101Tokyo International Contemporary Art Fair, in its first year, will take place on April 03~06, 2008 and is Japan’s New International Contemporary Art Fair. Tokyo’s emerging galleries, expanding across the city’s 2,200 sq km landscape rarely get the chance to exhibit under one roof — especially in an international context. 101Tokyo will be the first International contemporary art fair in Tokyo featuring the very best up-and-coming galleries, and artists from Japan and all over the world. These selected galleries will show well-curated exhibitions, showing new works by their young, emerging contemporary artists. This will be an entirely new platform for collectors, curators, artists and art enthusiasts to come together and experience this exciting and innovating time in Tokyo’s contemporary art scene. Inspired by the models of other successful, driven art fairs such as Frieze, Liste, Nada and Scope, it is 101Tokyo’s goal to infuse new life into Tokyo’s art movement and create a sense of community for all art people, further nurturing Japan’s growing art market.

Art Fair Tokyo announces its highly anticipated third year of the fair to be held from Friday, April 4 to Sunday, April 6, 2008 and its return to the exclusive venue at the Tokyo International Forum. Building on the success of last year's fair, Art Fair Tokyo 2008 has garnered an international reputation as one of the most comprehensive fairs in Asia. With its outstanding selection of galleries and artists, Art Fair Tokyo presents a unique spectrum of Asian art from traditional Japanese arts and crafts to exciting, international contemporary art. Prices will cover a wide range of values from a few hundred US dollars to multi-million US dollars. Art Fair Tokyo provides the only opportunity in Japan to view an abundance of work from a diversity of genres in just a few days. Art Fair Tokyo has an increasingly visible presence as an influential annual event that is generating its own momentum among the many burgeoning art fairs in Asia. For 2008, the selection process provided 108 galleries with the opportunity to present their artists, including 7 overseas galleries from 6 cities (Seoul, New Delhi, New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Madrid). Of these, 19 -- including some of the overseas galleries -- are making their Art Fair Tokyo debut. Together, participants will be exhibiting approximately 2,500 works by nearly 600 artists. Related Events & Talks: -“International Exhibitions in Asia - The Next 10 years” (*with consecutive interpretation) April 4th (Fri), 18:30 – 20:30 (Doors open: 18:15) - “Globalization strategies for the Asian Art Markets” (*with simultaneous interpretation) April 5th (Sat), 14:00 – 16:00 (Doors open: 13:45) - Art and Architecture: "How will Architecture Change Art?" April 6th (Sun), 14:00 – 16:00 (Doors open: 13:45) - Venue Guided Tours April 4th (Fri) - 5th (Sat) Join us and you might find the artwork that changes your life! Over one hundred galleries will participate in ART FAIR TOKYO 2008, offering a breathtaking array of art – from contemporary to traditional Japanese, European, antiques, and craft. Participate in Art Fair Tokyo Venue Guided Tours and specialist art writers, artists and collectors will be on hand not only to help you track down something you like but also to answer your practical questions about purchasing it. Each tour lasts for 30 to 45-minutes and will be conducted in Japanese only. *Please check out the Tokyo Art Fair website for more details and reservation.

TAB Talks #3 will kick-start a sub-series of TAB Talks, aimed at shining the light on the foreign designers and artists living and working in Tokyo. The first guests will be a group of French creators working in various industries: (resident for 15 years, focuses on space and product design), (arrived in 2000, aesthetic director of OK FRED magazine), and (in Japan since 2006, web design and illustration). After a short presentation of their recent work, we will have them share stories about life and work in Japan, hardships and moments of joy. You are invited to make suggestions about themes or questions you would like them to answer by leaving a comment on this . We will have the designers choose their favourite ones, and part of the talk will be dedicated to answering those questions. Thank you for your support and see you on March 25th! Right after, we'll have a short segment called The 30-second Pitch. Five members of the audience will be invited to introduce themselves to the audience, promote a recent project, or announce a new product, website or company in under 30 seconds. Then for another hour, we'll have drinks, chatting, and networking among guests and audience, complete with on-demand translators at your disposal. TAB Talks are bilingual Japanese-English and start at 9pm, late enough for overworked designers like us. Drinks are available at the venue. Limited seating of 90, come early.

