Roppongi Gallery Building Closes

Five of Tokyo’s key commercial galleries party out their last night in Roppongi (or not) before heading their separate ways.

poster for

"Force Quit" Closing Party

at Radi-um
in the Nihonbashi, Kudanshita area
This event has ended

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In Photo Reports by Ashley Rawlings 2008-02-24 print email

A crowd is spilling out onto the street. Something's going on...

The attention is focused on Magical Artroom......where a strange and at moments very loud noise band was performing.

On the 2nd floor, Taro Nasu Gallery, apparently not in a hurry to leave, was seeing the night out with a typically quiet reception for a group exhibition. Except for the grinding noise vibrating through the floor from Magical Artroom below.

Gallery Min Min didn't seem to be in the mood for partying.Meanwhile the writing was clearly on the wall at Ota Fine Arts...

... which seemed very much packed up and ready to go. Note the Yayoi Kusama works bundled in with the rest of their stuff.

Goodbye to the distinctive staircase leading up to Weissfeld-Roentgenwerke AG......and hello to the one-night-only mirrorball.

Calling their closing party 'Force Quit', Roentgenwerke celebrated by ripping up the white floor and tearing down the white walls to host a full on DJ disco party.

A Taiko drum is rolled out...

Driven by the beat of The Knack's 'My Sharona', some felt compelled to use it as a dance podium...

...until gallery owner Tsutomu Ikeuchi came out to deliver a captivating performance.

Next door, people were clustered into bar Traumaris, which will keep operating until the end of the month before moving on.

During the bar's last week, artist Kohei Nawa will be coming in to unpeel his work from the wall.

Basic details of relocations:

Magical Artroom will move to Ebisu, sharing a building with the Nadiff bookshop, which recently left its well-known location in Harajuku. Taro Nasu Gallery will move to nearby Azabu Juban while Ota Fine Arts will relocate to Kachidoki. Gallery Min Min is moving to Daikanyama. Lastly, Weissfeld-Roentgenwerke AG is moving to Asakusabashi, reopening with the name “Radi-um”. All gallery locations will be updated on TAB in due course.

Ashley Rawlings

Ashley Rawlings. Born in 1981 in London. After a year of studying painting and mixed media at Chelsea College of Art & Design, he took on Japanese Studies at Cambridge. He moved to Tokyo in 2005, where he studies the history of Japanese post-war art at Sophia University and works as a freelance writer, translator and editor. As well as writing and editing for TABlog, he writes for the Japan Times and the ART iT website. He is also the editor of Art Space Tokyo, an intimate guide to the Tokyo art world. When not in galleries and museums or taking photographs, he enjoys losing himself in among Tokyo's skyscrapers, wandering silent streets, and riding out the occasional earthquakes. Will only consider returning to Britain once they've fixed the weather. Contact at: ashley (at) tokyoartbeat.com » See other writings

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