<a href="https://tb2020.jp/en/home-en/">Tokyo Biennale 2020/2021</a> has opened after being rescheduled last year due to the coronavirus. Bringing together art, community, and industry, this community-centered festival encompasses more than 60 exhibits across central Tokyo with the theme “Unseen Everyday Scene.” There is also an artificial reality component you can experience on your smartphone. 
The festival runs through September 9, but please note that starting and closing dates vary by exhibition. Be sure to check official schedules before going. <a href="https://artsticker.app/tickets/538?utm_source=arts_festival&utm_medium=tb&utm_campaign=web">Tickets</a> can be purchased for single exhibits at ¥500, or a ¥2500 passport is also available. There are information centers at the Hasegawa Building and Yubido in Chiyoda Ward, Yurakucho micro Food & Idea market, and at 5-9-21 Yanaka in Taito Ward. 
Let’s take a look at a few notable exhibits.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1-Miyanaga.jpg" alt="Aiko Miyanaga's 'Messages from the Light' at Yushima Seido Temple" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Yushima-2.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
At the Confucian temple Yushima Seido, sculptor Aiko Miyanaga places transparent spheres of glass from Toyama Prefecture that capture and reflect the light. Another display features ancient sanukite rock. The installations encourage visitors to attune their senses to the interplay of natural and urban environments. (Ends July 29).
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/3-Momma.jpg" alt="Miki Momma's 'Consecration of 1000 Years Votive Picture of Horse' at Kanda Myojin Shrine" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Momma-2.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
The Fukushima-born artist Miki Momma presents fluttering banners painted with galloping horses at Kanda Myojin Shrine. The work is related to Taira no Masakado, a hero enshrined at Kanda Myojin. Momma’s native city of Soma holds a traditional festival continuing the equestrian culture of Taira no Masakado, who is celebrated for taming horses and helping the poor. (Ends Aug. 1).
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ebihara-1.jpg" alt="Ebihara Shoten building" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ebihara-3.jpg" alt="'Kigaeru House' at Ebihara Shoten" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Ebihara Shoten, a historical used-clothing shop and residence in the neighborhood of Kanda, is converted into “Kigaeru (Clothes Changing) House.” This project is the brainchild of Yoshinari Nishio, an artist focused on the relationship between fashion and communication. Nishio, who acts as a temporary shop master, considers the future of the area with an exhibition of family photos and clothing, plus events such as children’s tailoring workshops. One display shows how citizens have made a patchwork house together from old clothes. Another documents migrants in Tokyo exchanging clothes with Japanese strangers on the street. (Open 11:00–18:00).
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/9-Yubido.jpg" alt="Yubido Restoration Project at the Yubido building" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Yubido-2.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
As signage in front of Yubido explains: After the war, the picture frame shop Yubido opened in the burnt-out ruins of Kanda with a sign depicting Mt. Fuji. Today, Kanda is undergoing a great wave of redevelopment. Individually owned stores are no longer viable in an area that has transformed into a town for corporations and economic growth. Artist Masato Nakamura will work with the public to renovate the closed and abandoned “Yubido,” developing and managing a project that will involve the planning and production of exhibitions. For the Tokyo Biennale, the “Yubido” building itself will be turned into a work of art and exhibited in its current state. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/11-Masato-Nakamura.jpg" alt="Masato Nakamura at Tokyo Z Studies Research Lab" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Nakamura-2a.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Nakamura-2b.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Masato Nakamura is also behind the next-door exhibition “Tokyo Z” at “Tokyo Z Studies Research Lab,” a former apartment on the 9th floor of the Rainbow Building. Nakamura, who lived in the space for a while, is a Tokyo University of the Arts professor whose work has been turning heads since the 1990s. With “Tokyo Z” presenting objects past their prime from the streets of Tokyo, Nakamura continues in the vein of his 2015 exhibition <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2015/11/from-light-to-craft.html">Luminous Despair</a> and reflects on the cyclical nature of things. “Z” stands for “zetsubo” (despair), as these items and certain areas of the city itself appear beyond hope. But Nakamura believes that after “Z” we return to “A,” starting afresh with promise. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AR-1.jpg" alt="Yoshikazu Yamagata's 'Small Mountain in Tokyo' at the center of Mansei Bridge" width="257" height="414" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AR-2.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="413" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
One of the artificial reality displays appears on Mansei Bridge in Kanda. With digital technology developed by the group AR Kyodai, artist Yoshikazu Yamagata lets you identify the area’s buildings and the location of a mountain that once loomed on the horizon, offering a glimpse into the past. Check <a href="https://ex.tb2020.jp/">here</a> for info on how to use the AR. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/13-Hogalee.jpg" alt="Hogalee's 'In the CDB' on the Otemachi 1st Square building" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Hogalee’s murals featuring feminine icons can be spotted on two downtown buildings – Otemachi 1st Square in Otemachi and the Takara Building in Kanda. “I always felt that with Tokyo’s constant redeveloping, there should be far more two-dimensional public art beyond advertisements and signs,” Hogalee states. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/14-Shadow-Theater.jpg" alt="Koheisai Kawamura + Takenori Miyamoto's 'Tokyo Shadow Theater Club' at Kokusai Building B1" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Koheisai Kawamura learned about Indonesian shadow puppetry for this project with curator Takenori Miyamoto, which dramatizes the oral histories of 60 people living in Tokyo with backgrounds from 19 different nations.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Shujiro-Murayama.jpg" alt="Shujiro Murayama's 'Moving Earth Moving Plants – Roots Project' at Hibiya Okuroji G14" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Shujiro Murayama studies local vegetation and holds public events like workshops across Japan. At the Hibiya Okuroji shopping center underneath the railroad tracks between the Shimbashi and Yurakucho stations, he presents “plant paintings” made using soil and plants collected in Tokyo. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/16-Masamichi-Toyama.jpg" alt="Masamichi Toyama's 'Spinout Hours' at Sanai Dream Center Building 9F" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Entrepreneur and artist Masamichi Toyama experiments with time and nostalgia in an exhibition in Ginza. He has created a simplified clock and “time machines” you can step onto to envision the past. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/15-Bright-Future.jpg" alt="Masaharu Futoyu's 'Monument for the Bright Future Tokyo/2021' at Sukiyabashi Park" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Installed in front of a statue by the famed artist Taro Okamoto, Masaharu Futoyu’s “Monument for the Bright Future Tokyo/2021” recreates a sign from the nuclear accident-stricken town of Futaba, Fukushima declaring “Nuclear Energy – Energy for a Bright Future.” Futoyu’s work contrasts the negative nuance of the sign while attempting to recapture the original meaning of the words “Bright Future.” It draws from Okamoto’s idea of polarism, an artistic view that advocates a “cacophony” of oppositional and contradictory concepts. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/17a-Rei-Naito-.jpg" alt="Mother and Child Jizo at Chohouin Temple Cemetery" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/17b-Rei-Naito.jpg" alt="Rei Naito's 'human' inside Kurenboh Chohouin Buddist Temple Gallery" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Rei Naito’s exhibition “Praying for Tokyo” is a requiem for those who perished in the Tokyo air raids of March 10, 1945. She has placed her smallest sculpture, “human,” a tiny wooden figurine, in Kurenboh Gallery at Chohouin Buddist Temple. At the temple’s graveyard she offers a cup of water to a Mother and Child statue honoring the memory of the dead. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Bliumis.jpg" alt="Alina Bliumus + Jeff Bliumis's 'A Painting for a Family Dinner' at 3331 Arts Chiyoda" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/18-Kae-Fujiwara.jpg" alt="Kae Fujiwara's 'Go Extremely Hard Dungeon Tokyo: While Eldest Son in Stroller and Holding Baby Son at 3331 Arts Chiyoda" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
3331 Arts Chiyoda, a former school turned into an arts center, presents multiple Tokyo Biennale exhibitions. Alina and Jeff Bliumis’s “A Painting for a Family Dinner” displays photographs from a multinational project in which the couple offered a painting in exchange for an invitation to a family dinner. Kae Fujiwara’s video installation reimagining Tokyo as a roleplaying game is a tongue-in-cheek take on the travails of navigating the city with small children.

