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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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New "Colony/Island" 2: Works and Conversations about Disaster

11 March - 26 June 2016

Art Area B1
(Osaka)

Featured are not only artistic responses to the Tohoku Earthquake of 2011, such as Naoya Hatakeyama's photos of his tsunami-devastated hometown of Rikuzen-Takada and Tadasu Takamine's video "reenactments" of discussions between shoppers and sales clerks about radioactive contamination and food safety, but also local efforts to record and archive memories of the disaster such as Sendai's Center for Remembering 3.11 and Onagawa's Dialogue & Workshop project.

Fusetsu Nakamura on the 150th Anniversary of His Birth

30 April - 24 July 2016

Nakamuraya Salon Museum of Art
(Tokyo)

Nakamura (1866-1943) was born the same year as Japan's bellwether of Western-style painting, Seiki Kuroda, and studied in Paris with the same mentor, Raphael Collin. But because he reached France nearly two decades after Kuroda, the latter's name was already indelibly associated with the modernization of Japanese art by the time Nakamura returned home. Still, whatever his tardiness deprived him of in recognition, he gained back in the depth it contributed to his work. Besides 15 oils, this show offers sketches, watercolors, sumi-ink paintings, and the sign he famously painted for Shinjuku's Nakamuraya curry shop.

Zakka: Goods and Things

26 February - 5 June 2016

21_21 Design Sight
(Tokyo)

Taken one at a time, the objects typically lumped together as zakka (usually translated "sundries" or "miscellany") are hardly as generic as the term imputes. A cup is a cup, a spoon is a spoon. What zakka in all their diversity share in common is that they are designed for practical, everyday use. This show aims to make us think about the relationship between our lifestyles and the humble household items that define and enhance them.

The Hara Yasusaburo Collection: Hiroshige Vivid

29 April - 12 June 2016

Suntory Museum of Art
(Tokyo)

In this impressive selection of over 200 Hiroshige prints from the vast ukiyo-e collection of business tycoon Hara (1884-1982), the highlights are complete editions of two of the master's late series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces. The exhibition title is apt: both sets are first printings that vividly reveal the most minutely carved lines on the as yet unworn plates.

Dog Man No Life

1 - 13 June 2016

ST Spot Yokohama
(Kanagawa)

The latest production by Taichi Yamagata, who has developed his own idiosyncratic approach to performance since his days acting with the renowned Chelfitsch theater company, of which he was a founding member. In this work Yoshio Otani is forced to perform in a circumscribed area of the stage, placing him at odds with the other actors in a setup that resembles competitive sport. Be forewarned: the action spills into the audience, too.

21st Century Rimpa Posters: Competitive Works by 10 Graphic Designers

4 April - 13 May 2016

Kyoto ddd Gallery
(Kyoto)

An imaginative presentation of poster art by ten contemporary designers proves that the legacy of the Edo-era Rimpa School is alive and well in 21st-century graphic design. Echoing that tradition, each artist's work takes the form of a four-panel folding screen, adding an element of friendly competition to the show. The participants are Katsumi Asaba, Yukimasa Okumura, Kaoru Kasai, Mitsuo Katsui, Koichi Sato, Kazumasa Nagai, Masayoshi Nakajo, Kazunari Hattori, Kenya Hara, and Shin Matsunaga.

Katsuhito Nakazato: Night in Earth

21 March - 2 April 2016

Gallery Kobo
(Tokyo)

For his latest Planet series, photographer Nakazato aimed his camera at points along Japan's Pacific coast -- Kochi, Wakayama, Mie, Chiba -- to capture the reflection of moonlight off wave-buffeted rocks. The effect is, indeed, one of viewing images of a new planet transmitted from a satellite telescope trained on the farthest reaches of outer space.

Yoko Shigemori

22 March - 3 April 2016

Gallery Maronie
(Kyoto)

Shigemori creates ceramic objects festooned with human and animal figures. Her forte is speedy execution that imparts a rough-and-ready texture to her work -- the ceramic equivalent of sketching. In a radical departure from her output to date, however, this recent show featured diorama-like scenes that resemble 3D renderings of sumi-ink landscape paintings.

Hanayo & Hajime Sawatari: Tenko

2 April - 14 May 2016

Gallery Koyanagi
(Tokyo)

In 1996, artist/photographer/performer Hanayo teamed up with veteran cameraman Hajime Sawatari to shoot an ongoing series with her newborn daughter, Tenko, as the subject. The project, which lasted till Tenko turned 18, yielded the 215 images (plus a video) on display here. What sets it decisively apart from your typical family album is the photographers' refusal to indulge any cute-little-girl potential; if anything they manage to elicit from Tenko a curiously sinister air.

The Sculptures of Noriaki Maeda

5 December 2015 - 10 April 2016

The Hiratsuka Museum of Art
(Kanagawa)

Maeda's sculptures consist of bristling forests of fusion-cut steel sheet rounded into cylindrical or conical shapes. Roughly textured, they appear tremendously dense, yet at the same time their hollowness imparts a sensation of lightness. This signature juxtaposition of heavy and light is especially pronounced in works that Maeda has suspended in midair.

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