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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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| Tadashi Toda: The Masterpiece by a Printer |
| 7 - 29 March 2015 |
COHJU contemporary art
(Kyoto) |
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| A master woodblock surishi (printer) in the ukiyo-e tradition, Toda (1936-2000) participated in a Japanese-style woodcut project by the American publisher Crown Point Press in the 1980s, helping produce prints by such luminaries as Donald Judd, Francesco Clemente, and Chuck Close. This show provided a rare opportunity to view works found at Toda's studio, as well as print proofs, tools, and newspaper articles and other documentation of his illustrious career. |
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| Ichiro Hariu: From the Perspective of an Art Critic |
| 31 January - 22 March 2015 |
The Miyagi Museum of Art
(Miyagi) |
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| Sendai-born art critic Hariu (1925-2010) was instrumental in defining and interpreting art in postwar Japan. Boasting some 300 items, including paintings produced from the 50s through the 70s as well as Hariu's writings and films, this exhibition examined those decades through his eyes. Unfortunately, however, it ignored his work as a human-rights activist from the 80s on, when he no longer focused exclusively on art criticism. |
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| Sayaka Shingu: Longing for the Eternal Touch |
| 31 January - 22 March 2015 |
Gallery Utsuwa-kan
(Kyoto) |
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| Ceramic artist Shingu is known for her eccentrically-shaped objects -- flowers that resemble sea anemones and the like. This recent show also included some beautiful vessels that were a perfect union of the aesthetic and the pragmatic. One looks forward to Shingu's ongoing development as both artist and artisan. |
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| Korin's Art: Korin and Modern Art |
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4 February - 3 March 2015 |
MOA Museum of Art
(Shizuoka) |
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| This was a rare opportunity to see Ogata Korin's two most celebrated screen paintings, the MOA Museum's own Red and White Plum Blossoms and the Nezu Museum's Irises, in the same place. Commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Rinpa School master's death, the MOA juxtaposed these works with more modern efforts allegedly influenced by Korin, including several by such contemporary stars as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Takashi Murakami, and Makoto Aida. |
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| Natsuko Tanihara: Black is the Colour |
| 3 - 14 March 2015 |
galerie 16
(Kyoto) |
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Currently a graduate student at Kyoto City University of Arts, Tanihara is already acquiring a name for herself among art aficionados in Japan. She applies oils, rhinestones, lamé and other materials to a black velvet ground, and her motifs -- distorted human figures, dolls, animals, spirits -- spill into the surrounding room, filling it with an otherworldly atmosphere. Her work is at once ornate, melancholy, malignant, folklorish, and supernatural. |
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| Ichitaka Kamiji: re:male |
| 3 - 15 March 2015 |
Gallery Tomo
(Kyoto) |
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| Sculptor Kamiji produces his three-dimensional works by applying SF-film makeup techniques he studied on his own to plaster busts of the sort used for sketching. His models are historical or religious personages like Michelangelo, St. George, and Giuliano de' Medici. The figures are stunningly lifelike, more "living dolls" than sculptures. |
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| Natsumi Tomita: Contemporary Ukiyo-e -- Portraits of Actors on the Stage |
| 2 - 20 March 2015 |
Galerie Tokyo Humanité
(Tokyo) |
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| These reliefs resemble the illustrations applied to Japanese battledores. Tomita constructs semi-solid human figures of papier mache, then covers them with collages of newspaper and magazine pages featuring current pop idols -- AKB48, Arashi, Exile and the like. As the term "ukiyo-e" suggests, she models these portraits after Edo-era color prints of actors and courtesans. |
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Kakuya Ohashi and Dancers: "Clouded" and "HEAVY METAL" |
20 - 26 March 2015 |
Koto City Culture and Community Foundation
(Tokyo) |
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| Taking as their theme "Vampires Sucking the Memory of the Land," Kakuya Ohashi and Dancers have been conducting their own distinctive research on Tokyo's Koto-ku district since 2013. The second season of the project introduces two new works. "Clouded" is a walking performance in which dancers and audience spend two to four hours strolling around and visiting various spots in Koto-ku. |
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| Keizo Kitajima: Henry Darger's Room |
| 20 February - 12 March 2015 |
epSITE (Epson Imaging Gallery)
(Tokyo) |
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| Legendary outsider artist Henry Darger (1829-1973) spent the last 40 years of his life in a small Chicago apartment. When photographer Kitajima learned that the building would be demolished in April 2000, he hastened there and shot these images of the interior. The result is a thorough and reverential record of Darger's artistic life: piles of watercolor paints, color pencils, brushes, a typewriter, and the picture books, advertisements, and old photos he used as raw material for his collages and drawings. |
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| naoki ishikawa + yoshitomo nara: to the north, from here |
| 25 January - 10 May 2015 |
Watari-um
(Tokyo) |
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| Coincidence or fate led artist Nara and photographer Ishikawa to travel together in the summer of 2015 to Japan's northernmost reaches: Aomori, Hokkaido, and even Sakhalin. This exhibition centered around the photos the two shot during their sojourn. The contrasting interplay between their approaches -- Ishikawa more spontaneous, Nara more decorous -- was a pleasure to see. A corner devoted to the two men's "starting points" offered an intriguing collection of maps, books, records and other items that were "by-products" of the trip. |
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