article_22481

Tokyo Biennale 2020/2021

Planned by The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art (Watari-um) as part of the Tokyo Tokyo Festival, <a href="https://ttf-koubo.jp/en/project/pavilion-tokyo-2020/">Pavilion Tokyo 2021</a> presents nine displays designed by leading architects and artists. These “pavilions” range from large sculptures to structures you can enter and are installed in central Tokyo neighborhoods near the Japan National Stadium. Participating creators are Daito Manabe + Rhizomatiks, the architects Terunobu Fujimori, Sou Fujimoto, Teppei Fujiwara, Akihisa Hirata, Junya Ishigami, and Kazuyo Sejima, and the visual artists Yayoi Kusama and Makoto Aida. 
Watari-um is holding an exhibition (also called “Pavilion Tokyo 2021”) that details the creators’ processes of creating the pavilions through sketches, drawings, models, and videos. Admission to the exhibition is ¥1000. Except for Kazuyo Sejima’s “Suimei,” where a ¥300 admission fee to Hama-rikyu Gardens is charged, the pavilions are free to tour. Reservations are required for entry to Hama-rikyu, Yayoi Kusama’s “The Obliteration Room” at Shibuya City Office Daini Mitake, and Terunobu Fujimori’s “Tea House ‘Goan'” in front of the Victor Studio building. Reservations for “Tea House ‘Goan'” must be made at Watari-um on the same day as your visit. Pavilion Tokyo 2021 (the exhibition and the event) ends September 5. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1-Rhizomatiks.jpg" alt="Daito Manabe + Rhizomatiks '2020–2021'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Across the street from Watari-um, Daito Manabe + Rhizomatiks’ “2020–2021” is installed in a vacant lot with the 2012 wall painting “Ikinokoru” (Survive) by Chim↑Pom. An obscured display screen flashes a running string of text and pictures, which were produced by internet searches using the word “Tokyo” from last spring’s State of Emergency until now. The AI-generated data relates to cancelled events and comments on news over the past year. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fujimori-1.jpg" alt="Terunobu Fujimori, 'Tea House 'Goan''" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
 <img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/3Terunobu-Fujimori-2.jpg" alt="Terunobu Fujimori inside 'Tea House 'Goan'' with Japan National Stadium on the right" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
A short walk away stands Terunobu Fujimori’s “Tea House ‘Goan'” in front of the Victor Studio building and across the street from Japan National Stadium. Fujimoto chose this location for the contrast between the enormous sports arena and his modest tea house, a two-storied structure covered in grass on the outside. Enter through a hole in the front and ascend the stairs, and you’ll be rewarded with a pleasant view of the stadium from a cozy space equipped with the accoutrements for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Visits are limited to five people at a time for up to 30 minutes. Make same-day reservations at Watari-um. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/4-Sou-Fujimoto.jpg" alt="Sou Fujimoto, 'Cloud Pavilion'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Sou Fujimoto’s “Cloud Pavilion” at Yoyogi Park behind Harajuku Station is one of two Pavilion Tokyo installations by the architect. (The other is at the Kuma Kengo-designed Takenawa Gateway Station on the Yamanote Line). The bulging white balloons are propped up in a grassy field against the backdrop of an expansive sky. Fujimoto was inspired by clouds because he sees them as “the ultimate architecture that envelopes all kinds of things…a big roof of the world.” With this in mind, he designed the pavilion as a place for everyone symbolizing diversity and tolerance. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5-Yayoi-Kusama.jpg" alt="Yayoi Kusama, 'The Obliteration Room'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Kusama-2.jpg" alt="Yayoi Kusama, 'The Obliteration Room'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Yayoi Kusama’s latest installment in her series “The Obliteration Room” can be found in a nondescript Shibuya city office building. Like with the others, which start out as all-white spaces, visitors are given colorful stickers to decorate the premises. This Obliteration Room is unique in that it is actually a multiple-room unit, and it is the first to have a washitsu (Japanese-style room). Stop by to see how far everyone has gotten in “obliterating” the space with the stickers and leave your own mark on the dotted chamber. <a href="https://artsticker.app/share/events/detail/595?utm_source=single_event&utm_medium=pavilion_tokyo&utm_campaign=web&utm_content=link_event">Reservations</a> required. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/7-Teppei-Fujiwara.jpg" alt="Teppei Fujiwara, 'Teppei Fujiwara, 'Street Garden Theater'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/8-Teppei-Fujiwara.jpg" alt="'Teppei Fujiwara, 'Street Garden Theater'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Teppei Fujiwara is an architect with an interest in the performing arts. It is fitting, then, that for his pavilion, he built a “Street Garden Theater” at the Former National Children’s Castle (Kodomo no Shiro) in Shibuya. This towering, sprawling wooden structure behind the Taro Okamoto sculpture “Kodomo no Ki” (Tree of Children) is an open grid of boards with planters containing aloe, morning glories, hibiscus, and other vegetation found along Tokyo roads. Ramps and platforms allow visitors to walk up inside this “stage” for greenery. To Fujiwara, the pavilion is “a continuous legacy of our relationship with the natural world.”
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/9-Akihisa-Hirata.jpg" alt="Akihisa Hirata, 'Global Bowl'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/10Akihisa-Hirata.jpg" alt="Akihisa Hirata, 'Global Bowl' in front of United Nations University" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Akihisa Hirata also constructed a wooden pavilion. His “Global Bowl” on the plaza at United Nations University, just up the street from Kodomo no Shiro, is assembled from around 100 pieces of larch wood. You are invited to climb into, sit on, and even and slide down the smooth sides of this giant bowl with open spaces. The geometry of the structure “loosens and strengthens the boundaries between the inner and outer space at the same time,” forming a harmonious connection with the larger world. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/11-Makoto-Aida.jpg" alt="Makoto Aida, 'Tokyo Castle'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/12b-Makoto-Aida.jpg" alt="Makoto Aida, 'Tokyo Castle'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/12a-Makoto-Aida.jpg" alt="Makoto Aida, 'Tokyo Castle'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
The ever-provocative artist Makoto has built two castles – one out of cardboard and one out of blue tarp – on the ginkgo-lined Meiji Jingu Gaien avenue. The materials he chose are commonly used for shelters by the homeless and after natural disasters. These structures installed on bases made from stone from the outer moat of Edo Castle are symbols of solidarity with people impacted by both. “What I want to emphasize is the opposite of permanence,” Aida explains. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/16-Junya-Ishigami-Watarium.jpg" alt="Junya Ishigami, 'Kokage-gumo'" title="Photo: Watari-um website" width="518" height="377" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/15-Junya-Ishigami.jpg" alt="Pieces of charred cedar to be installed at Kudan House" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Kudan House in Chiyoda Ward is a former residence built in 1927 that has been converted into a space for creatives. For his pavilion “Kokage-gumo,” meaning “Tree Shadow Cloud,” architect Junya Ishigami has built a garden canopy from 80 large pieces of yagisugi charred cedar. Stroll through the tree-filled yard and enjoy the light streaming in through the holes in the wood. Open 10:00–18:00. Please check the schedule before going. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Kazuyo-Sejima-17.jpg" alt="Kazuyo Sejima, 'Suimei'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Kazuyo Sejima is an architectural superstar whose projects include the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. At the tranquil Hama-rikyu Gardens surrounded by Tokyo’s skyscraper-studded business district, she has designed an elevated stream called “Suimei” (Clear Water) in homage to a similar ancient Japanese landscaping practice. The stream is dotted with artificial flowers and grasses and winds around the garden’s trees. The flowing water alludes to the continuity of life in the past, present, and future.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Kazuyo-Sejima-18.jpg" alt="Kazuyo Sejima, 'Suimei'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
All of the Pavilion Tokyo 2021 structures will be ultimately be deconstructed or moved, so be sure to check them out before the festival ends on September 5th. Organizer Etsuko Watari explained during the press tour that while the pavilions “serve no practical purpose,” they are meant to give people something to remember this summer. 
Please see the Tokyo Art Beat links for location specifics.

article_22374

Pavilion Tokyo 2021

<a href="https://www.sumiya.ne.jp/en/">Sumiya Kiho-an</a> is a Japanese inn and hot spring resort with easy access from Kyoto. Over the years it has hosted celebrity guests such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. For its recent renovations, it selected Yukinori Yanagi, a contemporary artist known for emphasizing the fluidity of borders and the ambiguity of national identity in series such as “Ant Farm” and “Wandering Position.” Along with traditional craftsmen, Yanagi has redesigned the inn’s lobby and created a gallery space. He and his team <a href="http://www.artbasemomoshima.jp/en/">Yanagi + Art Base</a>, in cooperation with designer Kentaro Yagi of Hiroshima University, became involved with the inn when its owners purchased Yanagi’s work. Yanagi has created new pieces reconsidering iconic works of Japanese and American art for the distinctive space.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/1-Yanagi-w-Hokusai.jpg" alt="Yukinori Yanagi with his 'Study for Japanese Art – Hokusai' at the entrance of Sumiya Kiho-an. The black wall by plaster artisan Akira Kusumi is inspired by the sea." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2-Hokusai-Close-Up.jpg" alt="Close up of 'Study for Japanese Art – Hokusai' showing sand tunnels made by ants in a recreation of Hokusai's classic print 'The Great Wave Off Kanagawa'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3-Ants.jpg" alt="Video of ants moving through Yanagi's work" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/4-Warhol-Bar.jpg" alt="Behind the cafe are Yanagi's reinterpretations of Andy Warhol's 'Flowers' series, also using colored sand and ants." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/6-Warhol-2.jpg" alt="Yukinori Yanagi, 'Study for American Art – Flowers'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/5-Warhol-1.jpg" alt="Yanagi wanted to literally and figuratively deconstruct a famous work of American art, as he did with the Japanese masterpiece." width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/8-Cubes.jpg" alt="Yanagi envisioned the new lobby and gallery unit, called 'Hakutai,' as a set of interconnected cubes. Washi artist Wataru Hatano created the paper for Yanagi's drawing." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/7-Wandering-Position.jpg" alt="Yanagi's 'Wandering Position -Formica japonica #1-' is displayed on the back wall of the lobby. For the works in this series, Yanagi traces the paths of ants in red chalk. Themes of wandering and travel resonate with the concept of the inn." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/10-Orchestra.jpg" alt="Cellist Mari Endo and violinist Tamaki Kawakubo performed in front of 'Wandering Position -Formica japonica #1-' at the opening ceremony for the new lobby." width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/11-Pot.jpg" alt="Ceramicist Naoto Ishii contributed works such as this earthenware vase fired at his kiln at Kyotamba, Kyoto." width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/12-Hallway.jpg" alt="The hallway leading from guest section of the inn into the lobby. A nook in the wall displays artwork." width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/13-Knob.jpg" alt="Another ceramic work by Naoto Ishii" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/14-Lobby.jpg" alt="Hakutai Gallery. Meaning 'eternity,' the name references a classical poem about life being an eternal journey." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Futon.jpg" alt="A room at Sumiya Kiho-an. The inn is in the traditional Japanese style with tatami, sliding shoji doors, and a futon." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Bath.jpg" alt="Some rooms have private hot spring baths en suite. There are also larger onsen baths for all guests to enjoy." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fish.jpg" alt="Sumiya Kiho-an's restaurant offers a variety of fresh seasonal dishes and Kyoto-style cuisine, such as this grilled and salted ayu sweetfish." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Garden.jpg" alt="The front garden at Sumiya Kiho-an in spring" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Sumiya Kiho-an’s choice of cutting-edge artist Yukinori Yanagi, whose accomplishments include winning the Aperto Award at the Venice Biennale, converting an Okayama copper refinery into an art museum, and being selected for numerous museum collections, speaks to the inn’s goal of combining the modern with the traditional. The new works in Yanagi’s ‘Ant Farm’ series displayed here echo similar pieces of his in which ants burrow through world flags recreated in colored sand. With the coronavirus restricting travel and nationalist tensions on the rise, Yanagi’s work is a welcome reminder of our interconnection. In the fall there are further plans for guest room renovations, also helmed by Yanagi, so be sure to keep Sumiya Kiho-an in mind for future travels, even if you cannot visit now. The inn accepts both overnight and day trip reservations with meals and hot spring access.

