1968 in particular was a turning point in the history of Japanese photography, starting with the “A Century of Photography” exhibition in which The Japan Professional Photographers Society explored the way Japanese photography had evolved in the previous 100 years. The organizers, headed by Shomei Tomatsu and including among others Koji Taki and Takuma Nakahira, reassessed the evolution of photography up to that point, and its role in shaping Japanese society.

The exhibition features a number of vintage works that foresaw, with their provocative and feral images, the revolution to come.

Among the artists who showed an interest in new subjects were Yutaka Takanashi, who around the same years produced the “Tokyoites” series…

… and Daido Moriyama who portrayed the world of the stage in his “Japan Theater” series.

In 1968, Taki, Nakahira and Takanashi, together with Takahiko Okada launched Provoke Magazine. They were later joined by Moriyama.

Breaking with established photographic canons, Provoke championed a new rougher style characterized by blurry, sometimes sideways images, that provided a new aesthetic sense to those frantic, urgent times. Provoke only lasted three issues but its short life managed to revolutionize Japanese photography.

Still in 1968, Kamera Mainichi magazine began to introduce new trends under the korpora (contemporary) label. Young photographers were featured who shared a new approach to realism in photogrpahy based on a distinctly personal take on everyday life. Among them was Katsumi Watanabe who in “”Shinjuku Gangs” immortalized the Shinjuku underworld with his transgressive portraits of gang members, bar hostesses, and strippers.

The student protests of the late ‘60s found their iconographic counterpart in the work of the members of the All Japan Students Photo Association, like Hitomi Watanabe who covered the “Tokyo University All-Campus Joint Struggle League.” In an effort to affirm the importance of the collective struggle, the students often published their works anonymously, thus questioning the idea of artistic authorship.

While some of the prime movers gradually distanced themselves from traditional photography and closed themselves in their private worlds (like Moriyama with his controversial “Bye Bye Photography” series from 1972), the seeds planted in 1968 gave rise to new personal ways to approach artistic creativity. One of the more noteworthy examples was Nobuyoshi Araki who, with the self-published “Sentimental Journey” (1971) championed a more personal, subjective approach to photography.

Q1. What are some surprisingly essential items for creative work?

A mirror and elastic bands for attaching luggage to a bicycle.

Q2. How do you like to spend your free time?

I don’t have a particular favorite place to spend my leisure time, but I like wandering the streets of foreign countries and finding good cafes.

Q3. What sort of place is Tokyo for you?

It’s a place I don’t understand. There are many people whom I cannot understand.

Q4. Where is your favorite spot in Tokyo?

Portmans Cafe (in Kiyosumi-shirakawa).

Q5. What was one project that was particularly memorable from your illustrious career?

A sculpture of the Madonna for a Trappist monastery (it led to the use of camphor wood in my early work).

Q6. What’s a book that’s changed your life?

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist’s Barabbas. It’s the story of a thief who was pardoned instead of Christ. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Q7. Describe an encounter that changed your life.

A girl in the same year as me in high school (she is now my wife).

Q8. What’s your favorite phrase?

“Hope is the last thing to die.” It’s the words of gymnast Věra Čáslavská upon being appointed as a government minister.

Q9. Which historical sculptors do you revere?

Yasutake Funakoshi, Brancusi, and Unkei.

Q10. If you could define your position in the world in one phrase, what would it be?

In art history, I’d be the brakes; the flavoring of the soup; one of the stones in the garden.

Only rarely does one encounter an exhibit that succeeds in showcasing an entire culture. From the gleaming aerodynamic contours of the Airstream trailer parked in the entrance, to the iconic interior décor designs of Weber and the Eamses,”California Design, 1930 – 1965: “Living in a Modern Way”” brings the happy-go-lucky ambiance of the mid-century West Coast ethos straight to Roppongi’s The National Art Center, Tokyo. The exhibit combines over 250 objects from a myriad of mediums to tell the story of a flourishing material culture fostered by a liberal and hospitable climate.

A spinoff of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exposition of the same title, this exhibition is the culmination of a five-year research effort to define the aestheticism inherent to the era. The result is a comprehensive and expository exhibition that focuses as much on the generation’s sociocultural context as it does on its artistic value. Divided into four sections—shaping, making, living, and selling—each segment explores mid-century California in a different light. Visitors start their journey in the “shaping” section, where said aluminum trailer and some epochal interior décor articles reveal how a surge of denizens and émigrés met new technology and cultural liberalism with intrepid experimentation and a thirst for opulence that was the driving force of its unique, optimistic modernism. The sections that follow shed light on how the Californian lifestyle came to symbolize post-war American prosperity through its ceaseless pursuit of an idealized lifestyle.

