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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 June 2016

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The Posters of Ikko Tanaka

5 April - 19 June 2016

The National Museum of Art, Osaka
(Osaka)

Amid this dazzling array of some 50 posters produced between 1955 and 2000 by the icon of postwar Japanese design, Tanaka's work for the Tokyo Olympics stands out. His compositions were a brilliant fusion of Japanese aesthetics and unsentimentally modern Western motifs. Shared by Japanese architects of the same generation, this style proved to be a successful strategy for attracting notice overseas.

Takashi Kiuchi Solo Exhibition

23 May - 25 June 2016

Seian Art Center, Seian University of Art and Design
(Shiga)

Since graduating from Seian in 1997, Kiuchi has amassed a resume of solo events in which he uses painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installations to lampoon society and the art world in particular. This first major outing at his alma mater covers the bases from the artist's school days to the present in what he calls his "fantasy art-school retrospective."

Hiroyasu Nakai: Northern Towns, Retrospective Views

5 April - 25 September 2016

Shuji Terayama Museum
(Aomori)

Nakai died in February this year in the midst of planning a joint exhibition with his fellow photographer and Aomori native, Daido Moriyama. The show has gone on in Nakai's memory. Says Moriyama, "He did not simply love his homeland, but continually sought that which becomes visible from a broader perspective." These photos reflect the intensity with which Nakai embraced his subjects, breathing in rhythm with people, places, and things as he pressed the shutter.

Yoshio Aoyama

3 April - 5 June 2016

Chigasaki City Museum of Art
(Kanagawa)

A Western-style painter who lived in France before World War II and later traveled extensively in the Mediterranean, Aoyama was famously praised by Matisse, who reportedly exclaimed, "This man has color." Commemorating the 20th anniversary of his death at 102, the show presents 10 prewar and 60 postwar works -- more than half painted when Aoyama was past 85.

Netsuke and Sagemono: Accessories for Kimono

2 April - 3 July 2016

Tobacco & Salt Museum
(Tokyo)

Netsuke are the tiny toggles used by Edo-era men to fasten seal cases, tobacco pouches, and purses to their kimono sashes. Made of wood or ivory, they were works of art in themselves, intricately carved into images of animals, plants, mythical creatures, goblins and whatnot. This exhaustive show gathers together some 370 netsuke and other accessories from the early 1800s, the golden age of Japanese handicraft. The detail and sheer artistry that went into these tiny ornaments is stunning.

Haruo Ohara

9 April - 12 June 2016

The Museum of Art, Kochi
(Kochi)

At age 17, Ohara (1909-99) left his native Kochi Prefecture for Brazil to work on a farm. He stayed on, and in 1938 began snapping photos of his family at work and play, accumulating a massive oeuvre of images. The most outstanding are his carefree portrayals of his nine children. The welcoming, universal aspect of his work makes it resonate with viewers everywhere.

From the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Kuniyoshi & Kunisada

19 March - 5 June 2016

Bunkamura the Museum
(Tokyo)

Two ukiyo-e masters of the late Edo era, Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864) and Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), are the focus here. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts was the beneficiary of Boston physician and Japanophile William Bigelow's astounding collection of over 9,000 Kunisada and 3,200 Kuniyoshi prints. Today the museum owns some 52,000 Japanese woodcuts -- the largest and qualitatively finest such collection outside Japan -- of which 170 were loaned for this show.

1945 ± 5: The Works that Survived through the Turbulent and Reconstruction Era

21 May - 3 July 2016

Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art
(Hyogo)

Through this assemblage of 200 works, the show traces the upheavals in Japanese art that accompanied the tumult of the war and early postwar years, from 1940 to 1950. Besides such luminaries as Taro Okamoto, Kaii Higashiyama, Noboru Kitawaki, Ryohei Koiso, Tetsuro Komai, Kunitaro Suda, Shunsuke Matsumoto, and Jiro Yoshihara, one gets to view a war painting by Leonard Foujita and sketches made by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki while he was a POW.

Beauty Crossing Ginza 2: Shinzo / Roso

5 April - 24 June 2016

Shiseido Ginza Bldg. 1, 2F
(Tokyo)

Shinzo Fukuhara, first president of cosmetics maker Shiseido, and his younger brother Roso were both photographers. Celebrating the centennial of Shiseido's Design Department, the company's Ginza showroom presents some 50 images shot by the brothers but never developed. Department photographer Masato Kanazawa has printed them up; the quality of the originals, as well as of their reproduction, is impressive.

Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice

26 March - 10 July 2016

Mori Art Museum
(Tokyo)

Launched in 2004, this ambitious series is in its fifth iteration this year. The works, by 20 artists and art groups with established careers, are solid enough, but there is something fuzzy and diluted about the overall show and its theme of art in contemporary society. Better is the museum's concurrent exhibition by Thai artist Sutee Kunavichayanont, part of its ongoing "MAM Collection" series on Asian art.

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