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Yukinori Yanagi at Sumiya Kiho-an

<a href="https://www.yokohamatriennale.jp/english/2020/">Yokohama Triennale 2020</a> runs July 17–October 11, 2020. The title of this year’s festival directed by New Delhi’s Raqs Media Collective is “afterglow.” Topics such as the co-existence of care and toxicity are explored. Raqs Media Collective states: We are now in the afterglow of an unfamiliar, viral, and partly unreadable time. 
 In addition to having its first non-Japanese director, this year’s Triennale hosts a more international mix of artists than previous editions. Of the 67 artists and groups, roughly half are showing work in Japan for the first time. The event’s main site is Yokohama Museum of Art, as in past years. There are also displays at Plot 48 and NYK Maritime Museum, as well as online performance art videos called <a href="https://www.yokohamatriennale.jp/english/2020/episodox/">Episōdos</a>. 
<a href="https://www.e-tix.jp/yokohamatriennale/en/">Reservations</a> are required for admission. 
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-1.jpg" alt="Installation view with Fumiaki Aono works" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-2.jpg" alt="Nick Cave 'Kinetic Spinner Forest' (2016) ©Nick Cave" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-3.jpg" alt="Chen Zhe, 'Windows of Paradox' (2020) ©Chen Zhe" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-4.jpg" alt="Max De Esteban 'Red-Dot Prints (from 'Twenty Red Lights') (2017) CGAC Collection, Santiago de compostela" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-6.jpg" alt="Installation View of Yokohama Triennale 2020 at Yokohama Museum of Art" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-7.jpg" alt="Park Chan-kyong, 'Belated Bosal' (2019) 
©Park Chan-kyong " width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-8.jpg" alt="Ingela Ihrman, 'The Giant Hogweed' (2016)（recreated in 2020), ©Ingela Ihrman" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-9.jpg" alt="Tsherin Sherpa, '54 views of Wisdom and Compassion' (2013) Courtesy of the artist and Rossi & Rossi" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-10.jpg" alt="Renuka Rajiv, 'Companionship and Contrast' (2015–)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-11.jpg" alt="Teppei Kaneuji, 'White Discharge (Figure/203)' (2003–2020)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-12.jpg" alt="Plot 48 Site" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-13.jpg" alt="Amol K. Patil, 'Reminiscent' (2019) ©Amol K. Patil" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-14.jpg" alt="Elena Knox'Volcana Brainstorm' (2019/2020) ©Elena Knox2020, Courtesy of the artist and Anomaly Tokyo" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yokotori-15.jpg" alt="Farah Al Qasimi 'Jazirat Al Hamra 2020' (2020) ©Farah Al Qasimi, Courtesy of The Third Line and Helena Anrathe" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />

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Yokohama Triennale 2020 Photo Report

<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Kotaro-Iizawa.jpeg" alt="Kotaro Iizawa" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatl" />Kotaro Iizawa is a photography historian and critic who has written more than 50 books. He also runs Ebisu’s <a href="https://megutama.com">Photobook Diner Megutama</a> (写真集食堂めぐたま), where you can enjoy Japanese homestyle cooking while browsing his collection of some 5,000 photobooks. The COVID-19 crisis has hit the diner hard, causing it to close temporarily. During this time Iizawa decided to use the café’s YouTube channel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpF3CBtjdI7nGJNSvps54Zg">megutama TV</a>, to share highlights from his extensive collection. 
Each Sunday at 9:00 p.m., Iizawa broadcasts live from the diner and reviews a photobook of his choosing (in Japanese). Called “Iizawa Kotaro’s One Thousand and One Nights of Photobooks” (飯沢耕太郎の写真集千夜一夜), these talks offer a look at the book in full while discussing the photographer’s career and touching on the history and major themes of photography. (As an added bonus, Iizawa also plays the ukulele and sings in each episode.) You can check out all the episodes recorded so far on the megutama TV channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpF3CBtjdI7nGJNSvps54Zg/videos">archives</a>. Viewers can also ask questions to Mr. Iizawa live through the comment feature. 
The books covered (26 so far) range from early to recent titles by photographers from a variety of countries and eras. They are among the most groundbreaking and influential books in the history of photography. Authors include Daido Moriyama, Walker Evans, Shoji Ueda, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rinko Kawauchi, Masahisa Fukase, Diane Arbus, and Richard Avedon. Tokyo Art Beat spoke with Iizawa and the artist Tokitama, co-operator of the cafe, about the project.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Megutama-1.jpeg" alt="Inside Photobook Diner Megutama" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
Why did you decide to do One Thousand and One Nights of Photobooks? 
Megutama has struggled because of coronavirus and we’ve had to stop doing events. During this time, I wanted to find a way to keep sharing what is great about photobooks and also give people something to enjoy while helping out the diner. The name just came to me.
When did you start the series? How long will it continue? 
We started in late April of this year. I’m not sure how long we’ll continue. I want to keep it going as long as I can.
Can you tell us about your photobook collection? Do you have a method for finding and choosing books? 
I have about 5,000 volumes at the diner and another 5,000 or so in storage. I switch out around 100–150 titles at the resturant regularly. The books have come mainly through my studies and work…I’ve been studying photography for around 40 years, so I’ve amassed a large collection. 
How do you choose from your collection for the show? 
I have a philosophy of drawing from old and new, East and West. I also try to choose books that are diverse, important, and influential. 
Are there any books or photographers you especially recommend? 
It’s interesting to see which episodes have been popular. Shigeo Gocho and Eiko Yamazawa are worth checking out.
You promote the diner’s online shop and accept <a href="https://megutamatokyo.stores.jp">donations</a> through the show. What do the funds go towards? 
They go towards supporting the store’s staff and keeping the collection in good shape.
Do you have any other plans for your YouTube channel or the cafe? 
Actually, Tokitama has been thinking about starting a Japanese homestyle cooking show with Megu-chan, another co-operator of the diner. We also plan to resume monthly portfolio reviews and other live events (with limited participants).
What in the photography world are you excited about now? 
<a href="https://fugensha.jp/about/eng.html">Fugensha</a> has a gallery in Meguro that’s doing a lot of interesting photography exhibitions. They had a group show called “Corona Spring” earlier this month that was excellent. Tokitama will have an exhibition of her photography there this November. 
Do you have any tips for enjoying photobooks? 
There are no rules. The best thing you can do is hold a book in your hands yourself.
<img src="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Megutama-2-.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" /> 
Photobook Diner Megutama 
Address: 
150-0011 Tokyo 
Shibuya-ku, Higashi 3-2-7-1F 
Nearest Station: Ebisu
Hours: 
Tuesday–Sunday: 12:00–22:00 (Last order: 21:00) 
Closed: Monday/Public Holidays 
The diner is closed July 28 through August 31, 2020.

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One Thousand and One Nights of Photobooks

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Zine’s Mate Opening

<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_9121.jpg" alt="Ars Electronica" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" />Recently Japan has seen several exhibitions about interactions between art and science. Two of these include the <a href="https://science-art-matsudo.net">Matsudo International Science Art Festival</a>, held November 16 and 17 in Matsudo, Chiba, and <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2019/9878">Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life – How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow</a>, now showing at Mori Art Museum through March 29, 2020. 
The Matsudo International Science Art Festival took place at a historic Japanese residence and garden while “Future and the Arts” is being exhibited on the 53rd floor of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower skyscraper. Both exhibitions add to the global conversation about cutting-edge science and its implications for contemporary society.
In a tatami-room pavilion at the Tojo-tei House and Garden in Matsudo, the art and technology specialists of Ars Electronica encouraged visitors to reflect on questions about scientific advances. Questions such as “What should artificial technology decide and not decide?” were inscribed on stones. Visitors could sit zazen-style on a cushion looking out onto a Japanese garden while pondering these ideas and listening to garden sounds on headphones. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_9151-1.jpg" alt="Etsuko Ichihara, 'Digital Shaman'" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="314" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/matsudo-mikoshi.jpg" alt="Virtual Currency Offering Festival, 'Virtual Currency Offering Festival'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /></a> 
Artist Etsuko Ichihara introduced her Digital Shaman robot used to assist Buddhist funeral rituals and her Virtual Currency Offering Festival float. The latter accepts cashless payments in an update of an old tradition of donating money at festivals. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_9136.jpg" alt="Shunji Yamanaka Lab" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
Using robots and design engineering, the Shunji Yamanaka Lab at the University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science creates medical prototypes with aesthetics in mind. It presented its sleek prosthetics at the Tojo-tei House. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_9141.jpg" alt="Shunji Yamanaka Lab" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
“Ready to Crawl” by the same lab is a 3D printing project. It produces robots with movements and physiologies that mimic wildlife.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_9143.jpg" alt="Atsushi Tadokoro" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" /> Professor and “creative coder” Atsushi Tadokoro engineered a network of small computers to communicate with each other, orchestrating patterns of rhythm. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/786_S.jpg" alt="Diemut Strebe, 'Sugababe' (2014-)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> At “Future and the Arts,” Sugababe by Diemut Strebe reproduces Vincent van Gogh’s severed ear. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/785_S.jpg" alt="Amy Karle, 'Internal Collection' (2016-2017)" width="518" height="241" class="imgcaption" />Amy Karle’s The Internal Collection is a lineup of garments inspired by the internal tissues of the human nervous system, the lungs, and the ligaments. Karle uses advanced technologies including 3D body scans, CAD, and laser-cut patterns, combining them with artisanal hand-sewing to create these fashion pieces that take the form of “wearable internal organs.”
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/788_S.jpg" alt="Ai Hasegawa, 'Shared Baby' (2011)" width="518" height="347" class="imgcaption" /> Ai Hasegawa’s work considers how DNA engineering and reproductive technology can alter family structures. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/784_S.jpg" alt="Vincent Fournier, 'Reem B #6 [Pal]' (2010) Barcelona, Spain" width="518" height="377" class="imgcaption" />Vincent Fournier’s ‘Man Machine’ photograph series (2009-2010) depicts various robots seemingly well-assimilated into day-to-day situations. The robots are shown doing things such as playing basketball, apparently without having any particular job to do. The robots in our lives today have been given clear roles and are not intended to approach humanity. However, sci-fi novels and movies often feature robots that are just like people or have feelings, and the robots in this series take after them.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Kenichi-Kondo.jpg" alt="Future and the Arts curator Kenichi Kondo speaks in front of a display for 'The Orb' by Bjarke Ingels and Jakob Lange" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
While the exhibitions seem more interested in raising than answering questions about creativity and technology, they both offer intriguing insights about who we are and where we are headed as a human species. Their differences in scale and setting themselves offer glimpses of how far we come and how far we might still go. 
“Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life – How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow” offers ¥200 admission discounts for <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/">TAB app</a> and <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon">MuPon</a> subscribers.

