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Tokyo Art Events
MARCH ARTICLE ROUND-UP
Every month, Art Space Tokyo offers you a round up of exhibition reviews, interviews, feature articles and news items published on other websites. For up-to-the-minute info on Japanese contemporary art, follow us on Twitter.
Reviews
• “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha” [Artforum]
• Chim↑Pom at Project Fulfill Art Space [Artforum]
• “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha” [Artnet]
• Yayoi Kusama at the National Museum of Art, Osaka [Artscape International]
• “Cosmic Travelers – Toward the Unknown” at Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo [Artscape International]
• Akinori Matsumoto at BankART Studio NYK [Artscape International]
• G-tokyo Contemporary Art Fair at the Mori Arts Center [Japan Times]
• “March 11 seen through the eyes of comic artists from all over the world: Magnitude Zero” at the Kyoto International Manga Museum [Japan Times]
• Kota Takeuchi at XYZ Collective [Japan Times]
• “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha” [LA Times]
• “Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture” at Japan Society [NY Times]
• Misaki Kawai at the Children’s Museum of the Arts [NY Times]
• Misaki Kawai at the Children’s Museum of the Arts [NY Times]
• Aleksandr Rodchenko at Ginza Graphic Gallery [TAB]
• Ken Okiishi at Take Ninagawa [TAB]
• Art Fair Tokyo at the Tokyo International Forum [TAB]
Interviews
• Paramodel [Art Radar Asia]
• How the nuclear disaster roused Chim↑Pom [The Economist]
• Makoto Nomura [TAB]
• Roppongi Art Night [TAB]
• Yusuke Asai at Yoyogi Park [TAB]
• Tadashi Kawamata [TAB]
News
• ICP to honor Daido Moriyama for lifetime achievement [ART iT]
• Curator Sayoko Nakahara awarded 2012 H+F curatorial grant [Art Radar Asia]
• Minoru Mori (1934–2012) [NY Times]
• Hermès taps Hiroshi Sugimoto [Spoon & Tamago]
Art Space Tokyo’s July Party at the TODs Flagship Store
Following our party at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, we celebrated the relaunch of Art Space Tokyo in style at TODs.
The party was full of people featured in AST, but given the book’s focus on a specific set of venues, it was fantastic to see so many artists, gallerists, curators, collectors and editors from the broader Tokyo art scene in attendance.
You can check out the full photo report on the Pre-Post website.
JULY ARTICLE ROUND-UP
Every month, Art Space Tokyo offers you a round up of exhibition reviews, interviews, feature articles and news items published on other websites.
Reviews
• William Eggleston at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art [Artforum]
• “What is Architecture?” at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo [Artscape]
• Naoya Hatakeyama at Taka Ishii Gallery [Japan Times]
• Robert Waters at Mizuma Art Gallery [Japan Times]
• William Eggleston at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art [TAB]
• “Wind Speed 0” at Radi-um [TAB]
• Osamu Mori at Yamamoto Gendai [TAB]
• Tam Ochiai at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art [TAB]
• “Meaningful Stain” at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo [TAB]
• “Darkness for Light – Czech Photography Today” at Shiseido Gallery [TAB]
• Yuki Matsumura at Take Ninagawa [TAB]
• Yukihiro Taguchi at Gallery aM [TAB]
• Shinjuko at Parabolica-bis [TAB]
Interviews
• Adrian Favell [TAB]
Features
• An Indexical Survey of Tokyo in the Age of Cinema [ART iT]
• Japan as Galapagos [ART iT]
• The Mitsubishi Ichigokan [Artscape]
• 3331 Arts Chiyoda [Realtokyo]
Obits
• Yoshitaka Azuma (1977–2010) [ART iT]
Art Fair Tokyo announces its 2009 line up.
Known for its mixture of galleries that handle antique, modern and contemporary art, Art Fair Tokyo has announced that in 2009 it will feature more contemporary galleries.
Of the 113 participants, 105 are from Japan (mostly Tokyo), while 8 are international. 24 are classified as antique-dealing galleries, 49 as modern art galleries, and 40 as contemporary art galleries.
In a new development, next year will be the first time AFT features a secondary venue dedicated to young contemporary galleries that have been established in the last 5 years. Called Marunouchi Tokia (@TOKIA) there will be 29 participants, 19 of which are from Japan (mostly Tokyo) and 10 of which are international.
Although the complete list of participants has been announced in an email press release, at present the Art Fair Tokyo homepage does not show this information. Presumably it will be updated in due course.
Due to the previous uncertainty over the future of 101Tokyo, most of the Japanese galleries that participated in 101Tokyo 2008 have already joined Art Fair Tokyo’s Tokia annex. There are few commercial galleries of substance left in Tokyo, so it is likely that 101Tokyo will take on a different character next year.
Although 101Tokyo 2008 had a 50-50 balance of Japanese and international galleries, it is fair to assume at this stage that in 2009 it will reappear as a more internationally oriented fair.
101Tokyo 2009 Due to go Ahead
After a period of uncertainty hanging over its future, it appears that 101Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair, which made a promising debut in 2008, is due to take place for the second time in April 2009.
The new team has as its Director, art consultant and writer Jason Jenkins, and as its Creative Director, Haruka Ito, independent curator and director of Magical Artroom. Show management is being conducted by the event production company Loufas Co. Ltd.
