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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.

3 October 2016

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Aichi Triennale 2016: Rainbow Caravan

11 August - 23 October 2016

Aichi Arts Center, Nagoya City Art Museum; Nagoya, Toyohashi and Okazaki cities
(Aichi)

Defining art as a journey into the unknown, this year's Aichi Triennale posits the festival as a caravanserai of artists from all over. One standout is Shinji Ohmaki's huge installation at the Aichi Arts Center in downtown Nagoya. Ohmaki has covered the floor of a gymnasium-sized gallery with concentric floral patterns made with colorful pigments. The work is best viewed from the bridge across one corner of the room, but on the final day visitors will be encouraged to walk across the floor through the flowers.

The Ninja: Who Were They?

2 July - 10 October 2016

National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan)
(Tokyo)

This entertaining show is divided into three sections -- "Improve your body," "Enhance your skills," and "Perfect your mind" -- that encourage participation by kids of all ages. Body training includes the "sunflower jumpover" regimen of leaping over progressively taller plants, as well as learning to stealth-walk and throw the shuriken ninja star. The skills section introduces ninja tools, weapons, food and medicine. To hone the mind visitors can stand in front of a video-screen waterfall, with surprising results.

Art Celebration in Nara: Beyond Time and Space

3 September - 23 October 2016

Todaiji, Kofukuji, Kasuga Taisha and other sites
(Nara)

"Culture City of East Asia" is a tri-national project that promotes cultural exchanges among cities in Japan, China, and South Korea. This year the ancient capital of Nara plays host to Ningbo, China, and Jeju, South Korea. In the Visual Arts Division, eight internationally acclaimed artists or art units, among them Cai Guo-Qiang, Tadashi Kawamata, Sahand Hesamiyan, and Ayse Erkmen, have created installations at eight of Nara's most historic temples and shrines.

Rokko Meets Art 2016

14 September - 23 November 2016

Mt. Rokko, Kobe
(Hyogo)

The annual contemporary art event sprawls across various venues atop scenic Mt. Rokko, which looms above the port of Kobe. Visitors can enjoy mountain air, park-like settings, and panoramic vistas as they stroll among the installations, both indoor and outdoor. This year's installment, the seventh, boasts 39 artists and art groups, including Mitsuhiro Okamoto, Yoshiaki Kaihatsu, Hiraki Sawa, Tochka, and Atsuhiko Misawa.

Unknown Asia Art Exchange Osaka

1 - 2 October 2016

Herbis Hall, Osaka
(Osaka)

Recruiting participants from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia, the two-day art show also invites leading art directors, gallerists, and producers from throughout the region to serve as judges. Unusual for an event of this sort, the competition not only hands out prizes, but offers artists the opportunity to present themselves and find work both domestically and abroad.

Mariko Mukumoto: Resort

30 July - 14 August 2016

RISE Gallery
(Tokyo)

Mukumoto uses fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) to build pop-colorful, three-dimensional sculptures and reliefs from abstract fragments of resorts and dams. She chooses those motifs, she says, because they exemplify massive man-made transformations of the natural environment. Her objects make for a provocative pushing of the representational envelope in art.

Mountain Aura: The Discovery of the Japanese Alps

16 July - 4 September 2016

Matsumoto City Museum of Art
(Nagano)

Fittingly located at the foot of the Northern Alps, the Matsumoto Museum commemorated the inauguration this year of a new national holiday, Mountain Day (August 11), with an assemblage of some 120 renderings of mountains. Ranging from Meiji-era watercolors by Tojiro Oshita and Banka Maruyama to Nihonga, Western-style oils, and woodblock prints, the works remind one that mountains are not merely a popular landscape subject but powerful forces that awe and inspire the artists who paint them.

Kenji Yanobe: Cinematize

16 July - 4 September 2016

Takamatsu Art Museum
(Kagawa)

To "cinematize" in this case means to transform various spaces into movie-like realities through the insertion of Yanobe's works, which represent fictitious stories and characters. A highlight of the exhibition, which doubled as a retrospective of the artist's career to date, was the use of the gallery as a film set for a collaborative production by Yanobe, director Kaizo Hayashi, and actor Masatoshi Nagase.

"Night Before the Break - Next Generation Artists"

18 - 28 August 2016

Spiral Garden
(Tokyo)

A presentation of 25 artists introduced on Fuji Television's titular cable program. Contemporary artists get short shrift, with genres that rely on traditional techniques -- Nihonga, woodcuts, ceramics, bonsai, dolls -- predominating. The overall vibe is of a crafts show, though some paintings also appear, the most promising being Akira Kamo's snowy peaks and mountains of earthquake debris, and Haruna Sato's portraits of babies.

Godzilla at the Museum: Creative Tracks of Daikaiju

15 July - 31 August 2016

Fukuoka Art Museum
(Fukuoka)

The museum's final show before it closed for renovations until March 2019, this was a loving look at Japan's favorite monster on the occasion of the release of his 31st film, Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence). There is plenty to enjoy -- models of buildings and cities doomed to destruction; explanations of special effects; detail drawings and sketches -- but most are from recent films in the series. It would be nice to see some materials from earlier efforts as well. Bonus: a short "trailer" of Godzilla destroying the Fukuoka Art Museum.

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