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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 September 2015

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Risaku Suzuki: Stream of consciousness

18 July - 23 September 2015

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
(Tokyo)

In this extensive exhibition, photographer Suzuki presents some 150 images from five series: "Between Mountains and the Sea," "Water Mirror," "White," "SAKURA," and "Etude." His concern with the display format of the prints as a fundamental aspect of his work is apparent in the attention he has paid to the show's installation and environment.

Things: Rethinking Japanese Photography and Art in 1970s

26 May - 13 September 2015

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
(Tokyo)

Mono ("things"), as in Mono-ha, was a keyword for Japanese art in the 1970s. The focus here is on works by photographers of the era, along with contemporaneous catalogues, photo journals and other paraphernalia. Featured are Takuma Nakahira, who famously rejected the are bure (rough and blurry) school of sixties photography in his manifesto about precision, Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary?; Kiyoji Ohtsuji, whose images chronicled the seminal Between Man and Matter exhibition of 1970; Jiro Takamatsu and his "Oneness" series; and Mono-ha icon Kouji Enokura. One would like to know what the current generation of young artists makes of all this concern with "things."

The Railway Series: Thomas & Friends

18 July - 12 October 2015

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
(Tokyo)

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the beloved "Thomas the Tank Engine" series of children's books. Launched in the U.K. in 1945, it has young fans worldwide, including Japan. The show offers everything from original art by the four illustrators who drew Thomas over the years, to 3D models of Thomas's face, to a mini-locomotive that carries kids over actual rails. With their attention to perspective and mechanical precision, the illustrations differ noticeably from the lyrical style typical of Japanese picture books.

Oscar Niemeyer: The Man Who Built Brasilia

18 July - 12 October 2015

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
(Tokyo)

The celebrated architect of Brazil's space-age capital, Niemeyer lived to the ripe old age of 104 (he died in 2012) but never lost his voracious appetite for design. This retrospective ranges from models and photos of such works as the Contemporary Art Museum, Niteroi, which resembles a flying saucer perched atop a cliff, and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasilia, which looks like a milk crown, to a 30:1 scale model of Sao Paulo's Ibirapuera Park that fills the museum's atrium space.

Art and City in Yokohama and Taipei

24 July - 13 September 2015

BankART Studio NYK
(Kanagawa)

Yokohama's BankART project and Taiwan's Taipei Artist Village have engaged in a vigorous artist exchange program since 2005. Showcased here are 21 artists who have participated over the past decade. The biggest surprise is the work presented by Taiwan's Yen-yi Chen. During her Yokohama residence she produced craft-like objects with samples of kimono fabric, but here she displays photographs taken with surveillance cameras she built and placed along city streets.

Legendary Artists of Japanese Western Painting: The Centennial of the Nika Exhibition

18 July - 6 September 2015

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
(Tokyo)

Organized to represent contemporary Japanese artists overseas, the Nika Association held its first exhibition in 1914. This year is the occasion of its 100th (September 2 to 14 at the National Art Center Tokyo). In this commemorative show reviewing a century of Nika Exhibitions, the standout work is from the lively, freewheeling prewar period. Highlights include the bold use of complementary colors by Hirotaro Sogame, winner of the first Nika Prize; the cubist-futurist eclecticism of Seiji Togo; and bracing work by Tetsugoro Yorozu, Ryusei Kishida, Narashige Koide, Harue Koga, Tai Kanbara, and Yuzo Saeki.

Japanese Painters under the World War II: How Did They Survive War?

18 July - 23 September 2015

Nagoya City Art Museum
(Aichi)

To study how Japanese painters coped or didn't cope with World War II, the curators chose 14 major artists who were active before, during, and after the war, then further selected three works each from their prewar, wartime, and postwar output. By far the most dramatic fluctuation can be seen in the work of Tsuguharu (Leonard) Foujita. Before the war he was known for milky-skinned nudes and louche self-portraits. During the war he produced a series of terrifying battle scenes, then went back to painting fair-skinned maidens when it was over.

1940s: Rediscovery of 20th Century Japanese Art

11 July - 27 September 2015

Mie Prefectural Art Museum
(Mie)

The fourth in the museum's ongoing series examining each decade of the past century, this installment scrutinizes the 1940s, and inevitably, the war. Most of the painters featured sought to rekindle the free approach to expression that the war had interrupted, but too many recent horrors, and the devastation before their eyes, seem to have put a damper on that impulse. This is especially apparent in such works as Masao Tsuruoka's The Heavy Hand, Nobuya Abe's Famine, Chozaburo Inoue's International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and Noboru Kitawaki's Parabola. Though produced in the wake of defeat, these, too, are war paintings.

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

25 July - 18 October 2015

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
(Hiroshima)

The title is from a work by Alfredo Jaar that appears in the exhibition, but it is also the title of a novella by Kenzaburo Oe, and originally, a line in a poem by W.H. Auden. A compilation of contemporary art that addresses the bombing of Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, and nuclear energy, the show features the powerful DOME by Isamu Wakabayashi, as well as Yves Klein's "anthropometries" -- imprints of the human figure which are said to be inspired by the shadows found of people immolated by the bomb.

In Our Time: Art in Post-industrial Japan

25 April - 30 August 2015

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
(Ishikawa)

The museum commemorates its tenth anniversary by reassessing contemporary art via four keywords -- everyday, vernacular, relationship, media -- that ostensibly address Japan's transition over the past decade or so from an industrial to a post-industrial society. Among the ten selected artists or art groups are Teppei Kaneuji, Taro Izumi, Tabaimo, and Sputniko. Particularly thought-provoking are Takehito Koganezawa's video reproduction of the desert landscape where two Japanese were recently murdered, and Natsunosuke Mise's innovative take on vernacular painting.

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