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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering commentary by reviewers and curators about current or recent exhibitions at museums and galleries around the country.
Note: Although Japan's state of quasi-emergency has been lifted, many museums and galleries 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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15 December 2022 |
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| Motai Toshiya: Soul-Body, and Light |
| 22 October 2022 - 22 January 2023 |
Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels
(Saitama) |
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A show by formalist painter Motai at the social issues-oriented Maruki Gallery may sound like an oil-and-water pairing, but artist and venue turn out to be remarkably compatible. The unifying element is Motai's interest in spirituality, a concern that has led him in recent years into a deepening association with the gallery's Hiroshima Panels. In this exhibition, spirit clearly takes precedence over format.
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| Into the Unknown World -- Gutai: Differentiation and Integration |
| 22 October 2022 - 9 January 2023 |
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
(Osaka) |
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Two adjacent museums in Nakanoshima, Osaka, where the legendary Gutai art collective had its headquarters, share this dual-themed exhibition. In an attempt to do justice to the group's diverse and always creative efforts to expand and/or dismantle the picture plane, the Nakanoshima Museum of Art takes up "Differentiation" as its theme while the National Museum focuses on "Integration." Where the former organizes Gutai works according to keywords like "environment" and "concept," the latter introduces them in three sections titled "The Handshake," "Empty Content," and "Not Limited to Painting."
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| Andy Warhol Kyoto |
| 17 September 2022 - 12 February 2023 |
Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art
(Kyoto) |
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Warhol drew considerable inspiration from his visits to Kyoto in 1956 and 1974, as can be seen in his sketches of geisha, priests, and attractions like the Kiyomizu Temple. Part of the fun to be gained from this show -- the first major Warhol exhibition in the city -- is that it prompts us to think about how his experiences in Kyoto and Japan at large might have influenced his subsequent work. Of the 200-plus works on display (all from the collection of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh), over half are appearing in Japan for the first time.
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| Goda Sawako: A Retrospective |
| 3 November 2022 - 15 January 2023 |
The Museum of Art, Kochi
(Kochi) |
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Kochi native Goda (1940-2016) produced work in a stunning variety of media: objects, dolls, oil paintings, Polaroid photos, videos, drawings in color pencil. Her unfettered versatility suggests that she made a point of choosing her mode of expression in each instant of the fluctuating relationship between the acts of seeing and being seen. First-time visitors to Kochi, on the southern island of Shikoku, will find that the townscape of streetcars and sago palm-lined avenues exudes the same air of relaxed liberation that pervades Goda's works.
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| Félix Vallotton -- Noir et Blanc |
| 29 October 2022 - 29 January 2023 |
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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From the curators: "A member of the Nabis movement in Paris in the late 19th century, the painter Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) made a name for himself with innovative woodcuts done in black and white. Like undecipherable riddles, his work has never ceased to fascinate, but the woodcuts are where Vallotton truly excels. The Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum is proud to own one of the most important collections of Vallotton woodcuts. This exhibition marks the first time for the museum to show the entire collection of about 180 works."
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| The Future of Reality -- Contemporary Artists |
| 29 November 2022 - 29 January 2023 |
Niigata City Art Museum
(Niigata)
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How has the realism practiced by Japanese painters, sculptors, and artisans of the Meiji (1868-1912) and subsequent eras been taken up or reevaluated by contemporary artists? From the iki dolls of Kisaburo Matsumoto and the realistic sculptures of Koun Takamura, to recent sculptural works by Ayano Nanakarage and Motohiko Odani, this is a comprehensive exploration of one subcurrent of Japanese tradition that extends to the present.
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| Toya Shigeo: Sculpture |
| 4 November 2022 - 29 January 2023 |
Nagano Prefectural Art Museum
(Nagano) |
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One of the giants of contemporary Japanese sculpture, Nagano-born Toya (b. 1947) has produced a powerful body of work spurred by his tireless search for answers to the question of what constitutes the essence of sculpture. This presentation of some 30 of Toya's most representative works spans his entire oeuvre. The focus here is on the way Toya's distinctive sculptural concepts of "surface" and "structure" reflect his contemplation of the linguistic structure of the Japanese language.
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| Tohru Nakazaki: Fiction Traveler |
| 5 November 2022 - 29 January 2023 |
Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
(Ibaraki) |
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Nakazaki (b. 1976) grew up in Mito and was inspired to become an artist, he says, by visits to this museum. In this, his first major solo show, he treats his hometown and Art Tower Mito themselves as motifs. Nakazaki's insouciant approach to multimedia endeavors themed on what he calls zure (dissonance) has recently been placed in the service of interview-based literary installations. This one, too, is built upon interviews and research from which he has constructed an autobiographical "alternative story" about Mito and the museum.
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| Shape of Atmosphere: Invisible, Formless, and We Share |
| 15 November 2022 - 15 January 2023 |
Urawa Art Museum
(Saitama) |
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The beauty of spring, the freshness of early morning, a comfortable space, a sense that something is about to happen . . . We live amid what we might call "atmospheres" that have no shape, yet color the space we are in and affect our feelings and actions. How do artists reproduce or depict these vague, transient, immaterial presences? This exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, drawings, films, and photographs by modern and contemporary Japanese artists that express the invisible, the formless, the ever-changing.
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