We often experience architecture and the renovations to it through photographs because buildings cannot be moved easily and are often demolished with time. Architectural photographs allow many viewers to experience an architectural work by reflecting the ideas of the architect, and at times sheds light on hidden aspects of a building also. This exhibition features commemorative architectural photographs taken during the Meiji era and photographs of pre-construction models in a 7-part show, comprising approximately 400 works. Lectures (In the Shinkan Main Hall. Doors open at 13:30.) -February 16th (Sat), 14:00-15:30 Lecturers: Naoya Hatakemaya (photographer) x Toyohiko Furubayashi (Toyo Ito Architectural Office) Subject: "Underconstruction" -March 8th (Sat), 14:00-15:30 Lecturer: Hiroshi Matsukuma (Kyoto Institute of Technology) Subject: "Architectural Photographs as Heritage" *Please see museum webpage for information on other events.

Asia's biggest international art event "Design Festa" with over 60,000 people attending! Design Festa is a freestyle International Art Event open to all artists, both professional and non-professional from all over the world to exhibit their creative talent. Design Festa started in 1994 and as of December 2006 it has successfully completed 25 events as well as 3 sub-events. This art event is held twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight, the biggest event hall in Japan. Design Festa is the ideal place for passionate artists who are looking for a great opportunity to show their artwork to a very large audience from all over the world.

Warhol, Lichtenstein, Basquiat, Richter, Gursky, Araki, Morimura, Sugimoto, Miyamoto, Hatakeyama... Featuring around 140 works by 60 prominent international artists from The UBS Art Collection, the exhibition represents a new partnership between an art museum and a corporate collection, as well as a new perspective on the theme of “Art and Life.” A world-class collection of contemporary art assembled by UBS, a global financial services firm, focuses on American and European paintings since the 1950s and European photographs since the 1990s. In recent years, the Collection has expanded into a more global one by incorporating works from Asia and Latin America. Selected works from the 1,000 plus collection has been divided into three sections, “Body,” “Built World” and “Space,” exploring the connections between artists’ ideas and the world. Symposiums and artists' talks are scheduled during the exhibition. Please see the museum's website for details.

Tadashi Kawamata is a "walkway." Tracing his journey over the past 30 years, from 1978 to 2008, we see that his career has been a continuing attempt to connect -- and be a "walkway" between art and the everyday. Kawamata's new project will turn the art museum into a "walkway." A walkway is an intermediate territory or threshold, a detour between two places or else a contact zone. The art museum is usually perceived as a storehouse or display area. By perceiving it as a "walkway" on which people come and go, how will Kawamata alter its spaces and its functions? Using this keyword, "walkway," as a lamp, viewers will survey the works he has created since his student days, including unfinished projects and those yet to begin. As they come and go on this "walkway," furthermore, they will observe people holding meetings, laboring, and engaging in dialogues, and may even find involvement in such activity. Tadashi Kawamata's "Walkway" is the practice of reconstructing experiences related to everyday life. Working without beginning or end, he creates an autonomous place in order to work free from limitation by goals or norms. [Image: "Working Progress" Alkmaar (1996-1999) Photo (c) www.leovanderkleij.com]

The VOCA exhibition started in 1994, and this is the 15th exhibition. VOCA takes the recommendations of museum curators, journalists and researchers from all over the country to select painters who are under 40 years old, and exhibit new work that they have made for the exhibition. Every year leads to a new discovery of emerging artists. Works by 36 artists are being displayed in this year's exhibition. Among these artists, a 5 person panel has selected one artist as the VOCA prize winner, two for honorable mentions, and two for having produced notable pieces of work. Prizes have also been awarded to each of these people from the Ohara Museum of Art and Fuchu Art Museum. The genres of works are diverse encompassing painting, print and film, as are the media that included pigment, dye, pencil and others. VOCA strives to explore the possibilities in the work of upcoming painters and other artists working in 2D media, and it allows visitors to see the state of contemporary and how it reflects the individual concerns of the artists who make it.

The "Artist File" exhibition is a new serial annual show that introduces NACT's view on the direction the art world today. There is no unifying theme to this exhibition, featuring works by 8 artists in various media such as photography, film, installation and drawing. Each artist's search for his or her own world that is tangible through the works. This exhibition aims to present an opportunity for viewers to experience the diversity and abundance of art expression in the contemporary art world. [Image: Polixeni Papapetrou "Dreams are Similar to Water" (2008) Pigment ink print]

This is the first solo exhibition in Japan by this internationally exhibiting New York based artist. She appropriates readily obtainable objects mass produced for daily use as the raw materials for her installations, making us rethink our everyday surroundings and arrangements. At first glance, Sze's techniques appear extremely contemporary, but the way she manipulates these artificial materials is based on traditional methods of sculpture. The mass-produced, inorganic, man-made items she uses in her works lend a powerful dynamism to her works that is reminiscent of the organic nature of cities constantly in motion. Chance and necessity, fragility and solidity, regularity and chaos - the dichotomies present in Sze's works swing the viewer's imagination's pendulum back and forth between the ordinary and fantastical.

