10 Things in Tokyo: September 2015 Roundup

This year Japan is graced with a September “Silver Week,” a block of five days off occurring every few years in a follow-up to spring’s Golden Week. Here are some beautiful, moving, provocative, and fun exhibitions to help you make the most of the month, especially the September 19–23 holidays.

The 7th annual Tokyo Art Book Fair brings together movers and shakers in the world of art publishing. Representing more than 300 international bookmakers, gallery presses, bookshops, and individual artists at the Tokyo campus of Kyoto University of Art and Design, the fair is the largest of its kind in Asia. This year’s TABF spotlights publications from the featured country of Switzerland and includes book signings, performances, talks, and a lecture by the internationally acclaimed book designer Irma Boom. September 19–21.

Both gorgeous and grotesque in equal parts, Jan Fabre’s Tribute to Hieronymus Bosch at Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo through September 23 presents sculptures and mosaics created from the shiny shells of jewel beetles. These works alluding to the fables of eccentric medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” reflect on both the beauty and brutality teeming within history and art.

The presence of history can also be felt at the Teien Museum’s Art Deco in Residence. Recreating the interior look of Prince Asaka’s former residence at its time of completion in 1933, this exhibition showcases the design of the building itself – a model of Art Deco architecture and an Important Cultural Property – as well as exquisite Art Deco pieces from individual collections. Ends September 23. (Eligible for MuPon discounts).

Family members of all ages can learn some delightful Japanese onomatopoetic words while immersing themselves in the tactile diversity of crafts at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo’s Pika Boko exhibit. There are even “touch and talk” tours each Wednesday and Saturday (14:00–15:00) for a hands-on experience with the works. September 27 is the last day for this show.

Treasures of the Fujita Museum brings superb Buddhist paintings, medieval calligraphy, hanging scrolls, lacquer, textiles, and tea ware from the Osaka-based collection of Denzaburo Fujita, a Meiji-era business titan and cultural aesthete. Even while acting as a driver in Japan’s modernization, Fujita worked to preserve masterpieces of Japanese and Asian art amid society’s shift away from its Buddhist roots and toward Europeanization. On display until September 27.

A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light is a documentary by Yuko Nakamura about the work of contemporary artist Rei Naito, whose serene, all-white structure “Matrix” on Terashima Island stuns thousands each year with its meditative interplay of water, light, and space. Nakamura’s film probes the essence of Naito’s artistic explorations of the tangible and intangible encountered within “the mystery of existence.” Showing with English subtitles at Theatre Image Forum September 19–30. (MuPon).

Christiane Löhr’s sculptures made with organic materials such as seeds, plant stems, and dog and horse hairs give a gentle nod to the Art Povera movement with their delicate, ephemeral beauty. Her pencil and oil pastel drawings similarly examine the structures, laws, and balances of power within the natural world. Lined at Taguchi Fine Art through October 10 presents Löhr’s sculptures and drawings.

Waseda University is exhibiting prints from 18th century master Francisco de Goya’s Los Disparates series. Meaning “folly”, “Los Disparates” uses dark and dream-like imagery to sardonically depict the irrationality at the heart of human suffering. This show ends October 11.

In Memory for Tomorrow, Dinh Q. Lê calls us to consider the Vietnam War, personal histories, political narratives, and the moral complexities of remembering. His challenging and moving photo tapestries, installations, drawings, and videos are on display at the Mori Art Museum until October 12. (MuPon).

Watari-um presents one of this autumn’s most hotly debated shows, Don’t Follow the Wind – Non-Visitor Center, which attempts to convey the ideas behind works by 12 artists including Chim↑Pom and Ai Weiwei installed inside Fukushima’s inaccessible nuclear exclusion zone. Records, drawings, and a documentary by Sion Sono spark the imagination and confront us with notions of invisible dangers, questioning whether what we cannot see is as powerful as what we can. September 19–October 18.

If you’d like to head out of Tokyo during Silver Week, TAB’s newsletter has a special issue about ongoing and upcoming art events in the northern Kanto region just a few hours from the capital. You can subscribe to our newsletter here.