10 Things in Tokyo: August 2019

Tokyo Station Gallery presents the first exhibition in Japan to showcase the starkly composed black and white works of Dutch printmaker Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (1868–1944), a teacher of M.C. Escher. Ends August 18. MuPon and TAB app users receive admission discounts.

The psychedelic graphic artist Keiichi Tanaami is enjoying renewed attention with recent shows at Scai The Bathhouse and Ginza Graphic Gallery. Kawasaki City Museum also offers a worthy retrospective with Passage in the Air: Paradise of Keiichi Tanaami, exhibiting more than 110 works from its collection including prints, posters, and experimental films. Ends August 25.

Photographer Yurie Nagashima and embroidery artist Kei Takemura ponder issues of family, place, memory, and time in Now and Then, a joint exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma. Through September 1.

Scai The Bathhouse also features an intriguing combination of artists with Summer Rains by Yuko Mohri and David Horvits. The conceptual installation artists team up for a meditative show of manufactured noises made by water, objects, and human voices “dedicated to studies of water and rain.” Ends September 7.

Yunoki Samiro: Choju Giga spotlights the 96-year-old katazome stencil dye artist Samiro Yunoki, notably his work based on 12th and 13th century Choju Giga picture scrolls of frolicking animals. Through September 8.

Julian Opie fills Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery with an immersive world of pop sculpture humanity in minimalist outlines populating pastures and cityscapes. Until September 23. ¥200 admission discounts for MuPon and TAB app users.

Shinro Ohtake has also constructed his own universe with Shinro Ohtake: Bldg. 1978–2019 at Art Tower Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture. This show features hundreds of works while focusing on a four-decade painting series expressing subjective memories of metropolises around the world. Ends October 6.

Yasuko Iba, A Way of Seeing at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum presents the delicate, sun-dappled works of an artist who creates still lifes based on photographs. Iba’s unique sense of space and depth is on full display in paintings, prints, and new video work. Through October 9.

Insects: Models for Design pays tribute to the beauty and ingenuity of our six-legged friends with designers, architects, structural engineers, and artists exhibiting insect-inspired creations such as robots and buildings. Through November 4.

“Life resembles a rolling snowball. It is not just snow, it also picks up earth, leaves, rubbish, and everything else that lies below it. Even though it becomes dirty, broken, or lopsided, it still resembles a clean white sphere when looked at from a distance.” Izumi Kato thus explains the title of “Like a Rolling, Snowball,” his two-part exhibition at Gunma Prefecture’s Hara Museum Arc and Tokyo’s Hara Museum of Contemporary Art. While Arc surveys Kato’s 25-year career creating sculptures, paintings, prints, and toy versions of his primitive humanoid characters, the Tokyo show (opens August 10) focuses on recent works. Both exhibits end January 13. MuPon and TAB app users receive ¥100 discounts. Roll on.