Nobuhiro Fukui's first series, Trans Am (2005), depicted scenes of the city photographed between midnight and three a.m. The city at night continues to be his central theme. Of his work, he writes: Visual experiences today are directly and recursively regulated by the acoustic and optical information the media showers us with. What we perceive depends more on the media than on the “things" themselves. I am interested in seeing what people perceive -- and become able to perceive -- when infected with the virus of my photography. He indicates that photography has the power to thoroughly restore the reality we think we see but actually overlook. With every inch in sharp focus, his scenes overturn our notions of midnight darkness and confront us with a forceful new realism. The artifice of photography allows Fukui to render a scenic reality that exceeds our mediated senses. For his first solo exhibition at the Tomio Koyama Gallery, Fukui will install a series of nightscapes, taken from a wide range of vantage points in the city, to create an illusion of an unbroken panoramic sweep. We will present nearly twenty new images from his Juxtaposition and Multiples series. The artist has sought to make work that offers fresh insights with every viewing and we urge you to experience it with your own eyes. Opening Reception: March 8th (Sat), 18:00-20:00 [Image: © Nobuyuki Fukui, 2008]

The group exhibition "MOT Annual" started in 1999 to introduce young artists whose works take a set theme that reflects the times and contemporary direction in art. This year's theme was "to unravel." We are surrounded by things and information that on the one hand make our lives richer, and on the other complicate our judgment on what is good or bad, true or false. Unraveling these matters sometimes reveals a hidden composition that lies under the surface. Works by 5 artists who attempt to express a unique world view by dismantling and unraveling matters are on display. -Artist Talk- February 9th (Sat), 15:00- Aiko Tezuka February 23rd (Sat), 15:00- Teppei Kaneuji March 8th (Sat), 15:00- Toshiaki Hicosaka March 22nd (Sat), 15:00- Mariko Takahashi April 5th (Sat), 15:00- Fumio Tachibana -Curator Talk by Mihoko Nishikawa March 9th (Sun), 15:00- March 23rd (Sun), 15:00- April 6th (Sun), 15:00- [Image: Teppei Kaneuji Referenced work "Droplet and Fragment" (2007) Provided by the Japan Foundation, Photography by Yan Da Wei]

The word "goth" is derived from "Gothic" art that spread through Europe from the 12th to 16th century. However, the "goth culture" that we talk about today is far from this origin. Rather, it is directly connected with the 19th century British revival movement started among the illusionist writers, who felt a longing for medieval times. Today's goth culture is influenced by the revival concept and refers to mysterious and illusionistic ideas surrounding death, night, abnormality, insanity and so on, anything that is opposed to a "healthy" and conservative value system. Not only in pop culture, but also in contemporary art, elements of "goth" can be found in various forms. Some artists portray deformation and transformation of humans or other living creatures, and some explore self-identity through exploring a part of the body such as skin or bodily fluid. These expressions are not merely a preferred style, but the attempts to break through the conservative norms in society at large. "Goth" in pop culture is moving onto the next stage. It is not only a style or fashion, but a kind of language to communicate ideas of life. Tattoos, piercings, and visions on life and death are self expressions in this conservative society. This exhibition features 200 works of contemporary sculpture, painting, video, and photography by 6 internationally active artists. Through their work, this exhibition aims to address the true concept of "goth". Artist Talk 1 December 23rd (Sun) 14:00-17:00 (doors open 13:30) Artist: Ingrid Mwangi Robert Hutter/ Dr. Lakra, Ricky Swallow Place: Yokohama Museum of Art Amphitheater Free (exhibition ticket required). Artist Talk 2 February 11th (Mon/ Holiday) 14:00-16:30 (doors open 13:30) Artist: Tabaimo/ Masayuki Yoshinaga Place: Yokohama Museum of Art Amphitheater Free. Performance by Pyuupiru "Secret no, 4 -SRS-" March 22nd (Sat) 15:00- Place: Yokohama Museum of Art, Grand Gallery *Location may change. Please contact the museum for more details. [Image: Ricky Swallow "Younger than Yesterday" (2006) Linden, Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian Collection]