The exhibit effectively utilizes specific artifacts from the age to showcase how different concepts influenced California’s ideological definition of modern living. Many of the streamlined appliances and interior décor items draw from a fascination towards the advent of aerodynamic technologies and other wartime-driven innovations. Husband and wife virtuosos Charles and Ray Eames gained international recognition with their innovative use of modernistic materials and technologies. The LAR (Low Lounge Chair) was one of the first attempts at using fiberglass (frequently used during the war as aircraft building material) in interior décor, and remains to this day the masterpiece of Eames’ design. The streamlined contours of the sun-orange parchment fiberglass basin propped on thin metal rods, at merely 10 pounds, is one of the lightest in Eames design, achieving comfort in design as well as versatility; attributes that the designers pursued throughout their careers. In fact, their generation did not fail to embrace even the most ominous of cold-war nuclear threats, which in turn inspired an outburst of atomic and rocket imagery shaping a benign view on a topic of possibly calamitous consequences. The air was of sheer optimism in an age when society was blessed with new technology after another and the vigor of a blooming economy.

Californian modern design culminated in the creation of the Case Study Houses, an experimental study of inexpensive and modern residential architecture commissioned by the canonical LA-based Arts & Architecture magazine from 1945 through 1964. These 36 houses are in a sense the embodiment of a quintessential modern lifestyle as conceptualized by mid-century Californian culture. Case Study Houses were proposed and drafted by architectural pillars such as Pierre Koenig and Craig Ellwood, each design being unique in its aesthetics but sharing a common ideology. A modest section of the exhibit is dedicated to introducing these homes from various perspectives.

Effectively displaying a “culture” (albeit one that is as varied and free-spirited as the one in question) within the boundaries of a conventional museum arena proved to be a challenge. For the first time in the museum’s history, NACT employed architect Ryuji Nakamura to design an exhibit space appropriate for the theme. The outlay of the show blends the boundaries between the four segments, just as California modern design refused to clearly distinguish its living quarters with the outside atmosphere. Guests are encouraged to relax in a Kapel chair while viewing rare television footage from the era. With a little bit of imagination, the exhibit allows its visitors a first hand experience of living the culture by surrounding themselves with all things Californian.

As curator Wendy Kaplan stated on the topic of Californian modernism, the culture was indeed not “a single aesthetic but a loose, albeit clearly recognizable group of ideas.” The phrase “Californian” is loaded language. While a Japanese audience may at first consider it synonymous to Hollywood glamor, a walk through the exhibit is bound to open minds to a deeper level of understanding towards the social and cultural foundations that influenced the utopic mindset that is associated with the term with today.

Golden Week– a series of national holidays at the end of April and beginning of May (April 29 and May 3, 4, 5 and 6)– will soon be upon us and art-goers will have plenty of exhibitions to choose from. All the exhibitions listed below will be open on public holidays over the Golden Week period except as noted.

Many of Tokyo’s art museums’ programs have chosen solo exhibitions for this time of year. The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo has a solo exhibition by Francis Alÿs, a Belgian-born artist living and working in Mexico. The museum is also holding the first comprehensive solo exhibition of one of Japan’s few female pre- and post-war Surrealist painters, Yuki Katsura. This exhibition will be a significant gesture in art historical revisionism for Japan’s twentieth century women artists.

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery is holding a major exhibition of the feel-good photography of Ume Kayo, a young Japanese photographer who loves to find the comical and sometimes awkward situations of everyday life. Take, for example, her series called Danshi (Boys), in which she snaps schoolboys at their silliest and most disgusting. The exhibition will guarantee a smile or chuckle.

The Shirokane Art Complex is celebrating its 5th anniversary with a collection of connected events all curated by the acclaimed photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. “Memento Mori- Eros & Thanatos” will be shown across Arataniurano, Kodama Gallery, London Gallery and Yamamoto Gendai. Take care that these exhibitions will not be open during the official public holidays, Sundays and Mondays, but are well worth a look if possible.