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Creating the Future

In the sixth <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2019/6326.en">Roppongi Crossing</a>, Mori Art Museum curators Reiko Tsubaki, Hirokazu Tokuyama, and Haruko Kamakura focused their choice of 25 locally active and mostly young artists/artist groups around the loose subtitle “Connexions”. They highlight technology, social observation and unusual pairings as recurring themes to be found in the works on display. At the press briefing for this contemporary art showcase held every three years, there was also an expression of hope—hope that art would utilise these key points to improve our world. Some lofty goals, but nonetheless, this is a great show of some of Japan’s best contemporary artists causing waves right now. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-1.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
 Takehiro Iikawa’s immense and colourful installation greets visitors in the exhibition entrance. Playing with art gallery conventions and the futility of using photographs to show the entirety of an event or place, the work is purposely designed not to be fully captured through a camera lens. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-2.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Another big moment in the show is an incredibly life-like ocean surface rendered in a synthetic material by the collective Mé (the Japanese word for ‘eyes’). Viewers can admire up close the ocean’s rolling movements in open water—without any of the inherent risk—in a contemporary displacement of the artistic tradition of the sublime.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-3.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Yoi Kawakubo is having a big year in Japan, with concurrent displays in the Mori and the National Art Center, Tokyo and at POLA Museum Annex in March. At Roppongi Crossing, the Spanish-Japanese artist’s work spreads across the wall and spikes to represent a 20-year market forecast. It was created by scraping away layers of wall paint, revealing the Mori’s 15 years of past exhibitions; thus, Kawakubo creates a piece that speaks of the past and the future at the same time. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-4.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Yuichiro Tamura is a strong example of the aforementioned “unusual pairings” offered by the curators. His video installation combines musings on the god-like status of Michael Jackson, likened with ancient Greek oracles, and then journeys into anecdotes about the 1960s Apollo moon missions—delivered via a model of a stage that hosted MJ during his visit to Japan in 2006. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-5.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> This rather visceral piece by Nobuko Tsuchiya was almost visually drowned out by other strong sculptural works. Her pieces seem to continue a visual language seen in works by the 1990s artist Emiko Kasahara, producing objects that speak of bodily sensations and other experiences not easily defined through words. See her title: “So this cell is made of strawberry ice cream!…hmm…what?”<a <img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-6.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaptionfloatl" /> 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-6.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Fashion label Anrealage delivers on the theme of technologically avant-garde art. The seemingly white dresses on display come with gallery signage encouraging the use of flash photography, with the above photo being the surprise result. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-7.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
This work dedicated to artist Hirofumi Isoya’s mother asks the more universal question of how best to honour and remember a loved one. The Mori building’s supporting pillar is wrapped in an extended version of the gold chain from the artist’s mother’s necklace, while the light bulbs are filled with honey, chosen for its preserving powers.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-8.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
“Can we love a robot?” is a question posed by Chiho Hayashi. The video at the back carries out the classic clay-wheel scene from Ghost (1990) and various objects on display further the narrative of robots potentially being just as conventionally romantic as people.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-9.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
Fumiaki Aono’s practice of mending discarded items into sculptures took on new significance after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and ongoing nuclear disaster. Especially within a museum context, the meaning and purpose of mending and conservation are given a spotlight in his creative interpretations. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-10.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
Bontaro Dokuyama became an artist after the disasters of March 2011 irrevocably damaged his hometown, causing him to “sense that everything that had been taught to him was a lie” (quote from the exhibition wall text). The video work here, “My Anthem,” features senior Taiwanese subjects dressed in sailor-style school uniforms who recall their childhoods as Japanese colonial subjects.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-11.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
For the cat lovers: Nobuaki Takekawa expresses the world through cat analogies, including signs demanding cat-related rights (top) and an impressively crowded cat Olympic stadium in glazed ceramics (below). 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Roppongi-Xing-2019-12.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
All photos by Emily Wakeling. <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon.en">MuPon</a> and <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/">TABapp</a> subscribers receive ¥200 admission discounts to this show.

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Roppongi Crossing 2019

<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-1.jpg" alt="Mt. Rokko Cable Car" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><a href="https://www.rokkosan.com/art2019/la/">Rokko Meets Art</a> is a modern art festival on Mt. Rokko, a 932-meter mountain less than an hour by public transportation from Kobe and Osaka. The tenth annual program features 42 artists and groups. Most of the work is newly commissioned and includes some of Japan’s leading and most cutting-edge artists. Participating artists are either invited or chosen in an open-call selection process. Jury awards are given to outstanding artists who submitted their work in the public competition.
Tadao Ando, Aquirax Uno, and Chu Enoki are among the more well-known artists whose works you can see while also enjoying refreshing mountain views. Emerging artists such as Zon Ito, Makoto Egashira, and Nobuyuki Osaki are also not to be missed. Genres range from painting and sculpture to sound installation and architecture.
Rokko Meets Art ends November 24th. Admission is ¥2200 for adults and ¥1100 for children. All of the artwork can be seen in a single day, but spreading your visit out over two days is recommended. Arima hot springs are another nearby attraction. Mt. Rokko’s closest station (accessible by Kobe city bus) is Rokko Cable Shita, where you can catch a cable car to Rokko Cable Sanjo. From there a bus runs up the mountain. Transportation details are <a href="https://www.rokkosan.com/en/access/">here</a>. 
Rokko Cable Sanjo Station and Tenran Observatory
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-3.jpg" alt="Yukiko Iwatani, 'We Are Here' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-2.jpg" alt="Rokko Cable Sanjo Station architectural detail" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Rokko Cable Sanjo Station has been given special recognition as a site of modern industrial heritage. Mt. Rokko opened as a place of public leisure in the Meiji Period, when Japan’s industrialization took shape. In this building you can search out all the works in Yukiko Iwatani’s ‘Koko ni Iruyo’ (We Are Here) series. Made up of 16 delicate installations of plants native to Mt. Rokko, it won this year’s Grand Prix. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-4.jpg" alt="Takuma Uematsu, 'Palette – big horn sheep' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-5.jpg" alt="Takuma Uematsu, 'world tree II' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> At Tenran Cafe near Rokko Cable Sanjo Station you’ll find Takuma Uematsu’s “Palette – big horn sheep” (2019), an ovine statue dotted with paint palettes. Visitors are invited to use the palettes to paint on the walls. Uematsu’s work can also be seen in front of the panoramic views at Rokko Garden Terrace. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-6.jpg" alt="A view from the Tenran Observatory" width="518" height="371" class="imgcaption" />
Chapel of the Wind
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-10.jpg" alt="Tadao Ando, 'Chapel of the Wind'" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-11.jpg" alt="Artist: Chu Enoki" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Chu Enoki, known for creating artworks from weaponry and scrap metal, has installed several of his sculptures inside and around the Chapel of the Wind built by renowned architect Tadao Ando. The chapel – the first church designed by Ando – is specially open to the public throughout Rokko Meets Art.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-8.jpeg" alt="OBI, 'Let the flower bloom at the rubble' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />OBI is a creative duo made up of Yasuhito Suzuki and Tomomi Homma. For their installation ‘Gareki ni Hana wo Sakasemashou’ (Let the flower bloom at the rubble), they collected local residents’ discarded household appliances, arranging them in orderly rows and painting them bright pink on one side. The work reflects how life is “colored inorganically” by human activity. 
Grand Hotel Rokko Skyvilla 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-12.jpg" alt="Yoshie Kuroda, 'Standing Mokemokemono Six Jizo Bosatsu (Ksitigarbha)' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-13.jpg" alt="Yoshie Kuroda, 'Standing Mokemokemono Six Jizo Bosatsu (Ksitigarbha)' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Textile artist Yoshie Kuroda, winner of the Runner-Up Grand Prix, presents six bodhisattvas in animal form posed piously inside the Grand Hotel Rokko Skyvilla. 
Rokko Garden Terrace 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-14.jpg" alt="Yoshihiro Mikami + Hajime Yoshida 'I Was Born' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> This diamond-shaped work is several feet deep with stairs inside. You can walk down inside it. 
Sancho Station 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-15.jpg" alt="Nobuyuki Osaki, 'Multiple Lighting (Memories of Rokko)' (2019) partial" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-16.jpg" alt="Nobuyuki Osaki, 'Multiple Lighting (Memories of Rokko)' (2019) detail" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Nobuyuki Osaki uses Rokko Sancho Country Station, a ropeway station no longer in operation, for his installation ‘Multiple Lighting (Memories of Rokko).’ He has created benches with graphics from former Mt. Rokko advertising pamphlets. Inside a ropeway car, photographs of people vacationing at Mt. Rokko are turned into paintings and then rephotographed. The work stirs up nostalgia and thoughts about the blurry nature of memory. 
Rokkosan Country House 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-17.jpg" alt="Shoin Junior and Senior High School Art Club 'Happy whippy ice cream' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />A girls’ school art club, returning participants to Rokko Meets Art, created this giant ice cream sculpture and give popular performances.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-18.jpg" alt="Keita Mori, 'Clouds without the sky' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Paris-based artist Keita Mori creates sculptural graffiti-like “drawings” attaching string and rope to surfaces with a glue gun. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-19.jpg" alt="Tetsuro Kano, 'Naturplan' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Tetsuro Kanno’s assemblages at a pond at Rokkosan Country House.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-20.jpg" alt="Makoto Egashira, Rose Garden' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-21.jpg" alt="Makoto Egashira, Rose Garden' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Makoto Egashira is a maestro of floral motifs, displaying his kitschy rose carpet creations in a real rose garden. 
Rokko Alpine Botanical Garden 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-23.jpg" alt="Zon Ito, 'Messages from Takao Kodama' (2019)" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />Zon Ito has created a sort of outdoor art museum dedicated to Takao Kodama (1894–1945), an artist who depicted nature and people on Mt. Rokko. Ito pairs his own embroidered works with replicas of sketches by Ito. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-24.jpg" alt="Kazutaka Sugitani, 'here now, but later gone again' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Ceramicist Kazutaka Sugitani molds his sculptural objects with a pop-art flair by hand. Here they are integrated into the woods of Rokko Alpine Botanical Garden.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-25.jpg" alt="Noriko Yamaguchi, 'The Battle of ROKKO OROSHI' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Noriko Yamaguchi’s tapestry-inspired paintings portray relationships between groups and individuals in society. 
Rokko International Musical Box Museum 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-26.jpg" alt="Rokko International Musical Box Museum" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />Rokko International Musical Box Museum houses an incredible collection of giant “musical boxes” (mechanical music machines) from throughout history and around the world. For this year’s Rokko Meets Art, it presents a special musical retelling of Cinderella with illustrations by the avant-garde artist Aquirax Uno. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-27.jpg" alt="Inside Rokko International Musical Box Museum" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-28.jpg" alt="An illustration from Aquirax Uno's Cinderella" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-29.jpg" alt="Artist: Marino Hata" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-30.jpg" alt="Artist: Marino Hata" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> Marino Hata’s doll-like sculptures with silkscreened faces tell stories of the artist’s own imagining.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-31.jpg" alt="Artist Mayu Kunihisa working en plein air" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-32.jpg" alt="Yusuke Wakata, 'The Cock' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Yusuke Wakata’s ‘The Cock’ is a giant wooden rooster painted in gold. The work is based on a fable about an Empress burying such a gilted bird, which, as long as it was not dug up, would allow its village to prosper. 
Memorial Monument（Mt.Rokko Visitor Center） 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rokko-33.jpg" alt="Taichi Yoshimura, 'Head of the Nishikigoi' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Taichi Yoshimura’s Nishikigoi carp is also a recipient of a jury award. Carved from a fragrant piece of camphor wood, visitors are invited to climb inside and check out the view of Mt. Rokko from inside a fish.

