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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.

16 May 2016

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Miyake Issey Exhibition: The Work of Miyake Issey

16 March - 13 June 2016

The National Art Center, Tokyo
(Tokyo)

A thorough retrospective of the fashion icon, covering everything from his experimental seventies designs, to the plastic and wire bodies of the eighties, to the Pleats and A-POC (for "A Piece of Cloth") series, to the 132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE series featuring 3D attire made from 2D shapes of folded cloth. Miyake's practice is, in fact, an ongoing exploration of how to wrap the three-dimensional body in two-dimensional pieces of fabric.

The Self-Portraits of Yasumasa Morimura: My Art, My Story, My Art History

5 April - 19 June 2016

The National Museum of Art, Osaka
(Osaka)

This long-awaited solo show by Morimura in his hometown, Osaka, offers a full menu of the master impersonator's portraits of himself as van Gogh (his debut work), Rembrandt, Velázquez, Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman, and many more. Also featured are previously unshown works and new ones created for this exhibition. With related shows at venues around Osaka, this is a regional Morimura extravaganza that's not to be missed.

Yuki Hayashi Solo Exhibition: "Nothing can be seen during a power cut"

5 April - 22 May 2016

Kyoto Art Center
(Kyoto)

Hayashi creates his video works through the complex layering of images that he has photographed himself, solicited through open calls, or culled from the Internet, then cut, spliced, and collaged on his computer. For this installation he cuts off the power to the video equipment several times a day to place viewers in a situation where they cannot see the work -- making art of a meta-viewing experience, if you will.

KYOTOGRAPHIE 2016

23 April - 22 May 2016

Various venues in Kyoto
(Kyoto)

One of Japan's rare international photography festivals, KYOTOGRAPHIE was launched in 2013 and is still going strong. This year's theme is "Circle of Life." Besides solo shows by such up-and-comers as Sarah Moon, Thierry Bouët, Kikujiro Fukushima, Eriko Koga, and Qian Haifeng, the citywide event boasts displays of the photo collection of the Guimet Museum, fashion shots from the Condé Nast company, and images from Magnum Photos addressing refugee and immigrant issues.

Kuroda Seiki, Master of Modern Japanese Painting: The 150th Anniversary of His Birth

23 March - 15 May 2016

Tokyo National Museum
(Tokyo)

The largest retrospective to date of Seiki Kuroda (1866-1924), Japan's legendary pioneer of Western-style painting. Providing context are some 40 works by such contemporaries as Alexandre Cabanel, Jean-François Millet, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Claude Monet, Chu Asai, Keiichiro Kume, and Shigeru Aoki, as well as Kuroda's mentor in Paris, Raphael Collin. The show does an effective job of showing us what Kuroda learned in Paris and what he sought to achieve -- sometimes successfully and sometimes not -- when he returned home.

My Dearest: Female Images in Japanese Modern Arts from the Collection of Tokyo University of the Arts

5 March - 17 April 2016

Nagoya City Art Museum
(Aichi)

An ambitious attempt at an overview of modern Japanese paintings of women, from the collection of the country's premier art school. Many of the artists are unknowns, giving the viewer a sense of general trends more than of individual painters' attributes. A companion exhibit of Nihonga provides ample evidence that manga and anime derive more from the Nihonga tradition than from Western-style painting.

Motion-Emotion: Invigorated City

17 January - 27 March 2016

Sapporo Art Museum
(Hokkaido)

Says the flier: "A city grows and vibrates like a single organism. Here we focus on the form of the city and the emotions of its inhabitants." Though the modes of expression and the ages of the artists are diverse, all the works in the show evince a scrupulous attention to detail . . . Could this be a trait common to Hokkaidoans? It's particularly apparent in the woodcuts of Shima Takeda, the realistic portraits of Kiriko Nozawa, and the digital collages of Erika Kusumi.

Kazumi Nakamura: "Increasingly Expressionistic Work Necessitates Fortified Form that Disciplines"

8 March - 2 April 2016

Kaikai Kiki Gallery
(Tokyo)

In this 13-piece exhibit, the works from Nakamura's "Scroll Painting" series are composed of diagonal-grid patterns of parallel lines that evoke the buildings shown in traditional scroll paintings. In contrast, the other works offer chaotic slatherings of oil paint in a riot of clashing, downright ugly colors. The discrepancy is intentional, a manifestation of the painter's concept of "dissonance." Indeed, his relentless exploration of dissonance and its implications is something to be admired.

Yurie Nagashima: about home

16 March - 23 April 2016

Maho Kubota Gallery
(Tokyo)

Since her debut, photographer Nagashima has focused on the theme of family. Lately, however, she has pulled back from her previous up-close, warts-and-all scrutiny of her subjects, establishing a bit of perspective from which she examines time spent with family and the memories that accumulate therefrom. In this show she reconstructs her relations with her mother and within the family unit as a whole.

The Vision of Contemporary Art (VOCA) 2016

12 - 30 March 2016

The Ueno Royal Museum
(Tokyo)

In its 23rd iteration, the annual VOCA exhibition seems to have upped its game with some quality presentations. Nozomi Suzuki's Other Days, Other Eyes presents scenes captured on household windowpanes by applying photosensitive material to the glass. In FFIGURATI #117, Oyama Enrico Isamu recreates graffiti motifs on canvas, not so much making the canvas a stand-in for a wall as transforming it into one.

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