French conceptual artist Sophie Calle has brought her beautiful works from the “Blind” series to Tokyo. “For the First and Last Time” is focused around the stories of people who have lost sight. Along with portraits of her subjects, Calle’s works include stories of the last thing they saw before they lost the ability to see. Downstairs, the artist also documents the experience of a range of subjects who view the ocean for the first time in their lives.

Speaking of Sophie Calle, fans may also be interested in traveling to the Hara Museum Arc in Gunma prefecture to see “Spinning the World: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Museum Collection“. The Arc is in a fabulous location; it’s in close proximity to a hot spring resort, a couple of temples and Lake Haruna. Closed on Thursdays.

Take a quick trip to Yokohama to check out a large survey of Southeast Asian art. “Welcome to the Jungle: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” (can’t help but think of horrible ’80s rock with that title) is curated by Khairuddin Hori, senior curator at the Singapore Art Museum. He has brought to Japan a wide variety of works from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and The Philippines. It’s a good opportunity to see some dynamic art works–most for the first time– from the region. Closed on Thursdays.

If you’re looking to discover something or someone new, the twice-annual “Spiral Independent Creators Festival” (SICF) will again showcase some of Tokyo’s best emerging artists and creatives in the Spiral Hall in Aoyama. Meanwhile, Mori Art Museum will hold a large-scale group exhibition featuring works as diverse as Rodin’s The Kiss to images of the digitally simulated pop star Hatsune Miku. “All You Need is Love: From Chagall to Kusama and Hatsune Miku” is set to represent all kinds of expressions of love within the world of art.

On a completely different note, the Japan Folk-Craft Museum will display the art and crafts of Ainu culture. “Ainu Crafts- Patterns with a Prayer” features clothing, jewellery and other objects mostly from Hokkaido in the 19th century. The patterns, as well as being beautiful to look at, have important spiritual functions such as warding off evil.

By the way, check out the Mupon app to access many of these exhibitions at a discount.

Gadago NPO is currently seeking to hire one part-time translator to help translate and edit the bilingual event listings for our sister site Kansai Art Beat relaunching early summer.

Event listings are the heart of what we do. Not only do they appear on the website, they are also read by thousands of people using our apps, and our social media channels.

There can be flexibility on schedule but ideally candidates will be able to commit between two~three days a week for around 12 months at least, beginning in mid-May.

Candidates must be English native speakers. The majority of the translation will be creating short English versions of longer Japanese event content, so strong language skills are a must — and also an enthusiasm for editing work.

The pay starts at ¥1,000/hr depending on experience, plus transport costs.

If you are interesting in joining our team, please get in touch.

The goal for the exhibition is, as Taku Satoh explains, to nurture children’s appreciation for design, especially designs that we encounter on a daily basis. For that reason many of the items on display are fairly commonplace: like money, food, books, and magazines. As is regularly done on the program, each object is remixed or reconstructed with the aim of a eureka-like ‘Ah!’ reaction.

To its credit there’s a fair balance between the content that both the children and adults will find interesting. For example, Tomohiro Ozaki’s Money Breakup is a giant thousand yen note split up into seven layers, splendidly arranged by texture. As you might imagine though, it’s the interactive exhibits that generate the most excitement.

“Ah!” in motion (created by tha ltd.) lets kids dance around to their heart’s content, while a motion sensor records and animates their funky movements on the wall. Book Mismash (by Perfektron) has a mini-library area, where tiny hands can get creative mixing and matching different book parts. More traditional crafts are covered with Origami and Furoshiki, while those already hooked on technology can sketch an object on one of eight iPads in an exhibit titled Dessin Ah!, then admire their sketch later as it is animated on on the main screen, stroke by stroke.

Cornelius and tha ltd’s contribution Room of Objects, Sounds and Movies is a more interesting prospect than the title suggests. Here, a seemingly random collection of bric-a-brac sits on a table, while the surrounding screens jump back and forth between the objects, along with each song’s lyrics. Many of the younger viewers seemed a bit bamboozled by this, but once the interplay between the two points becomes clear it’s a strangely euphoric, immersive experience.

Sound Monacle (by Hisato Ogata) is another interesting use of technology. Blank white screens illuminate one of the venue’s corridors, and with the aid of the attached monacles viewers can magically reveal animations and pictures. It could have done with being displayed in a different place though, with pram jams regularly stopping people from passing through or getting to the exit.

