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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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| ENDO Toshikatsu: The Archaeology of the Sacred |
| 15 July - 31 August 2017 |
The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
(Saitama) |
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| Endo (b. 1950) is often credited with employing elemental substances like fire and water to revive the qualities of narrative and myth discarded by modern art. However, he is also capable of confronting "things" (mono) as they are even more directly than the vaunted Mono-ha movement. This show included two works that utilize water. One, Trieb - Vibration 2017, exuded a sensation of water under pressure so intense that it aroused instinctive fear as one stood near it. |
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| Kazuyuki Kawaguchi: Prospects |
| 22 July - 6 August 2017 |
photographers' gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| "Prospects (2011-2017)" is photographer Kawaguchi's series of views of his home territory, the area of western Japan stretching from Osaka to Okayama. Though captured in meticulous detail, his images are straightforward and never sentimental -- yet what they convey is a sense of the quiet but relentless destruction of Japan's regional cities. His use of color prints intensifies that impression. |
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| Daido Moriyama: Pretty Woman |
| 23 June - 17 September 2017 |
Akio Nagasawa Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Since the early 2000s, the veteran photographer has been active in preparing not only photo books but exhibitions too. This installation saw him covering pillars as well as walls with collages of prints, atop which he hung framed works selected in keeping with the titular theme. A mix of color and monochrome, all were shot over the past year. |
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| Masako Tomiya: Returning Home |
| 25 July - 13 August 2017 |
POST
(Tokyo) |
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| In a series she began in 2014, Tomiya photographs scenes of and around her family (mother, younger sister, sister's children) in the northern prefecture of Aomori. Driven, she says, by the questions "What am I? What is this world?", she aims to tell "a story that scrutinizes the ‘I' beyond time, meaning, self." Those pure motives bode well for her future growth as an artist. |
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| Yutaka Masutani: During a Stroll |
| 1 - 26 August 2017 |
Fugensha
(Tokyo) |
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| Masutani is the grandson of the legendary photographer Shoji Ueda and runs the Shoji Ueda Office, where he plans exhibitions and the publication of photo collections. This, the second show of his own work in two years, featured 23 monochrome snapshots from a trip around France. The graceful, dignified manner in which Masutani frames his subjects does, in fact, recall his grandfather's work. |
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| AMBIENT: Lifestyle Items Designed by Naoto Fukasawa |
| 8 July - 1 October 2017 |
Panasonic Shiodome Museum
(Tokyo) |
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| A survey of the many things Fukasawa has designed, ranging from electronic devices and household appliances to furniture and interiors. The designer himself defines "ambient" as "the atmosphere that exists between things." Furnished to resemble a kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and so on, the exhibition galleries are indeed pervaded by a unifying ambience emanating from Fukasawa's philosophy of design. |
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| Sakiko Nomura: Ango |
| 15 August - 17 September 2017 |
Poetic Scape
(Tokyo) |
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| Graphic designer and publisher Satoshi Machiguchi has edited and designed a book, Sakiko Nomura: Ango, which combines images by contemporary photographer Nomura with the text of "The War and a Woman," a short story by Ango Sakaguchi first published in 1946. Concurrent with the new edition's publication, this show captured the mood of the story and pictures with a skillful blending of text on inkjet prints and gelatin silver prints framed to match the trapezoidal layout of the volume. |
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Lieko Shiga: Blind Date |
10 June - 3 September 2017 |
Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art
(Kagawa) |
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| Photographer Shiga shot her "Blind Date" series in Bangkok in the summer of 2009. The project was inspired, she says, by the intense gazes of the young girls looking her way while riding through the city on the back of motor scooters with their boyfriends. The exhibition went beyond a simple display of images, engaging sight, sound, and touch to offer visitors a multisensory experience. |
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| Haruko Sasakawa: Recollection: The Plywood Fish |
| 25 August - 17 September 2017 |
Yoshimi Arts
(Osaka) |
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| Sasakawa has built a "human torpedo" of plywood based on documents she has collected as well as the testimony of her grandfather, who was assigned to a "kamikaze" suicide squad during World War II. The fragile vessel, which looks to be on the verge of falling apart, is surrounded by photos of scenery her grandfather might have seen while on duty. Viewed through the periscope attached to the torpedo, the images are blurry and ambiguous. This is not merely an exercise in historical reenactment, but an implicit critique of "heroism" in wartime. |
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