 |
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.
Note: Most of Japan's museums and galleries have reopened, but conditions and anti-coronavirus precautions vary. If you are planning a visit, please check the venue's website beforehand. |
|
|
|
2 November 2020 |
 |
| 1 | 2 | |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| Reading Ornamentation: Rediscovering the Architecture of Nihonbashi |
| 2 September 2020 - 21 February 2021 |
Takashimaya Archives
(Tokyo) |
|
| This show directs our eyes to the architecture of the venerable Takashimaya Department Store and its surrounding neighborhood of Nihonbashi. The only model on display is of the old Teikoku Seima Building, which no longer exists. The rest of the exhibit consists of photographs of structures that still stand and can be viewed just by walking out the door and down the street. Architecture exhibitions, unlike those of art, suffer from the dilemma of being unable to display the actual works on site. In this case, though, you are already standing inside one of the exhibits, and the others await you right around the corner. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| The Beauty of Ainu Handiwork |
| 15 September - 23 November 2020 |
The Japan Folk Crafts Museum
(Tokyo) |
|
| The museum better known as the Mingeikan takes a reverential look at Ainu handicrafts from the "folk-craft" perspective championed by museum founder and Mingei movement leader Soetsu Yanagi. The word "Ainu" immediately conjures up images of the culture's distinctive patterns, said to be abstractions of ripples in water, wind currents, flames and other natural phenomena. The Ainu aesthetic may seem austere and rustic, but it reflects the life of people who found ways to pay homage to the gods even as they struggled to survive in a harsh environment. Yanagi no doubt appreciated the profound beauty and significance of these patterns. (For a detailed review, see this month's Focus.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Iwate: The Essence of Postwar Art |
| 3 October - 29 November 2020 |
Yorozu Tetsugoro Memorial Museum
(Iwate) |
|
| In any discussion of postwar art in Iwate, one of Japan's northernmost prefectures, the role of the Iwate Prefectural School of Arts and Crafts looms large. Founded in 1948, it was the first new art school to open in the country after the war and implemented a unique curriculum that fostered a great many painters and sculptors. Introducing the work of artists who contributed to Iwate's emergence as the leading art prefecture north of Tokyo, this show challenges us to rethink the conditions under which art can thrive in the remotest parts of the country. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Yuki Onodera: FROMWhere |
| 8 September - 29 November 2020 |
The Ginza Space
(Tokyo) |
|
| Japan-born, Paris-based Onodera's current show comprises works from two monochrome series produced by the photographer in the 1990s: Camera and Portrait of Second-Hand Clothes. For the first, she says, she aimed two cameras at each other and clicked their shutters simultaneously. For the second, she acquired articles of old clothing used in a Christian Boltanski exhibition and shot them against the sky through the window of her Montmartre apartment. Deprived of their inhabitants, the clothes have the air of abandoned houses, forlorn and not sure what to do with themselves.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Manga Pandemic Web Exhibition |
| September - 25 December 2020 |
Kyoto International Manga Museum
(Kyoto) |
|
| This open-call online exhibition in an Independent-style format invites anyone to contribute manga on the subject of the pandemic. All manga styles are welcome -- single-panel, four-panel, long form, what have you. One clever touch is a daily updated report on the number of people infected with the "manga virus" -- i.e., contributors to the project.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Inter+Play Season 1 |
| 23 July 2020 - 29 August 2021 |
Towada Art Center
(Aomori)
|
|
| Part 1 of a three-part celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Arts Towada Project, this exhibition was delayed by the pandemic, but will now remain open till next August. Participating artists include Michiko Tsuda, evala, Megumi Matsubara, Yasuhiro Suzuki, and the art collective mé. Arts Towada is based in the Towada Art Center, a unique facility that boasts 38 permanently installed works by 33 globally active artists. Individual exhibition rooms function as autonomous "houses for art" customized to the works they contain. The very spaces of the museum -- its courtyards, stairwells and roofs -- are a kind of art in themselves. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Tsuyoshi Ozawa: All Return |
| 10 October 2020 - 21 March 2021 |
Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art
(Aomori) |
|
| Contemporary artist Ozawa is known for the sense of humor that imbues such projects as his Museum of Soy Sauce Art. All Return, his first major show in the Tohoku region, is subtitled "Come back in a hundred years' time. After a hundred years you'll understand." The five paintings in the series reimagine Japanese historical figures in places they are known to have visited overseas; Ozawa traveled to each site and enlisted the aid of local artists. The latest of the works was created in collaboration with sign painters and musicians in Iran. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
