
This fascinating show focuses on two of the "foreign experts" hired by the Meiji government in the late 1800s; both men had a significant influence on printing and painting in Japan. Chiossone was an engraver who produced the plates for Japan's first modern paper currency and trained his successors in the fine points of printing. Fontanesi taught Western-style painting at the country's first art school, which was affiliated with the Imperial College of Engineering.
National Treasures of Japan
15 October - 7 December 2014

Tokyo National Museum
(Tokyo)
An ambitious exhibition that offers everything from 5,000-year-old dogu figurines to 19th-century Ryukyu robes -- over 100 items in all, and every one of them a designated National Treasure. The sheer age of the beautifully preserved Heian-era (12th-century) Buddhist paintings and illustrated scrolls is stunning in itself. Most astonishing, though, is that the museum also managed to truck in a "miniature" five-storied pagoda from Nara's Gangoji temple that tops out at 5.5 meters -- incidentally the only architectural National Treasure on display here.
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