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Rokko Meets Art 2019

<a href="https://aichitriennale.jp/en/index.html">Aichi Trienniale</a> opened this year amid controversy, as an exhibit with the comfort women sculpture Statue of Peace (2011) was closed amid threats and at the request of the Nagoya mayor. Seventy-two artists came out with a statement calling the decision ill-advised for a festival aiming to challenge restrictions on freedom of expression. 
Even without the cancelled “After Freedom of Expression” segment, however, this contemporary arts showcase held once every three years offers plenty to see and consider with outstanding examples of visual arts, film, performing arts, and music on through October 14. 
The theme of this year’s trienniale is “Taming Y/Our Passion” (or “情の時代,” “Age of Passion” in Japanese). It explores the overlapping meaning of 情 (jo), which has connotations of emotion, information, and compassion. Director Daisuke Tsuda suggests that in this era of strong emotions fanned by an overflow of information and incendiary situations, compassion may be our best way forward. This photo report focuses on some of the visual art on show at the triennial’s main sites. 
Subscribers to the <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/">TAB</a> and <a href="https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon">MuPon</a> apps receive admission discounts to Aichi Trienniale.
Aichi Arts Center (Nagoya) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-1.jpg" alt="Exonemo, 'The Kiss' (2019) in front of posters for 'The Romeos' (2009–) by Dora García" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Pangrok-Sulap.jpg" alt="Pangrok Sulap, 'Falls of the Evolution' (2019) (partial)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> The entrance of Aichi Arts Center displays two LED screens locking lips –the group exonemo’s exploration of love in the digital age – and Dora García’s posters for the seductive spy performances of ‘The Romeos.’ The Malaysian art collective Pangrok Sulap presents a politically satirical woodblock print over one meter in length. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Clowns.jpg" alt="Ugo Rondinone, 'Vocabulary of Solitude' (2014-2016)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Ugo Rondinone’s ‘Vocabulary of Solitude’ fills a room with 45 clown sculptures showing different facial expressions and poses throughout 24 hours of imagined solitude. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-3.jpg" alt="Goro Murayama, 'Decoy Walking' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> In the performance and video installation ‘Decoy Walking,’ Goro Murayama attempts to move in ways that gait recognition software cannot detect. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-4.jpg" alt="Claudia Martínez Garay, '... imaywanpas quidakuwakmi ... / ... but you can stay with my stuff …' (2017)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> Claudia Martínez Garay’s ceramic objects represent Peruvian artifacts looted by colonial civilizations.
Shikemichi and Endoji (Nagoya) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-5.jpg" alt="Shikemichi near the Ito Residence" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />The Shikemichi and Endoji area is an Edo-era merchant district with retro shopping streets and preserved historic residences. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dokuyama.jpg" alt="Bontaro Dokuyama, 'Synchronized Cherry Blossom' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Along with video interviews about Japan’s colonial legacy and present society, Bontaro Dokuyama exhibits a cherry tree with blossoms made from uirou, a Nagoya confectionery symbolic of postwar change.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-6.jpg" alt="Kyun-Chome, 'I'm Sage' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Video installations by the duo Kyun-Chome consider issues such as refugees and social division. In ‘I’m Sage,” transgender children and their parents write the child’s given and chosen names in calligraphy.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Iwasaki.jpg" alt="Takahiro Iwasaki, 'The City in the Town Warehouse' (2019)" width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />At the Ito Residence, the former home of a merchant family, Takahiro Iwasaki references Nagoya’s past with chests of drawers donated by locals and reproductions of Nagoya landmarks rising out of ash.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Michiko-Tsuda.jpg" alt="Michiko Tsuda, 'You would have gone there to see them then' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Also at the Ito Residence, Michiko Tsuda presents an installation that allows viewers to see both the space and themselves from multiple perspectives.
Nagoya City Art Museum (Nagoya) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-8.jpg" alt="Yui Usui, 'in vitro' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-9.jpg" alt="Miku Aoki, '1996' (2019)" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> One of the trienniale’s goals is equal representation of male and female artists. Yui Usui displays petri dish-based works examining womanhood and family, while Miku Aoki’s dioramas and zoetropes interpret her own life as a child of reproductive technology. 
Kirakutei (Toyota City) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-10.jpg" alt="Ho Tzu Nyen, 'Hotel Aporia' (2019) at Kirakutei" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Kirakutei is a former inn and restaurant. Ho Tzu Nyen delves into the property’s wartime history in site-specific video installations.
Underneath Meitetsu Toyotashi Station (Toyota City) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-11.jpg" alt="Nodoka Odawara, 'Broken Berlin Lenin Sculpture' (2016)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Nodoka Odawara’s practice is informed by research into the history of sculpture.
Toyota Citizens’ Gallery (Toyota City) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-12.jpg" alt="Anna Witt, 'Unboxing the Future' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />For this project, Anna Witt interviewed workers at a Toyota factory and had them create a performance considering the relationship between blue collar work and white collar work.
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (Toyota City) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-13.jpg" alt="Toyota Municipal Museum of Art" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/IMG_7431.jpg" alt="Reynier Leyva Novo, 'Revolution is an Abstraction' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo distorts the posters of Soviet avant-garde artists in the installation ‘Revolution is an Abstraction.’
Former Toyota Higashi High School (Toyota City) 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-15.jpg" alt="Former Toyota Higashi High School" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />The Former Toyota Higashi High School is the site of a relocated school where a museum is to be built in 2023.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aichi-19-16.jpg" alt="Tadasu Takamine, 'Anti-thesis: Gazing up at the endless blue // stained 
forever by its color // I have ceased to be myself' (2019)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />Tadasu Takamine has turned the school’s outdoor swimming pool into an installation piece, lifting a long block of its concrete floor into the sky like a monument.

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Aichi Triennale 2019

The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art has two sites in Japan – one in bustling <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/venue/2AAC1037.en">Tokyo</a> and one in the peaceful Gunma countryside, two hours by train from the capital. Located next to the ranch park Ikaho Green Bokujo in Shibukawa, a rustic town famous for its hot springs, Hara Museum ARC is home to an important part of the Hara Museum Collection. With a focus on contemporary art from the 1960s and later, the collection features prominent Japanese and international artists such as Tadanori Yokoo, Yayoi Kusama, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. The ARC’s multi-building compound designed by architect Arata Isozaki also houses the Kankai Pavilion, which displays an excellent selection of classical Asian art, including calligraphy, Nihonga painting, Chinese painting, and crafts.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-1.jpg" alt="Hara Museum ARC Entrance" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
The Current Exhibition 
<a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2018/54F8.en">Art on the Road – Three Traveling Exhibitions From the Hara Museum</a> presents selections from three previous shows: “Primal Spirit – Ten Contemporary Japanese Sculptors,” “Photography and Beyond in Japan; Space, Time and Memory,” and “Shiro Kuramata 1934–1991.” These exhibitions from the 1990s started out at the Hara Museum’s Tokyo site before touring cities in North America and Europe, introducing international audiences to cutting-edge Japanese artists working in sculpture, photography, and design.
Gallery A displays highlights from “Primal Spirit,” including Shigeo Toya’s Woods II (1989–1990). This giant installation of carved pillars resembling tree trunks from a prehistoric forest is shown with works by Toshikatsu Endo, Tadashi Kawamata, Kazuo Kenmochi, and Kimio Tsuchiya.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-2.jpg" alt="Front: Shigeo Toya 'Woods II' (1989–1990), Back: Kazuo Kenmochi 'Untitled 1990 No. 1' (1990)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
In Gallery B, visitors can see works from “Photography and Beyond in Japan” taken by leading cameramen Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tokihiro Sato, Hitoshi Nomura, and Tadasu Yamamoto. Ranging from landscape to time-lapse photography, these works explore expressions of light and are paired with collection pieces by installation artist Emiko Kasahara.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-4.jpg" alt="Front: Emiko Kasahara 'Untitled 90-9' (1990), Back: Tadasu Yamamoto 'Falling Water' Series (1988–1994)" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Gallery C also exhibits collection works, including Yasumasa Morimura’s art history-inspired self portraits. The star here though is the furniture and product designs of Shiro Kuramata, whose ultra-minimalist metal and glass chairs and high-legged cabinets possess a sleek playfulness that has broadly influenced design and décor. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-3a.jpg" alt="Hara Museum ARC Gallery C Installation View" width="257" height="342" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-3b.jpg" alt="Shiro Kuramata, Front: 'How High the Moon' (1986), Back 'Lighting Shelves' (1978)" width="257" height="342" class="imgcaption floatl" />
 
