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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering commentary by a variety of reviewers about current or recent exhibitions at museums and galleries around the country.
Note: As of 1 October, Japan is no longer under a state of emergency. Most museums and galleries are open, but some may still require reservations or have other anti-Covid measures in place. If you are planning a visit, please check the venue's website beforehand. |
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1 December 2021 |
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| The Bonbonnière Story |
| 13 September - 3 December 2021 |
Gakushuin University Museum of History
(Tokyo) |
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Bonbonnière is the name for a type of small lidded box or jar (they take many forms) whose function is not obvious at first glance. In fact, these are containers for candy, particularly of the sort dispensed at official events for royalty or government dignitaries. Their use originates with the Western custom of offering sugar candies at weddings, birthdays and other celebrations, which led to the production of highly ornamental containers for confections. This practice was adopted by Japan's imperial household during the Meiji era (1868-1912). Though the style remained indubitably Western, Japan developed its own unique bonbonnière designs and production techniques, as the examples in this show demonstrate.
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| Today's Miscellany |
| 13 November 2021 - 6 March 2022 |
Tomonotsu Museum
(Hiroshima) |
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| A presentation of the miscellaneous objects that emerge in the course of creative activities as well as daily life in support facilities for people with disabilities. These endeavors consist not only of paintings, drawings, sculptures and the like, but all manner of handmade items, as well as computer-generated creations. The care workers at these facilities, or artists in the community and elsewhere, sometimes serve as co-creators who help bring these efforts to fruition. Their contributions are often instrumental in giving the artistic expressions of people with disabilities a wider audience. |
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| Ways of Telling |
| 9 October - 26 December 2021 |
Tokyo Shibuya Koen-dori Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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An assemblage of works by eight Japanese artists that give visual form to the diversity of means by which we perceive and "tell" about the world. Strolling through the exhibit space designed by architect Hideyuki Nakamura, one gains a visceral grasp of how we all have multiple modes of apprehending the world pre-installed inside us, and how these different modes shift with the stimulus. Rinko Kawauchi's presentation, through words and 3D images, of the experience of reading a picture book as shared by sighted and sight-impaired people is especially compelling.
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| Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA: Architecture & Environment |
| 22 October 2021 - 20 March 2022 |
Toto Gallery Ma
(Tokyo) |
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SANAA is on a roll these days. The architect team of Sejima and NIshizawa has been winning accolade upon accolade for work that consistently seeks to address the question of how architecture relates to its environment. In this presentation of models and photos of their recent projects, a number of designs do indeed make plain a concern with harmony with their surroundings -- topography, natural setting, and general ambience. Like it or not, architecture has the power to transform its environment, and Sejima and Nishizawa seem profoundly aware of this potentially overwhelming, even violent aspect of their profession. It would appear to behoove all architects to give serious thought to the impact of their works on the environment.
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| I'm Scared! The Horror of the Museum |
| 25 September - 5 December 2021 |
Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto
(Kumamoto) |
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People become worn down by stress when they must live with fear and anxiety in their daily lives due to long-term disasters like the Covid pandemic, or the devastating Kumamoto Earthquake of 2016 and its aftermath. On the other hand, fear is a natural human emotion, and many artists have been inspired to creative heights by taking it as their theme. This unusual show features six such artists: Chimei Hamada, Keiichi Tanaami, Yoko Koda, Shinji Ishii, Namuthunder, and Odilon Redon. The curators hope that the humor in these diverse artistic expressions of fear will help give viewers an alternative outlook on the emotion, as well as the energy and initiative to deal with it.
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| Yoichi Umetsu: Pollinator |
| 16 September 2021 - 16 January 2022 |
The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art (Watari-um)
(Tokyo) |
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| Among contemporary artists active today, Umetsu (b. 1982) is an especially hard one to pin down, so broad are his horizons. His oeuvre ranges from miniature-like drawings, pointillist paintings, and ceramic works to performance videos featuring himself -- not to mention his activities as a curator and the operator of a nonprofit gallery. This show's title was chosen as an apt metaphor for Umetsu's role as an artist. In its delicacy and fragility, art resembles nothing so much as pollen, and Umetsu is certainly scattering his far and wide.
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| M's Gift of the Sea: Auto-Mythology |
| 2 October 2021 - 10 January 2022 |
Artizon Museum
(Tokyo) |
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The second in a series of "jam sessions" between the museum's Ishibashi Foundation Collection and various contemporary artists, this one features Yasumasa Morimura, who has long expressed a fascination with the work of the short-lived Meiji-era painter Shigeru Aoki (1882-1911). Here he revisits Aoki's celebrated Gift of the Sea (1903) in a series of inimitable "M-style" paintings that use Aoki's masterpiece as a springboard for commentary on the cultural, political, and philosophical changes Japan underwent during and after the Meiji era.
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| The Genealogy of Light: Impressionist Masterworks from The Israel Museum, Jerusalem |
| 15 October 2021 - 16 January 2022 |
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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Among its over 500,000 holdings, Jerusalem's Israel Museum boasts a superb collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Of the 69 works selected for this show, 59 are appearing in Japan for the first time. The treats include works by Courbet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, as well as later Impressionist-influenced painters like the Nabis Bonnard and Vuillard.
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