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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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| Tamiko Nishimura: Shikishima |
| 5 February - 1 March 2014 |
Zen Foto Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| In 1973, Tokyo-born photographer Nishimura published a photo book, Shikishima, about her travels in outlying regions of Japan, particularly Hokkaido, Tohoku, and Hokuriku. The present exhibition commemorates the release of a new edition of Shikishima in a set with a reprinting of the original volume. Nishimura's images have a viscous quality; they writhe and squirm like some sort of invertebrate creature. |
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| Katsumi Omori: sounds and things |
| 6 February - 9 March 2014 |
MEM
(Tokyo) |
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| Omori is surely a photographer with a keen sense of hearing. It's not that he shoots lots of pictures of musicians or music venues. Rather, he treats his subjects not as silent objects frozen in place, but fully embraces all the "noise" that surrounds them. |
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| Ken Matsubara: REPETITION |
| 7 - 28 February 2014 |
MA2 Gallery
(Tokyo) |
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| Multimedia artist Matsubara describes his installation as composed of "photographs and movies imprinted with people's recollections." Through his works he aims, he says, to get visitors to ponder Kierkegaard's assertion that "repetition and recollection are the same movement, just in opposite directions." |
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| Aya Fujioka: Life Studies |
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Ginza Nikon Salon
(Tokyo)
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| During the photographer's four years in New York City she met compulsive liars, marijuana addicts, self-proclaimed actresses, narcissistic roommates. Even while being manipulated by these "sick and seriously funny" individuals, she found herself powerfully drawn to them. The photos she took of these subjects over the course of her N.Y. sojourn trained her, she says, in the art of the snapshot. |
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| Mizuho Kuki solo exhibition: just OKIMONO, until PAINTING |
| 11 - 16 February 2014 |
Kunst Arzt
(Kyoto) |
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| Lining the shelves that cover the walls of this small gallery are some 600 objects, all vaguely humanoid or plantlike, and all about 10 cm high. They are crudely constructed and gaudily painted, so that one can barely discern whether each represents flora or fauna. In an adjacent sub-gallery the artist displays sketches of these objects. The overall effect is rather otherworldly. |
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| Katsuhito Nakazato: Boso-Echigo Tunnels |
| 17 February - 1 March 2014 |
Kobo
(Tokyo) |
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| Nakazato has devoted his photographic career to unearthing the collective memories buried in both urban and natural landscapes. Here he explores the rough-hewn tunnels found in the central Boso Peninsula of Chiba Prefecture and the Tokamachi district of Niigata Prefecture. With ancient chisel marks still visible in the rock, these images carry us back and forth between scenes of the distant past and the space-time continuum of the future. |
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| Yo Aoki: Fire and Earth |
| 24 February - 8 March 2014 |
Art Gallery M84
(Tokyo) |
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| There is a magnetic pull to Aoki's work. He shoots and prints images of entirely ordinary scenes and objects, but all of them reflect his prodigious talent for sniffing out subjects and the high level of craftsmanship he brings to the finishing process. The results of this happy melding of a metaphysical point of view with artisanal technique are both daring and sublime. |
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| Nao Tsuda: SAMELAND |
| 14 February - 6 March 2014 |
POST
(Tokyo) |
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| The Sami (often referred to as Lapps) are an indigenous people who inhabit a region extending across northern Scandinavia, and who traditionally have led a nomadic life herding reindeer. Photographer Tsuda spent the summer of 2012 in the Sami areas of Finland and Norway, culminating in a visit to Nordkapp, the cape at the northernmost end of Norway. This show offered visitors an opportunity not only to vicariously share Tsuda's experience through his portraits and landscapes, but to learn more about a remarkable culture. |
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