Overall, considering the fact that most art spaces in Tokyo are pretty much no-go areas for parents and children, it’s about time that an exhibition like ‘Design Ah!’ gets its run. Extra thumbs up to the organizers for the open camera policy, and the nice dual language displays. The exhibition is on until the beginning of June, and seems best suited for kids three and above.

“JR: Could Art Change the World?” serves as a concise retrospective of the 30-year old’s career so far, covering his internationally renowned art projects in places of the world that are linked by their reputations as ‘no-go’ areas – Paris’ notorious housing estates (Portrait of a Generation, 2004-2006); the Gaza Strip (Face2face, 2007); and the favelas of Rio (Women are Heroes, 2008-10). The images on display from the former series depict residents from the Parisian estate, La Forestière, which bore the brunt of the infamous 2004 riots in the French capital. The black-and-white portraits, shot mainly in close-up and often with a fish-eye lens, show the subjects grinning and pulling funny faces; forcing all but the most serious gallery-goers to return the smile. And what more visible emotional reaction could an artist hope to evoke from their viewer? JR printed and recontextualized these shots, flyposting them onto the public walls of more affluent Parisian neighborhoods, thus providing a powerful counter image to the French media’s riot coverage, which depicted only angry ethnic minorities hell-bent on destruction. In JR’s posters, the youth of La Forestière can be in the thoughts of Parisian middle classes for a second time—not through their aggression but through their varying expressions of humanity.

It is with similar intent then that, in 2012, JR initiated a new project in the areas of northeast Japan that were afflicted by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. As part of his wider Inside Out Project, a Japanese photography team toured the area in a truck equipped with an adapted photo booth and large format printer. They made more than 400 portraits of a diverse group of local people and fly-posted them around the afflicted towns, most eerily so on the side of a marooned fishing vessel swept 800 meters inland by the tsunami.

The Watari-um dedicates its ground floor to this project and more significantly its gallery front, where the people of Kesennuma and Fukushima, rendered in poster art, beam over the busy street, provoking regular passers-by to stop and stare and, one suspects, scan the image for a missing brand name or advertising slogan. JR is prepared to risk displaying his work largely without words, even in the gallery setting where information cards and curatorial comments are notably scarce or absent. The subjects of JR’s work don’t serve his personal statement or message, but represent themselves, most often through their own image only. In his use of the photo booth and his readiness to let others make the images, JR renounces the idea of himself as artist. Instead he has become like a curator; and the world is his gallery.

Like in 2012, Hibino chose to focus on the artistic and social response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, starting with the tall lighthouse that from the Roppongi Hills Arena was meant to beam a light of hope toward Tohoku. The theme chosen this year – “Trip – Witness Today’s Transformation into Tomorrow” – was also a reminder of how art, like a long journey, can change people’s values. For Hibino the sea, rivers and boats are symbolic of movement and time passing, and indeed, boats of many sizes and shapes could be found everywhere, each one carrying different messages and artistic delights. A strong cold wind joined the festivities as if to blow the ships on their night trip around Roppongi, but failed to stop the people from joining in the fun.

One of Hibino’s goals was to create “ordinary art in everyday life”. This was also apparent in the ‘poor’ materials often chosen by the artists to make their works – in many cases waste materials that were rescued and recycled, giving them a new identity.

According to Hibino, recent trends in art point toward a new attitude which cuts through barriers and categories. In this sense art is getting closer to life in both tackling sensitive social issues and embracing interculturalism. Hopefully the many people who stayed through the night were sucked into that special time zone where imagination runs wild and we can freely share our dreams.

Randy Swank
Escaped from his home country in 1992 and found refuge in Japan, where he promptly found a job teaching people how to shout HELP! and avoid being robbed on foreign buses. Since 1997 he has been unhealthily active in the mail art network, unleashing on the unsuspecting public, among other things, the Treatise of Pataphysical Anatomy and the international fake political campaign poster project. When not running after his two kids and from his wife, he is usually busy making zines (one of them is about Tokyo and all things Japanese), writing for high- and lowbrow magazines, and exploring Tokyo. You can read his uncensored, Gonzo-like adventures in Artland at The Randy Reviewer. See other writings

UENO PARK
Tokyo’s busiest cherry blossom viewing spot also boasts a number of museums in the vicinity, plus many small galleries in the quiet streets of surrounding Yanaka.