Permanent Installations 
While seeing “Art on the Road,” be sure to also check out the two permanent installations: Yayoi Kusama’s Mirror Room (Pumpkin) (1991/1992) and Tabaimo’s Midnight Sea (2006/2008). With floor-to-ceiling dots on a bright yellow background and a mirror display showing a vista of pumpkins stretching to infinity, Mirror Room (Pumpkin) was created specifically for Hara Museum ARC and is one of the artist’s signature mirror installations now popular around the world. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Kusama_kabocha_S.jpg" alt="Yayoi Kusama, 'Mirror Room (Pumpkin)' (1991/1992)" title="Photo: Norihiro Ueno" width="518" height="410" class="imgcaption" />
Midnight Sea (2006/2008) by the Japanese artist <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2006/07/interview_with_tabaimo.html">Tabaimo</a> is a video installation shown on loop in a darkened room. Depicting the crashing waves of a black sea, its waters part at times to reveal shadowy apparitions. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tabaimoDSC_0373_S.jpg" alt="Tabaimo, 'Midnight Sea' (2006/2008) video installation still" width="518" height="347" class="imgcaption" />
Kankai Pavilion 
Meaning “one who has seen the ocean,” Kankai Pavilion is designed to resemble a Japanese shoin drawing room. Lighting is adjusted to a candle glow so that the works can be viewed as they were in the past. The current exhibit “The Power of Ink – Kano School Partition Paintings” features ink paintings once used for wallpaper and sliding doors at Mi’idera Temple in Shiga Prefecture. In addition to paintings and hanging scrolls from the 16th and 17th centuries, works by contemporary masters including Anish Kapoor and Claes Oldenburg are also on display. Currently featured is a series of four hanging scrolls showing a tiger in a stare-off with a bird by the Kano School founder Kano Eitoku. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Hara-Arc-7.jpg" alt="Kankai Pavilion Installation View" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Collection Tours 
The Hara Museum Collection traces its roots to the 19th century industrialist Rokuro Hara, who amassed many of the classical works exhibited in the Kankai Pavilion. Toshio Hara carries on his great-grandfather’s commitment to art by managing the current collection of some 1,000 pieces divided between multiple sites. Hara Museum ARC not only exhibits artworks, but also archives them in open-view storage designed for researchers and specialists. About 120 pieces of artwork are shown in storage at a time, and the pieces change occasionally. Guided tours of this space starting at 2:30 on Sundays are given during the exhibition. Interested parties should make a reservation in advance. You may also ask about English tours when making reservations.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Openstrage.jpg" alt="Hara Museum ARC Open-View Storage Installation View" width="518" height="385" class="imgcaption" />
Hara Museum ARC is a great short trip from Tokyo and a must-see for fans of contemporary art in Japan. The current exhibitions, eligible for <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon.en">MuPon</a> admission discounts, end June 24. If you can’t make it in time, though, don’t worry – this art oasis in the grassy hills of Gunma is an idyllic retreat all summer.

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Art on the Road – Three Traveling Exhibitions From the Hara Museum

Art in Park Hotel Tokyo (AiPHT) is Tokyo’s only art fair held in a hotel. With works displayed in guest rooms and around the venue, Park Hotel Tokyo in Shiodome offers a uniquely intimate experience with artworks and artists, letting you can find the perfect piece for your life. Be sure to check out the artist talks and other events also happening this weekend! 
Here are just a few of the works you can see at AiPHT 2018:
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_7295.jpg" title="Kimiyo Mishima represented by MEM" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39781" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/9EchMXWWQJqcpGtwPeNlA_thumb_d22f.jpg" title="Aiko Tezuka from MA2 Gallery" width="670" height="434" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39795" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d234.jpg" title="Sculptures by Natsumi Tomita from Galerie Tokyo Humanité chill on a bed." width="447" height="670" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39793" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_7340-1.jpg" title="This sculpture by Katsura Funakoshi is among Nishimura Gallery's offerings." width="447" height="670" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39791" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_7347.jpg" title="A wood carving by Kohei Ukai from hpgrp GALLERY" width="670" height="447" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39783" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d1ea.jpg" title="Paintings by Hitoshi Koyanagi and installation by Masayuki Kawai from Mori Yu Gallery" width="447" height="670" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39784" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d1f4.jpg" title="Noe Aoki (left) and Asami Shoji (right) for Gallery 21 yo-j" width="670" height="447" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39785" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d20d.jpg" title="Saya Yamagishi from Yukiko Koide Presents" width="447" height="670" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39786" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d204.jpg" title="Gallery Nomart features work by Kohei Nawa" width="447" height="670" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39787" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d216.jpg" title="Blanket and paintings by Yuko Murata from Gallery Side 2" width="670" height="447" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39788" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d223.jpg" title="Dominique Lutringer for Tezukayama Gallery" width="670" height="447" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39789" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_d201.jpg" title="Gallery Shilla from South Korea" width="670" height="447" class="imgcaption alignleft size-full wp-image-39792" />
Art in Park Hotel Tokyo 2018 (AiPHT) 
Where: 26th and 27th floors of Park Hotel Tokyo 
When: 11:00–20:00 on March 9 (Fri.), 11:00–20:00 on March 10 (Sat.), 11:00–17:00 on March 11 (Sun.) 
*Last admission is one hour before closing. 
Cost: ¥1500 for a 1-Day Pass (¥200 discounts for up to 2 people with <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon">MuPon</a> digital coupons!) 
Official website: <a hrf="https://www.aipht.artosaka.jp/en/">https://www.aipht.artosaka.jp/en/</a>
Art Osaka 2018 
Art Osaka 2018, a cohost of AiPHT, is set to make its mark this summer as Japan’s largest fair specializing in contemporary art. 
Where: Hotel Granvia Osaka 
When: July 7 (Sat.) and July 8 (Sun.) with a preview on July 6 (Fri.) 
Official website: <a hrf="https://www.artosaka.jp/en/">https://www.artosaka.jp/en/</a>
<a href="https://echoua.com">echoua.com</a>

article_18020

Art in Park Hotel Tokyo 2018 Photo Report

<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Jianghua-Liu-1.jpg" alt="Jianghua Liu, 'Drifting Landscape'" title="Keyboards, teddy bears, and other ceramic flotsam on the shore in front of Noto’s Mitsukejima island." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<a href="http://oku-noto.jp/en/">Suzu 2017: Oku-Noto Triennale</a> the inaugural edition of art festival to be held every three years on a peninsular tip of western Japan. Centered around the small Ishikawa Prefecture city of Suzu and its surrounding coastal towns, the event is an hour by plane and a world away from Tokyo. Boasting idyllic scenes of farmers harvesting rice on satoyama terraced mountain paddies with breathtaking satoumi ocean vistas, this is both a prime and somewhat surprising location for a contemporary art festival. 
It is not without precedent, however. Its organizer is Fram Kitagawa, an art director known for festivals like the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, which will mark its seventh session next year with artworks dotting the mountains of Niigata Prefecture. Kitagawa’s vision for these rural, site-specific events is a shift away from urban and profit-driven art towards creativity that reconnects locals and introduces outsiders to the natural environments and cultural histories of areas that have fallen by the wayside. 
Oku-Noto Triennale is no different. Like Kitagawa’s other projects, it is a star-artist studded festival closely planned with and largely run by long-time residents. The Noto natives who lead its bus tours and stamp the “passports” at the sites its installations have personally ridden the waves of industrialization and depopulation, experiencing their hometowns’ rises and declines along with it. They attended the now-shuttered elementary schools and cheered at the openings of now-defunct train stations on tracks overrun with grass. Here are a few of the works they can show you at this year’s Oku-Noto Triennale, running through October 22.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Adel-Abdessemed-3-1.jpg" alt="Adel Abdessemed, 'Ma-mo-naku'" title="Adel Abdessemed inserted a florescent pole inside a train car at Ukai Station, which operated from 1964 until 2005." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Naoki-Ishikawa-2.jpg" alt="Naoki Ishikawa, 'Mixed Bathing Universe'" title="Located at Takarayu, a public bathhouse and former inn, photographer Naoki Ishikawa’s installation pays homage to Noto’s landscape and community traditions." width="518" height="381" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Shoko-Aso-4-1.jpg" alt="Shoko Aso, 'Shape of Faith'" title="Shoko Aso’s installation overflows with bubbles at Ebisu Bath, a 97 year-old bathhouse where locals soaked until last year." width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Takahiro-Iwasaki-8.jpg" alt="Takahiro Iwasaki, 'A Large Sea of an Old House of the Peninsula of the Small Sea'" title="Noto’s salt fields date back 400 years. Takahiro Iwasaki, Japan’s representative at Venice Biennale 2017, presents a room-sized diorama filled with ships, dolls, and antiques floating in an ocean of salt." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Chiharu-Shiota-5.jpg" alt="Chiharu Shiota, 'The Boat Which Carries Time'" title="At a former daycare center, red strings representing blood and lifelines form webs above a boat once used in salt cultivation." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Takafumi-Fukasawa-10-1.jpg" alt="Takafumi Fukasawa, 'Continuation of Myth'" title="Torii gates are entryways to Shinto shrines and other sacred spots. This one is built from plastic containers, which often wash up on beaches on Japan’s western coasts. In local lore items that drift ashore are a kind of god called ‘yorigami.’" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Koji-Nakase-7.jpg" alt="Koji Nakase, 'Moon-Reflecting Flower Stage'" title="Kimonos hang in the gymnasium of a closed school in Kamikuromaru village. Strips of cloth are cut from the kimonos and tied to ladders outside the school, realizing the artist’s vision of a field of fabric flowers." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tomoko-Konoike-11.jpg" alt="Tomoko Konoike, 'Table Runner – Suzu'" title="Tomoko Konoike spent three years interviewing and sketching stories and memories from the lives of local women, who then sewed placemat-sized quilts based on these drawings. Here a woman Skypes with family overseas." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tomoko-Konoike-6.jpg" alt="Tomoko Konoike, 'Go Ashore'" title="Konoike also installed this giant statue with a human body and deer antlers perched on a cliff overlooking Shaku Cape." width="518" height="388" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tobias-Rehberger-12.jpg" alt="Tobias Rehberger, 'Something Else is Possible'" title="A railroad track stretches out in front of a multicolor platform with a telescope inside, inviting viewers to gaze through it out onto a message from the artist." width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tobias-Rehberger-13a-1.jpg" alt="Tobias Rehberger, 'Something Else is Possible'" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tobias-Rehberger-13b-1.jpg" alt="Tobias Rehberger, 'Something Else is Possible'" width="518" height="691" class="imgcaption" />
Maybe the most symbolic work of this entire sprawling metaphor of a festival is Tobias Rehberger’s “Something Else is Possible.” It also uses Noto’s abandoned railroad tracks in a nod to where we’ve arrived as a late-capitalist society. Yet its titular punchline dares to offer a suggestion of redemption, however ambiguous. This work could also be interpreted cynically, of course, as a harbinger of futility and false hope. But walking along the tracks – literally to the end of the line – and seeing the writing in lights, it’s hard not to feel at least a little lifted. Even in a land and an age of deep disillusionment.