Far from restricting his use of flowing, elegant calligraphy to paper or canvas, Brody Neuenschwander has expanded the scope of his activities to encompass collage, three-dimensional work, and even film and the theatrical arena. Neuenschwander's calligraphy made a spectacular impression as one of the most important elements in the films "Prospero's Books" and "The Pillow Book," directed by British filmmaker Peter Greenaway. This exhibition will introduce his creative world by focusing on the SKIN installation, consisting of a video and paintings on canvas, which was produced for a museum converted from a medieval Belgian hospital. There will also be film screenings of his calligraphy works. -Gallery Talk with Artist (consecutive translation) Date and Time: March 6th, 16:00-17:30 Free. No reservation needed. -Peter Greenaway Film Screenings Dates and Times: March 7th (Fri), 8th *Sat), 14th (Fri), 15th (Sat) Films: Feature film "The Pillow Book", Film works "Writing on Water" (23 min.) & "Bologna Towers" (25 min.) -Capacity 20 people. Reservations needed.

Mario Giacomelli was an amateur photographer who was born in Senigallia in northeast Italy. Throughout his entire life, he took photographs almost exclusively in and of his hometown. He was a representative Italian postwar photographer who is highly regarded in Europe and America but little known in Japan. This exhibition introduces Giacomelli's work as a kind of reality made abstract through photography, including his representative works of seminaries and vast landscapes, right up to work from his late career.

20x20 Pecha-Kucha Night vol.50 20 images x 20 seconds 20:20pm start Hosted by Klein Dytham architecture. Anyone in the architectural and design world can 'show' and tell. It may be a newly finished building, it may be a new project, a new piece of furniture, a new event, a new idea, something you want to share with everyone. Architects, architectural students, students who are looking for a job and want to promote their skills, any creative person - everyone is encouraged to take part. Each person has twenty images, each image will be shown for 20 seconds. You can talk along with your slides.

Since their inaugural manifesto published by Andre Breton in 1924, Surrealism slowly grew to become the 20th century's largest art movement. From their base in Paris, the movement spread internationally, influencing everything from visual art to advertising and fashion. This exhibition focuses on the relationship between surrealism and photography, and introduces the unique visual world that brought about a revolution in artistic expression throughout the previous century. These photographs look back on the artistic paths of a multi-dimensional movement by continuing to throw new light on this influential artistic school. Open lectures Speaker: Kunio Iwaya (professor, Meiji Gakuin) Part one: "Man Ray and the Discovery of 'objets'" April 26th (Sat), 14:00- Part two: "Nadja, Paris, beauty convulsed" April 26th (Sat), 16:00- Part three: "Surrealism in the 1930s" April 27th (Sun), 14:00- Part four: "Travel, hyperreality and the magic of the everyday" April 27th (Sun), 16:00- -Open to all ticket holders on a first-come first-serve basis. -Passes will be given out at the counter on the 1st floor from 10:00 on the day of the talk. Related symposium ("Surrealism's Universe") April 20th (Sun) Part one, 14:00-/Part two, 16:00- Venue: 1st floor Hall -Open to all ticket holders on a first-come first-serve basis. -Passes will be given out at the counter on the 1st floor from 10:00 on the day of the talk.

With the fair's goal to reach the widest audience possible, 101TOKYO offers an exciting mix of art, music and visuals with live performances, featuring renowned Japanese DJs and VJs. For information about the party visit http://101.tokyofunparty.com/ Live: Atsuhiro Ito x Fuyuki Yamakawa x L?K?O (solo ~ trio) Chimidoro Special Audio + Visual Set: Drag+Drop (Shane Lester + Digiki) Special Performance: PINKoOo (moOog uamamOTO + Kathy Pink) DJs: Dexpistols Home Cut YATT SoccerBoy VJs: Onnacodomo Shantell Martin (live painting) A&W Design

There are many ways of supporting artists, and with "buying=supporting" as one of its concepts, Tokyo Wonder Site has sold artist works and products on its premises. This is the sixth "Wonder Seeds" based on an open call for submissions, and all of the works on show are for sale. Online sales became available last year, and 82 out of the 97 total works were sold. Wonder Seeds continues to aim to support art fans as well as artists, by providing opportunities to purchase art. [Image: Scene from Wonder Seeds 2007]

"The Myth of Tomorrow" is a work that Taro Okamoto was commissioned to make for a hotel in Mexico City between 1968 and 1969. However, due to a deterioration in the financial affairs of the people who made the commission, the work was not installed as planned and went missing for many years. Finally, some 30 years later it was rediscovered in September 2003. Following its hugely popular display in Tokyo's Shiodome area in Summer 2006, this exhibition presents the work "The Myth of Tomorrow" together with a preparatory sketch for it that was found in Taro Okamoto's atelier last year.