Inspired by old painting techniques, Jose Maria Sicilia is a representative contemporary Spanish artist known for his large-scale series of paintings of flower and butterfly motifs on top of a base coat of beeswax. Sicilia was born in Madrid and now lives and works in Paris and Mallorca, and exhibits his work in Madrid, Paris, London and New York. Continuing on from his large-scale solo exhibition held at the Nagasaki Prefecture Museum of Art in August, this show at Tokyo's Tamada Projects will be Sicilia's second solo exhibition in 9 years. In addition to the aforementioned beeswax series of paintings, a series of drawings on Japanese washi paper and other new works using Japanese materials will be on display. 50% of each entry ticket sold will be shared and donated to humanitarian medical NGO Médecins Du Monde and art-related Non-Profit Gadago, the organization running Tokyo Art Beat.

"2010 - The Power of Creating the Future: The Third Opening to the World" is the main theme of this forum. Discussions on personalities who should take the lead in opening up the future will be held, with leading figures in the fields of economics, culture, and various cultural domains. This forum will be held in Nagoya and Tokyo. Free admission, reservation required. Reservations can be made on their website (available in Japanese only). Tokyo: October 27th (Mon) 13:30-17:00 (doors open 12:30) Reservation deadline: October 8th (Wed) Guests: Akira Ikeda (journalist), Narumi Komatsu (non-fiction writer), Tomio Koyama (gallerist), Seiichi Takarabe (economic journalist), Naohiro Yoshikawa (NRI consultant)

"Boojum" is a device that gives one a meaningless sense of balance. Its system is made up of 10 machines whose names all start with the letter "B": Broke, Backwards, Bridge, Brooklyn, Blind, Blemish, Bounce, Biscuit, Beijing, and Because. Among them, only Blemish is unable to make itself visible. All of these machines are black, and they do not move at all until Blind opens its eyes to the sight of the sun rising from between Brooklyn and Bridge. When Biscuit pours a cup of tea for Backwards, Bounce screams at Beijing, telling it to sit at the table. Meanwhile, whenever Because passes by looking for a slit, Broke sits still in silence.

In addition to its rapid economic growth, China has gained much attention not only for the Beijing Olympics, but also for its contemporary art scene, which has made waves across the world. Since the period of reform and open-door policies dating from the 1970s, China saw new modes of expression emerge that were entirely different from socialist realism. Then, in 1979, the Star Painting Group held an exhibition that set a precedent for a new type of artistic activity whose focus was on the individual characteristics of each artist. Around the mid-1980s, a variety of avant-garde groups formed all over China, leading to the famed "85 Art Movement". Against a backdrop of information flows from Western Europe, these groups of artists took on domestic social themes, expressing them through various media ranging from painting, sculpture, performance and installation. At the beginning of the 1990s, a series of artists gained international attention through the art movements "political pop" and "cynical realism", after which more radical forms of art emerged. Thus, with accompanying globalization movements from 2000 onward, Chinese contemporary art has come to be recognized as a quintessential phenomenon that symbolized the opening up of the nation as well as its booming art market. Showcased at this exhibition are works by both well-established and up-and-coming artists, reflecting 20 years of Chinese contemporary art history in their individual ways. [Image: Fang Lijun "Series 2 No.3" (1992) oil on canvas, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Collection]

Trace Elements: Spirit and Memory in Japanese and Australian Photomedia features work by Australian artists Philip Brophy, Jane Burton, Alex Davies, Genevieve Grieves and Sophie Kahn together with Japanese practitioners Teiji Furuhashi, Seiichi Furuya, Chie Matsui, Lieko Shiga and Kazuna Taguchi. An exhibition that encompasses both the traditions and the innovations of photomedia practice, from black and white photography to interactive video installation, Trace Elements considers the ways in which contemporary artists are addressing the intrinsic relationship of photography to time, memory and the metaphysical association of the medium to phantasmagoria and the semblance of lived experience. Relating Programmes Open Forum "Part Past Part Present Part Fiction: Trace Elements" July 19th (Sat) 14:00-17:00 Conference Room (1 and 2) on the 7th floor in Tokyo Opera City bldg. Capacity: 180 seats Language: Japanese and English with successive translation. Admission: Free Please check out the museum's website for more information and other related events.

"Annette Messager: The Messengers" is the first major solo exhibition for leading French artist Annette Messager to be held in Japan. Painting, photography, articles, objects assembled from found objects, words, stuffed animals, plush toys, fabrics, embroidery, thread and knitting: these and many other objects from everyday life have found their way into the art of Annette Messager since she began working in the 1970s. Keeping her work based firmly in everyday life, Messager explores the various dichotomies and contradictions inherent in the human condition: religion and secularity, humor and fear, love and pain, woman and man, animal and human, childhood and adulthood, life and death, surface and substance. Springing perhaps from meditations on impulsive collecting or the body, from games with plush toys, or from clever wordplay, Messager's art possesses both a childlike innocence and a brutality that afford multiple readings. With a flair for incorporating wry humor into even the most direct confrontations with negative aspects of human endeavor, Messager is able to move and delight people of all generations. Charming and fantastical, and at times taking strange and mysterious forms, Messager's art works are "messengers" that talk directly to our souls. This exhibition was originally shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and has toured to Finland and Korea. The roughly 30 works on show include Casino, for which the artist won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2005, and other important works such as articulated-disarticulated.