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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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| The Elegant Other: Cross-cultural Encounters in Fashion and Art |
| 15 April - 25 June 2017 |
Yokohama Museum of Art
(Kanagawa) |
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| Yokohama port opened in the waning days of the Edo Shogunate and quickly became a point of entry for Western culture. That included clothing, though it would take many years for Japan to fully adopt Western fashions. This assemblage of some 200 dresses, accessories, crafts, paintings, and photographs examines both fashion and art from the late 19th to early 20th century as it explores Yokohama's role as a locus of East-West cultural intercourse that transformed Japanese lifestyles and aesthetics. |
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Kaoru Izima: You are beautiful |
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15 April - 11 June 2017
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Kyoto-Ba
(Kyoto) |
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| A commercial and fashion photographer who has also staked his claim as a fine artist since the 1980s, Izima (b. 1954) here presents a gargantuan female nude -- a ten-meter blowup of an ultra-high-definition digital camera shot. What the eye can take in varies with one's distance from the image, which coolly belies the notion that the nude represents the epitome of beauty in photography. |
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Noroshi: Signal Flare for Our Future |
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Art Museum & Library, Ota
(Gunma) |
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| The opening exhibition for this new hybrid facility in the city of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, introduces nine artists whose work relates to the area in some way. Taking cues from the words of local poet Fusanojo Shimizu (1903-64), the show seeks some common thread in paintings, crafts, photos, videos, poems, songs, and other creative endeavors inspired by Ota and environs. |
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| Dawn of Japanese Photography: The Anthology |
| 7 March - 7 May 2017 |
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| New discoveries made in just the last decade or so have given a boost to research on early photography in Japan, which first appeared during the final years of the Shogunate. Curator Keiji Matsui launched this ambitious multi-exhibition series by sending questionnaires to museums and libraries throughout Japan, from which he learned that 358 institutions were in possession of photographs from the mid- to late 1800s. It's a treat to see the actual photos, many of which are Important Cultural Properties.
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| Parody and Intertextuality: Visual Culture in Japan around the 1970s |
| 18 February - 16 April 2017 |
Tokyo Station Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Though most of the show was devoted to the parodic work spawned by the intersection of the avant-garde movement of the 1960s with the subculture of the 1970s, it ended with a detailed account of the copyright infringement trial of one prominent parodist, Mad Amano. As behooves such a theme, the museum permitted visitors to photograph most of the works on display. But their very irreverence was a sad reminder of the degree to which we have lost such freedom today, when artists are constrained by copyright restrictions and fear of net-fueled accusations of plagiarism.
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| Ikko Narahara: Brilliant Darkness - Pitch-Black Time |
| 10 March - 24 April 2017 |
Canon Gallery S
(Tokyo) |
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| Photographer Narahara (b. 1931) fell in love with Venice on his first visit there in the early sixties, and continued to film the city into the eighties. This exhibition pairs his Venice - Nightscapes series from that period with Japonesque, a meditation on Japanese traditional culture, which struck him as exotic after his return from an extended stay in Europe in the sixties. The displays are exquisitely designed by graphic designer Mitsuo Katsui, a longtime collaborator with Narahara.
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