The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park has hanami all sorted with its annual “Cherry Blossom Viewing at the Tokyo National Museum,” an exhibition featuring exquisite, sakura-themed art works as well as a host of events held in the museum and its gardens.

There are two major shows specializing in old Masters; see Rafael’s iconic “Madonna and Child” at the National Museum of Western Art, or view the El Greco exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. At the Ueno Royal Museum, the annual VOCA exhibition is a highly regarded painting competition featuring Japan’s best new talents. To recognize VOCA’s 20th anniversary, the show will also include works by previous winners.

Heading north, one of Yanaka’s newest art spaces is Hagiso, an alternative art space run by graduates from the nearby Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai). The current exhibition, “Third Life,” is a group show presenting many works by the artists involved in establishing this new cultural hub. Closed on Mondays.

SHINJUKU GARDEN
Shinjuku Garden is arguably the best place in Tokyo to set up a picnic under the cherry trees. While the gardens are in the south-east part of Shinjuku, most art spaces in Shinjuku are found to the west of the station.

Yumiko Chiba gallery is showing two of her most interesting artists together in one exhibition. Installation artist and sculptor Yuichi Higashionna and photographer Ryudai Takano have very different practices, but they share a common interest in leaving conceptual and visual traces of the artist within their works. Their print works will be on display at Yumiko Chiba Viewing Room from the 22nd until April 13th. Closed on Sundays and Mondays.

During March, the Nikon Salon Bis (located on the 28th floor of L Tower) will be devoted to graduate exhibitions from Tokyo’s various art universities and colleges. There are bound to be some future stars among the images on show. The venue is closed on the third Sunday of each month.

A little further west, into Hatsudai, Tokyo Opera City’s art gallery holds a grand exhibition of textiles by the Japanese designer Junichi Arai. A must for any fashion lover. The exhibition finishes on March 24th and the gallery is closed on Mondays.

Photographer Mitsuko Nagone challenges the earnest tone of most self-portraiture by taking photos of herself with stuff on her face. The works are on display every day at B Gallery, a gallery inside the Beams store in east Shinjuku until April 4th.

KOGANEI PARK
Visitors to Koganei Park in the west of Tokyo go for the cherry blossoms but they also go for the unique and impressive Tokyo-Edo Open Air Architectural Museum, a large park within the park in which visitors can inspect some interesting buildings from Tokyo’s past. From a farmer’s home to an historic bathhouse, this museum has it all.

Katsuhiko Hibino has been overseeing all the artistic programs for this year’s Roppongi Art Night. Hibino is an artist associated with experimental drawing and painting. His 2010 exhibition, “Why Do People Draw Pictures?,” included many works on paper the artist created while traveling around the world. It included all kinds of mark-making, including the use of sand beneath his feet in Laos and the blood of a hunted seal in Canada. Hibino has also shown works in the Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, the Biennale of Sydney and the Venice Biennale. His paper latern boats, Tohoku Koyomi no Yobune, created with warm messages to the people of Tohoku, were a part 2012′s Roppongi Art Night before traveling to the Kasshigawa River in Iwate Prefecture.

What vision will the artist bring to Roppongi Art Night 2013? As stated in the event’s press release, Hibino is arranging a few hands-on projects in which the director himself, plus a number of other local artists, will collaborate. The Art Boat Project will consist of a number of grounded ‘vessels’ traveling around the neighborhood. A lighthouse monument, also created by Hibino, is set to keep the crowds warm outside around the Roppongi Hills Arena with an open fire. The event’s subtitle, “TRIP－Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow,” promises a theme that includes multiple concepts surrounding time and space, centered around the progression of night into dawn.

The annual event always provides more art than anyone can handle; among the possible exhibitions and events to take in, there will be Makoto Aida’s solo exhibition and a special screening of films by Chikako Yamashiro at Mori Art Museum (open all night until 6 a.m. on Saturday night), an interactive display for ‘adults with a playful side’ at Tokyo Midtown (open until 5:30 a.m.), “Kabuki: Theaters During the Edo Period” at Suntory (until midnight), PechaKucha events and exhibition at 21_21 Design Site (exhibition open until midnight), and “Artist File 2013” at the NACT (until 10 p.m.). Outside of the main buildings, Art Port Roppongi will be found in a number of surrounding shops and restaurants. Audiences can try their luck at exploring some streets and finding installation, moving image, sculpture or performance works along their path. With so many options, everyone’s experience of the festival is bound to be unique.