Art Space Tokyo: An intimate guide to the Tokyo art world

AUGUST ARTICLE ROUND-UP

Posted by Ashley Rawlings on Thursday, September 4th 2008

Although the Tokyo art world slows right down in August, there have been a number of exhibition reviews published. Two exhibitions stand out in particular.

“Into the Atomic Sunshine”, curated by Shinya Watanabe, brought twelve artists from Japan and abroad together to address the many issues surrounding Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which renounces the state’s right to war.

Roger McDonald of Arts Initiative Tokyo was not so happy with the exhibition’s approach, as he posted here on his blog Tactical Museum.

On the other hand, Darryl Jingwen Wee appreciates the show’s attempt to get stuck into political issues in his review for Tokyo Art Beat, although questions why no manga or anime-related works were included.

I found the exhibition very stimulating — art works that touch on the Emperor’s role in World War II are rare in Japan — and I wrote a review of it for ArtAsiaPacific No.61, which I believe should be out in November.

Edan Corkill has written up a brief interview with Watanabe for the Japan Times. Those who are after a more extensive interview can find one here, at Japan Focus, conducted while the show was in New York earlier this year.

The other show that has been the subject of a fair amount of attention is Tadasu Takamine’s solo exhibition “THE SUPERCAPACITOR”, which is on at Arataniurano until September 20th.

Patrick Brzeski has reviewed it at length for Artscape.

Meanwhile, in her write up for Tokyo Art Beat, Yelena Gluzman questions the apparent disconnect between the artist’s presence and stated ambition versus the reality of the work.

Interested by the artist’s simultaneous attempt to turn the supercapacitor into a kind of brand while also harbouring an activist outlook, I gave a brief review of the show for Artforum.com here.

Lastly, in his column at RealTokyo, Tetsuya Ozaki talks about Takamine in more general terms relating to genre-crossing collaboratons — Takamine has collaborated with Yoshihide Otomo for a show currently on at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media.

Other reviews that have popped up in August are:

Jeffrey Rosen’s take on Ryohei Usui’s solo exhibition “Flying Goza Mat” at Mujin-to Production [Artscape]

Lucy Birmingham’s review of Hugues Reip’s “Parallel Worlds” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo [Metropolis]

My doubts about Yosuke Amemiya’s treatment of his own performance at Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya [ART iT]

And my review of “Trace Elements: Spirit and Memory in Japanese and Australian photomedia” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery until October 13th [Japan Times]