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Picks is a monthly sampling of Japan's art scene, offering short reviews of exhibitions at museums and galleries in recent weeks, with an emphasis on contemporary art by young artists. |
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| Daido Moriyama: HOKKAIDO |
| 19 December 2008 - 8 February 2009 |
Rat Hole Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Legendary street photographer Moriyama spent two months in Hokkaido during the summer of 1978, wandering around the island and snapping whatever caught his eye. Inspired by the photos of Hokkaido shot a century earlier by Kenzo Tamoto and others at the request of the Meiji government's Hokkaido Colonization Board, Moriyama says he was motivated by a desire to find images that resonate with the earlier works. |
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| Chizuru Masumura: Esperanza |
| 9 - 28 December 2008 |
neutron
(Kyoto) |
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| Osaka-based Masumura has garnered deserved recognition for her paintings of body parts (using herself as a model) in poses that resemble pantomime. Though surreal in presentation (e.g. a headless torso tossing a disembodied fist into the air), her images are meticulously rendered with a persuasive realism. |
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Iwata Nakayama: Modernist Light and Shadow |
| 13 December 2008 - 8 February 2009 |
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
(Tokyo) |
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| This retrospective offers a look at 55 defining works by Nakayama (1895-1949), a central figure in modernist prewar Japanese photography who spent the twenties in New York and Paris. Included are new prints from negatives that survived the destruction of Nakayama's Ashiya studio in the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. |
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| Toshio Shibata: Landscape |
| 13 December 2008 - 8 February 2009 |
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Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
(Tokyo) |
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| Since the 1980s photographer Shibata has been shooting dams, concrete retaining walls and other massive manmade structures in outdoor settings. This, his first real retrospective in Japan, features not only the monochrome "landscapes" he is best known for, but also more recent works in color, which he has been working with since 2005. |
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| Idevian Crew Homme: Daikokubashira |
| 18 - 20 December 2008 |
Little Theater, Kawasaki Art Center
(Kanagawa) |
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The thrill of watching Shigehiro Ide's dancers lies in their ability to generate sudden, shocking movements out of the smallest gestures. The huge daikokubashira (central pillar of a traditional Japanese house) looming over center stage is one such surprise. The all-male troupe (six performers in their thirties or forties), dressed as housebuilding artisans, surround the pillar as they engage in a mix of dance and manual labor.
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| Okinawa Prismed: 1872-2008 |
| 31 October - 21 December 2008 |
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
(Tokyo) |
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| This show endeavors to present the entire gamut of modern and contemporary expression (paintings, prints, crafts, photography, film) as applied to Okinawa from the Meiji era to the present. Consciously highlighting the difference between insider and outsider perspectives, it includes among the artists both native-born Okinawans and mainlanders who have taken an interest in the islands. |
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| Nao Tsuda: Smoke Line -- Tracing the Windstreams |
| 28 October - 21 December 2008 |
Shiseido Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Tsuda has gained notice in recent years for his pioneering work in new forms of expression through landscape photography. This solo show features images from locations in China, Morocco and Mongolia, where Tsuda traveled for three years. |
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| Natsunosuke Mise |
| 13 - 27 December 2008 |
Imura Art Gallery
(Kyoto) |
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| One of the young hopes of Nihonga (Japanese-style painting), Mise is known for his blending of countless images into compositions that transcend space and time. In this show he introduces some novel devices: inkjet-printed photograph collages, byobu screen-style mountings, and large framed works. |
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| Now, Oyamazaki... Yamaguchi Akira |
| 11 December 2008 - 8 March 2009 |
Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum
(Kyoto) |
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| This is popular painter Yamaguchi's first solo show in the Kyoto-Osaka area. Working in the traditional Yamato-e style, Yamaguchi introduces new works inspired by the history of Oyamazaki, known for the Battle of Yamazaki in 1582 between Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Mitsuhide Akechi, as well as tea master Senno Rikyu's Taian teahouse. |
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| Yosuke Kobashi |
| 8 - 20 December 2008 |
Gallery Den
(Osaka) |
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| A 2003 graduate of Osaka University of Arts, Kobashi has already had several solo exhibitions of his bizarre figurative works. The thirteen paintings in this show reveal an intensification of the colorful palette for which he is already known. |
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