article_17404

Oku-Noto Triennale: Contemporary Art at the Far Edge of Japan

<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/color-Pe-Lang-with-Standing-Pine-2.jpg" alt="Pe Lang, 'Color | nº10' (2016–2017), Standing Pine " width="518" height="335" class="imgcaption" /> 
Moving parts make this piece constantly change in color and intensity. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Kono-Ko-FUJI-ART.jpg" alt="Ko Kono with ‘Kirin’ (1993), Fuji Art" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Takuma-Kana-Apsara-in-Flight-Gallery-Kouzome-Bijitsu-1.jpg" alt="Takuma Kamine, ‘Gardiens The Devas’ Gallery Kouzome Bijutsu" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Ko Kono made his “Kirin” sculpture with cow leather.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Tetsuya-Noguchi-Transmission-1.jpg" alt="Tetsuya Noguchi, ‘Transmission’" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Trans-Society23_1-Kang-Sukho-Irritum-1.jpg" alt="Kang Sukho, ‘Trans-Society 23-1’ (2016) Gallery Irritum" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Kang Sukho works with termites to create unique erosions of paper. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Gallery-of-Yukiko-Koide-Presents-2.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="401" class="imgcaption" /> 
Works shown by the gallery Yukiko Koide Presents
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Hideki-Saito-butterfy-wood-sculpture-Gallery-Shinseido-1.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="333" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Hideki-Saito-snail-wood-sculpture-Gallery-Shinseido-1.jpg" alt="" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Wooden sculptures by Hideki Saito, represented by Shinseido
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ken-Aoki-Criticality-cermics-Sokyo-Gallery.jpg" alt="Ken Aoki, 'Criticality Ceramics' Sokyo Gallery" width="500" height="333" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Kukwon-Woo-Nirvana-Irritum.jpg" alt="Kukwon Woo, ‘Nirvana’ Gallery Irritum" width="518" height="401" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Two-of-Us-Minnano-Gallery-1.jpg" alt="Keita Sagaki, ‘Two of Us’ (2016) Minna no Gallery" width="257" height="350" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Two-of-Us-detail-Minnano-Gallery-1.jpg" alt="Keita Sagaki, ‘Two of Us’ detail " width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Hisaya-Taira-painter-Yoshiake-Inoue-Gallery.jpg" alt="Hisaya Taira represented by Yoshiaki Inoue Gallery" width="500" height="333" class="imgcaption" /> 
Hisaya Taira’s hyper-realism depicts the mixed light of twilight in Osaka and Tokyo. His <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hisayataira_photo/">Instagram</a> is a lot of fun and features many of the images that inspire his paintings. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Hideo-Tanaka-with-Toho-Art.jpg" alt="Hideo Tanaka, ‘Run-up 3’ Toho Art" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Iihwa-Kim-Seed-Series-hanji-Irritum.jpg" alt="Iihwa Kim ‘Seed Series’ Irritum" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Iihwa Kim’s work uses dyed and rolled hanji (a type of Korean paper) to create depth and Impressionistic color patterns.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Kensei-Shimoda-Goldfish-Series-Tancho-Gallery-M.jpg" alt="Kensei Shimoda, ‘Goldfish Series Tancho’ Gallery M" width="500" height="333" class="imgcaption" />

article_16918

Art Fair Tokyo 2017

The Aomori Museum of Art, a 3.5-hour bullet train ride from Tokyo, ranks among Japan’s most superbly unique destinations for any admirer of Japanese art. In addition to its extensive Japanese art collection, AMOA’s highlights include a performing arts space with wall-sized paintings by Chagall, just one artist in its lineup of international masters such as Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky, Redon, Matisse, and Rembrandt. This report looks at the museum’s architecture and its remarkable collection of work by artists with connections to Aomori Prefecture.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-exterior-1.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art approach" width="518" height="" />
Designed by Jun Aoki, the building is a striking example of contemporary architecture. This above/below-ground compound next to an archeological site unearthing relics from the Jomon period is made up of well-defined yet open and interconnected spaces with towering ceilings. It has no predetermined route from entrance to exit.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-exterior-2.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art exterior" width="518" height="" />
Art director Atsuki Kikuchi created AMOA’s tree emblem as a symbol of the museum’s place within nature.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-exterior-3.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art exterior" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-exterior-wall.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art exterior wall" width="257" height="193" /> The colors of the inside and outside walls are invariably white or brown, an aesthetic choice referencing the earthen trenches of the Jomon grounds and the concepts of old and new.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-brown-and-white-exterior-walls.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art exterior walls" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-brown-and-white-interior-walls.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art interior walls" width="257" height="193" /> Watching over AMOA is “Aomori-Ken” (Aomori Dog), contemporary artist Yoshitomo Nara’s iconic canine standing 8.5 meters in height.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-Aomori-Ken-Aomori-Dog.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'Aomori-Ken' (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="257" height="343" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-Aomori-Ken-Aomori-Dog-back-view.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'Aomori-Ken' (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="257" height="343" /> This hound appears in various forms around the museum, from the three-meter ‘Prototype of A to Z Memorial Dog,’ to a litter of pups roosting inside ‘New Seoul House.’
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-The-Prototype-of-A-to-Z-Memorial-Dog-2007.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'Prototype of A to Z Memorial Dog' (2007) (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="518" height="" />
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-New-Seoul-House-2006–2008.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'New Seoul House' (2006–2008) exterior (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="257" height="343" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-New-Seoul-House-2006–2008-interior.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'New Seoul House' (2006–2008) interior (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="257" height="343" /> Early works by Nara (b. 1959), one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artists, are displayed along with pictures and sculptures of his notoriously cute and churlish characters.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoshitomo-Nara-Girl-From-Eastern-Europe-1989.jpg" alt="Yoshitomo Nara, 'Girl From Eastern Europe' (1989) (c) Yoshitomo NARA" width="518" height="283" />
Nara is among the artists with ties to Aomori showcased for their body of work distinct within the Japanese canon. Another renowned Aomori-born artist is the woodblock printmaker Shiko Munakata (1903–1975), a key figure in the mingei folk art movement.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Munakata-Shiko-Nebuta-Festival-Tune.jpg" alt="Shiko Munakata, 'Nebuta Festival Tune'" width="518" height="549" />
Munakata’s ‘A Flower Arrow’ (1961), a six-meter-long series of panels, expresses his desire to spread culture from northern Japan to the rest of the country, countering the widely held view that culture originated in the south. Here the beauty of culture, represented as the flower, is sent forth with arrows.
<img class="imgcaption"" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Shiko-Munakata-Hanaya-no-Saku-1961.jpg" alt="Shiko Munakata, 'A Flower Arrow' (1961)" width="518" height="389" />
The films and underground theater productions of Shuji Terayama (1935–1983), from the height of the counter-culture movement of the 1960s–1970s, have enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years. At AMOA, wooden crates recreating those used in Terayama’s performances are integrated into his exhibition space, which includes LP records for the soundtrack of ‘Throw Away the Books, Let’s Go Into the Streets,’ the 1971 experimental film considered his one of his most important works.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Shuji-Terayama-directors-chair.jpg" alt="Shuji Terayama display (supported by Terayama World)" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Shuji-Terayama-room-boxes.jpg" alt="Shuji Terayama display with prop crates (supported by Terayama World)" width="257" height="193" /> The design of Terayama’s room also gives a nod to the architecture of Aomori houses, seen in a glass wall resembling the “double-genkan” foyer many homes have to keep out snow.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Hijikata-room.jpg" alt="Tatsumi Hijikata exhibit installation view" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Hijikata-room-Terayama-poster.jpg" alt="Tatsumi Hijikata exhibit installation view" width="257" height="193" />
Choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986), co-founder of the avant-garde postwar dance style Butoh, is another artist with a northern Japanese background (Hijikata was born in Akita Prefecture). 
Butoh overturned conventional Japanese dance practices and aesthetics by emphasizing primal and unconsciously expressive movements, exemplified in photographs of Hijikata leaping half-naked through the air or curled up in a ball, as if for warmth. The latter posture contrasts starkly with traditionally Western poses extending the body skyward. Hijikata’s exhibit, which includes works from the Keio University Art Center Hijikata Tatsumi Archive, also features other groundbreaking and rebellious mid-century artists such as Eikoh Hosoe, Shuji Terayama, Yokoo Tadanori, Genpei Akasegawa, and Natsuyuki Nakanishi.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-Tatsumi-Hijikata.jpg" alt="Butoh performance" width="518" height="389" />
Aomori-born Kenjilo Nanao (1929–2013) was a printmaker and painter who worked mainly in California. His poetic, sensual lithographs with rich colors and natural symbolism have been compared to Shunga erotic prints.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Kenjilo-Nanao-Lets-Play-Cards-1970.jpg" alt="Kenjilo Nanao, 'Let' Play Cards' (1970)" width="257" height="329" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AMA-Kenjilo-Nanao-Stage-IV-1977.jpg" alt="AMA Kenjilo Nanao, 'Stage IV' (1977)" width="257" height="329" /> Kojin Kundo (1915–2011) blended Nihonga and Western painting techniques in fantastical scenes incorporating organic motifs. Expressing “the imagery of the heart,” Kundo participated in the postwar movement to establish new artistic styles.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Kojin-Kudo1.jpg" alt="Kojin Kudo, 'Mei-An (Light/Dark)' (1960)" width="518" height="419" />
Tadahiro Ono (1913–2001) was a Venice Biennale artist and member of the “junk art” movement who worked with Shiko Munakata. He made abstract sculptural paintings with familiar objects such as the sandals and other belongings of his deceased wife.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Tadahiro-Ono-room-installation-view.jpg" alt="Tadahiro Ono exhibit installation view" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMA-Tadahiro-Ono-Teratera-no-Koya-The-Lustrous-Plain-partial.jpg" alt="Tadahiro Ono, 'The Shining Plain' (1980) detail" width="257" height="193" /> Japanese monster aficionados will enjoy the work Tohl Narita (1929–2002), a sculptor and designer known best for his characters in the ‘Ultraman’ TV series. AMOA’s collection is home to illustrations of Narita’s delightfully bizarre creatures, as well as his sculptures demonstrating an undying interest in producing imaginative new forms.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Tohl-Narita-Jiras-1966-Gigas-1966-Dodongo-19661.jpg" alt="Tohl Narita, 'Jirass' (1966), 'Guigass' (1966), 'Dodongo' (1966) © Eternal Universe Inc." width="518" height="389" />
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Tohl-Narita-room-installation-view-with-Oni-Monument-Demon-Monument-1990.jpg" alt="Tohl Narita exhibit installation view with 'Oni Monument' (1990) © Eternal Universe Inc." width="518" height="389" />
Photographer Ichiro Kojima (1924–1964) captured with elegiac beauty the mysticism of Aomori’s harsh terrains in images of its farms and villages during the 1950s and 1960s.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tsugaru-2.jpg" alt="Ichiro Kojima, 'Tsugaru City' (1960) © KOJIMA Hiroko" width="257" height="343" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ichiro-Kojima-Tsugaru-Northwestern-Area-1957–1958.jpg" alt="Ichiro Kojima, 'Tsugaru, Northwestern Area' (1957–1958) © KOJIMA Hiroko" width="257" height="342" />
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tsugaru.jpg" alt="Ichiro Kojima, 'Tsugaru City, Inagaki' (1960) © KOJIMA Hiroko" width="518" height="388" />
The Aomori Museum of Art is currently closed for repairs, but will reopen in mid-March, 2016.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aomori-Museum-of-Art-exterior-5.jpg" alt="Aomori Museum of Art grounds" width="518" height="" />