For more details of this initial announcement, visit the 101Tokyo homepage.
Nobuo Sekine’s “Phase — Mother Earth” Under Reconstruction
As of yesterday, Nobuo Sekine has been recreating his Phase — Mother Earth (1968) at Den’en Chofu Seseragi Park in West Tokyo.
Created in October 1968 in the Suma Rikyu Park in Kobe, and consisting of a 2.2 x 2.7m cylindrical hole in the ground and an adjacent cylinder of earth of the same dimensions, this piece is one of the signature works of the Mono-ha movement of the late 1960s and early ‘70s. This is the first time Sekine is recreating the work, to commemorate 40 years since it marked a turning point in Japanese postwar art history.
However, unlike in 1968 when the work was made by Sekine and other artists of the Mono-ha group such as Koshimizu Susumu, who dug the earth out of the ground themselves, this time the earth will be excavated by a mechanical digger and coordinated by specialist engineers and only part of it will be made by hand. Sekine will, however, be present throughout to oversee the project.
The reasons for not doing it by hand this time are that there are water mains buried in the earth, and that part of the earth on site is suitable for excavation, meaning that specialist techniques are required to ensure the work is successfully recreated. In his autobiography Fukei no Yubiwa (Ring of Nature), Sekine wrote of how unexpectedly difficult it was to dig up the earth in 1968, and understandably now that he is in his sixties, he cannot work on the creation of the piece alone.
A few years ago at Wako University, students spent a month attempting to recreate Phase — Mother Earth, but when they removed the mold it turned out that the earth was not of the right consistency and the cylindrical form disintegrated immediately. At the Suma Rikyu Park, the earth had the consistency of pit sand, which mixed together with some concrete, made the work hold together.
Looking back, Sekine says that the realization of Phase Mother Earth in 1968 had a lot to do with unpredictably favourable circumstances, particularly the quality of the earth. They had received no permission from the park authorities as they dug up the ground and were lucky not to have been stopped before they had finished. Sekine suspects that had he applied to make Phase — Mother Earth beforehand, it may well have been turned down for concerns about quality of the earth, the potential risk to underground pipelines, or for health and safety regulations.
It’s interesting to think that had one of these favourable conditions not been present in 1968, one of the pivotal artworks in the early development of the Mono-ha movement, and one of the most iconic developments in postwar Japanese art history might not have come into being.
Construction work on Phase — Mother Earth will continue until October 31, and will be on display from November 1 to 9, from 9am to 5pm. Den’en Chofu Seseragi Park is directly opposite Tamagawa Station on the Tokyu Toyoko line.
For more information on the Mono-ha movement, you can read this article that I wrote for Tokyo Art Beat that introduces the main artists and their ideas.
After the Goldrush — Japan’s new post-bubble art and why it matters
Adrian Favell of UCLA will be holding a lecture and discussion about issues of commercialism and national branding in post-bubble Japanese contemporary art, on Wednesday September 17th, from 7 to 9pm at ZAIM in Yokohama. The talk is part of THE ECHO, an exhibition being held at ZAIM, described in the press release as “an alternative presentation of new young Japanese art during the Yokohama Triennale”.
The full press release for the event is posted on Tokyo Art Beat.
Terence Koh Calls for Participants in his Parade at the Yokohama Triennale
The other night, I randomly met Terence Koh (aka Asian Punk Boy) for the first time, at a rowdy house party (are relatively rare occurrence in Tokyo, given how close houses are packed together).
He’s one of the many artists arriving in Tokyo at the moment to get ready for the Yokohama Triennale starting on the 13th. There are many performances taking place over the opening weekend, and Terence was telling me about his plans to hold a silent procession of white-clad figures through the Yokohama bay area.
He’s just launched boybythesea.com, calling for participants… the instructions are simple.
(The more I hear about events like these, the more frustrated I am that my flight to New York leaves on the opening night of the Triennale...)
Makoto Aida at Mizuma Art Gallery
Makoto Aida at the opening of his solo exhibition “I’m Mizuma’s Iwaki!” at Mizuma Art Gallery. See more photos of the opening here, and exhibition details here.
Min Tanaka to dance around SCAI The Bathhouse
From July 4 to July 8, Min Tanaka will be holding a performance and documentative exhibition titled “Locus Focus” at a number of sites around SCAI The Bathhouse.
Tanaka is an internationally renowned dancer/choreographer known for his distinctive interpretation of butoh movement. His “Locus Focus” series of performances takes place not in theatres, but in open air locations, and it has led him to several countries, including China and Spain, including a 45 day dance around Indonesia in 2004.
For this performance, he will dance from roughly 3pm every day in different locations around Yanaka. The dance will be recorded on video and played the following day at SCAI The Bathhouse. Nobuyoshi Araki will be photographing his dance on the 5th, and on all three days at 6pm there will be a talk given by the artist and a variety of guest speakers at the gallery.
More details about the location of each dance and the guest speakers are available on the gallery homepage.
About & Community
A place to keep abreast of Art Space Tokyo related news, reviews, events and updates.
Art Space Tokyo is a 272 page guide to the Tokyo art world produced and published by Craig Mod & PRE/POST.
It was originally published in 2008 by Chin Music Press.
