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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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1 September 2016 |
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| A Treasury of Written Characters: The Nakanishi Collection Amassed from World Travels at the National Museum of Ethnology |
| 2 June - 27 August 2016 |
LIXIL Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Akira Nakanishi (1928-94), sixth-generation president of Kyoto's Nakanishi Printing Company, traveled to over 100 countries in search of texts -- specifically, the scripts they were written in. The National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka now houses his collection of nearly 3,000 script samples, of which this exhibition displays about 80. Written on paper, clay tablets, bamboo, leaves, and animal hides, they originate from all over Asia, the Near East, and Europe. The show is vivid testimony to the miraculous nature of the birth of writing. |
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| Yuki Hayashi: Image data |
| 25 June - 30 July 2016 |
Gallery Yamaki Fine Art
(Hyogo) |
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| Hayashi creates video works out of photos casually shot with digital cameras or cell phones, as well as images found on the Internet. These he cuts up into countless fragments, which he stirs and serves up as cosmic spectacles that call to mind the birth and death of black holes. Or perhaps they epitomize the vast graveyard of anonymous images that proliferate daily to be shared over the Net and ultimately consumed or discarded. Hayashi's work is a lesson in the essential immateriality of digital data. |
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| Ishiuchi Miyako Exhibition: Frida is |
| 28 June - 21 August 2016 |
Shiseido Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Ishiuchi shot this series of photos of artifacts from the life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo at the request of the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. After showings in Paris and London, this is the first appearance of these works in Japan. The objects include Kahlo's trademark colorful dresses as well as corsets, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, glasses, a prosthetic leg, and a broken mirror. The theme is a logical one for Ishiuchi, who has devoted her career to photographing mementoes that testify to human pain and trauma. |
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| Mitsukuni Takimoto Solo Exhibition |
| 25 June - 30 July 2016 |
Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
(Tokyo) |
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| A sculptor who studied with Tomonori Toyofuku in Italy, Takimoto (b.1952) here presents rough-hewn human figures of painted wood. The works range from a single two-meter high leg to a number of small figures no more than 15 cm high. Most are nudes, but some smaller sculptures show people viewed through a window frame or peering from behind a door. Several works are inspired by paintings by Tetsugoro Yorozu and others. |
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| Shomei Tomatsu: Nagasaki |
| 28 May - 18 July 2016 |
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
(Hiroshima) |
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| How does one capture on film the many layers of skin that Nagasaki has acquired over time? The late great photographer Tomatsu (1930-2012) made it his life's work to chronicle the city, a 50-year project he began in 1961. This massive assemblage of images allows us to see Nagasaki through his eyes as he wanders its neighborhoods; occasionally we catch glimpses of a shadow with a camera as Tomatsu inserts himself into the cityscape. |
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| Etsuko Kawamura: Just Another Season |
| 11 June - 31 July 2016 |
Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City
(Hyogo) |
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| A solo show by Kyoto-based artist Kawamura (b.1953). In her nominally Western-style portrayals of subjects from nature, she evinces a fondness for classical Italian painting but uses this as a springboard to explore the topological differences between Western and Eastern art, and between truth and falsehood in painting. In her recent works a gauzy mist seems to settle over the surface, giving these oils a beguiling warmth and limpidity. |
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| Out of the Classroom, Into the Workplace |
| 20 June - 8 August 2016 |
Museum and Archives, Kyoto Institute of Technology
(Kyoto) |
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| An overview of how design education in Kyoto in the early 20th century successfully linked achievements in school to future careers. Bringing together 33 designs for kimono, posters, furniture, and houses by students at the city's two premier arts high schools with 29 designs by graduates or teachers from the same schools, the show is an edifying look at the kinds of institutions that made design a driving force in modern Japan. |
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Risaku Suzuki: Stream of consciousness |
16 April - 26 June 2016 |
Tanabe City Museum of Art
(Wakayama) |
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| Although this is a touring exhibition originating from Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, the Tanabe Museum has managed to further distill the essence of photographer Suzuki's work by paring down the number of images and displaying his latest series, Water Mirror, at its annex, the Kumanokodo Nakahechi Museum of Art. The Sakura series highlights the way Suzuki manipulates depth of field and focus to disturb our sense of perspective, triggering a sensory intoxication much like that induced by the variations in a work of music. |
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| Masashi Asada: Mostly Family |
| 18 June - 4 August 2016 |
Irie Taikichi Memorial Museum of Photography, Nara City
(Nara) |
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| Since 2000 Asada has been photographing his own family in a variety of fanciful and often hilarious posed circumstances. This kitchen-sink retrospective of his work includes the "Asada House" series and more: "NEW LIFE," "Hachinohe Revue," "Album Power," and his latest, "Everyone to Minami-Sanriku." Whatever the subject, Asada sticks to his basic m.o., the souvenir snapshot. |
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