article_14144

Aomori and Its Artists

The Toguri Museum of Art, a private porcelain collection tucked away in a quiet corner of Shibuya, is a must-visit for any admirer of ceramics. Assembled in the postwar era to preserve fine Asian ceramics for future generations, it contains some 7,000 works of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean porcelain, around 100 of which are on public display at any one time.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImariAlice.jpg" alt="Alice Gordenker" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" /> This spring the museum launched a series showcasing the evolution of Japanese porcelain from its beginnings in 17th century Kyushu. “<a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2015/0E71">Early Imari Ware</a>,” which ran April 4th through June 21st, focused on the origins of Japanese porcelain while also giving an overview of later-developed styles and techniques. English speakers enjoyed a mid-June tour by museum guide Alice Gordenker, shown below explaining the characteristics of early Imari ware and how to properly handle it.
While considered a Japanese art, Imari ware has global story, one driven by international tastes, techniques, and markets. It got its start in what is today Saga Prefecture, when Korean potters brought to Japan by returning forces from a military expedition discovered the raw materials necessary for porcelain. The name comes from the port from which finished works were shipped.
<img class="imgcaption centre" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari2.jpg" alt="Early Imari ware and its imperfections" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="343" />
Early Imari ware was often misshapen due to the softness of the clay and retained blemishes of ash and dirt from firing. While flawed, these works boasted cheerful and energetic designs.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari3.jpg" alt="Chinese-influenced rabbit design" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" />
Chinese designs and techniques were favored. Dishes like this, with a rabbit made by blowing glaze around a stencil and adding details by brush, are also seen in Chinese porcelain.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari4.jpg" alt="Imari ware's popularity spread to the world of the tea ceremony" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" />
The floral and kikkomon hexagonal designs of these Edo-period tea jars were achieved with the sometsuke (cobalt under-glazing) method.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari51.jpg" alt="Koshikiguchi cylindrically necked jar" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" />
Early Imari ware also showed the influence of Korean techniques on Japanese porcelain, as seen in the faceting of this 14-sided jar from the early 17th century.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari6.jpg" alt="Ko-Kutani dish" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" />
In the mid-17th century, overglaze enamels were introduced from China, allowing for new colorful designs. This vivid style later came to be known as Ko-Kutani .
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari8.jpg" alt="Jar with Kakiemon design" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="343" />
Further advances in porcelain manufacturing and decorating techniques produced the Kakiemon style, recognizable by the milky white porcelain and intricate designs of this late-17th century jar.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari7.jpg" alt="Plate with European-influenced design" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="193" />
When civil unrest in China disrupted exports of Chinese porcelain to Europe in the mid-17th century, Dutch traders turned to Japan as an alternative source. Europeans sought pieces with a lot of red, like on this 18th century bowl.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EarlyImari9.jpg" alt="Nabeshima ware plate" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" width="257" height="343" />
This plate is an example of Nabeshima ware, the culmination of Imari style and skill. These works were produced only to be given as gifts from the Nabeshima clan to the Shogun and other high-ranking dignitaries.
The second exhibition in the series focuses on the <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2015/397C">Ko-Kutani </a>style and runs through September 23rd. English-language tours for this and future exhibitions can be arranged upon request. To inquire, please see the museum’s website: <a href="http://www.toguri-museum.or.jp/english/index.php">http://www.toguri-museum.or.jp/english/index.php</a>.

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The First 100 Years of Japanese Porcelain

<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TAC-Exterior-2-Kusama.jpg" alt="Yayoi Kusama, 'Love Forever, Singing in Towada'" width="257" height="193" /> 
While art can be many things – a <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2015/99F3.en">mastery of technique</a>, an <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2015/ECF0.en">existential examination</a>, a <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2015/07/historic-misgivings-east-asian-yasukunism.html">cry of protest</a> – it can also be a form of play, for all ages. The exhibition “Jump” at Aomori’s Towada Art Center believes artists are people who’ve somehow held on to their exuberant, childlike ability to “fly,” defying gravity in a sense by refuting the things that tie us down to this world. Note that in Japanese, fly and jump are homonyms.
As a contemporary art hub with a strong pop streak, the Towada Art Center is suited to this buoyant theme. The Arts Towada indoor/outdoor complex is dotted with colorful sculptures that beckon visitors to roam around and enter them, with creations from artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Erwin Wurm.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TAC-Exterior-4-Car-and-House.jpg" alt="Erwin Wurm, 'Fat Car' and 'Fat House'" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Noboru-Tsubaki-aTTa.jpg" alt="Noboru Tsubaki, 'aTTA'" width="257" height="193" /> 
To kick off “Jump,” on July 18th and 19th the athletic dance unit nmatu-posu gave an acrobatic performance in the museum’s bright and airy cafe space.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/nmatu-posu-ball.jpg" alt="Towada Art Center cafe exterior view" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/nmatu-posu-pose-2.jpg" alt="nmatu-posu" width="257" height="193" /> 
An aim of “Jump” is to encourage viewers to take a step beyond merely observing artworks and move towards interacting with and becoming a part of them. “Play,” says Arts Towada public relations manager Hiroki Toyokawa, “is an ideal way to welcome newcomers to the world of art.”
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jump-Exhibition-Room-View.jpg" alt="Jump room view" width="257" height="193" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jump-Room-View-2.jpg" alt="Jump room view" width="257" height="193" /> 
Erwin Wurm’s ‘One Minute Sculptures’ series embodies this idea of art being active rather than passive, presenting objects like tennis balls, cleaning supplies, and a drain cleaner bottle with instructions for visitors to balance these items on their bodies or between each other, transforming themselves into temporary “sculptures.” Photographs on the wall illustrate how others have acted out these prompts.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Erwin-Wurm-one-minute-sculptures-installation-view.jpg" alt="Erwin Wurm, 'One Minute Sculptures' installation view" width="" height="250" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Erwin-Wurm-Demonstration-Jenni.jpg" alt="Erwin Wurm, 'Astronomical Enterprise' (2014) demonstration by Jennifer Pastore" width="" height="250" /> 
‘Crowbot Jenny’ (2011) by the artist Sputniko! extends the playful interactions between humans to other species. A music video shows Sputniko! working on a black, wing-shaped robot that mimics crow calls with specific messages, a device she uses to communicate with real birds.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Crowbot-Jenny-machine.jpg" alt="Sputniko!, 'Crowbot Jenny' (2011)" width="" height="250" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Crowbot-video.jpg" alt="Sputniko!, 'Crowbot Jenny' (2011)" width="" height="250" /> 
Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Chen Shaoxiong, and Gimhongsok of the Xijing Men, a performance art trio named after the fictional city of Xijing, offer a video called ‘Welcome to Xijing – Xijing Olympics’ (2008). Here they pretend to be Olympic athletes competing in absurd events like balloon volleyball, paper doll diving, and tickle fencing. While the appeal to silliness is a strength of the clips (the response of children is probably a good measure of a show about play, and the elementary schooler beside me was cracking up), the video also packs a subtler, subversive message about the ridiculousness of nations taking themselves and their sporting events too seriously.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Xijing-Men-fencing.jpg" alt="The Xijing Men, 'Welcome to Xijing – Xijing Olympics' (2008)" width="257" height="143" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Xijing-Men-buckets.jpg" alt="The Xijing Men, 'Welcome to Xijing – The Xijing Olympics' (2008)" width="257" height="144" /> 
Hirofumi Masuda’s ‘Towada Kitchen Channel,’ another video-based work, stirs memories of food and home with Towada residents appearing on the set of a cooking show to explain favorite household recipes. Viewers can switch back and forth between each of the presenters’ channels, watching the programs in Japanese and English.
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Hiroaki-Morita.jpg" alt="Hirofumi Masuda, 'Towada Kitchen Channel'" width="518" height="389" /> 
“Jump” also delves into the obsessive side of play in works like ‘CDs’ by Masaru Aikawa, who paid homage to his favorite musicians by replicating the artwork of their CD jackets and lyric booklets by hand. In addition to a dozen or so of these astoundingly detailed tributes, there are headphones and a CD player on the wall for listening to the albums sung, in full, by Aikawa himself.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Masaru-Aikawa-CDs-Paul-McCartney-e1439028047937.jpg" alt="Masaru Aikawa, 'CDs'" width="" height="250" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Masaru-Aikawa-CDs-jackets.jpg" alt="Masaru Aikawa, 'CDs'" width="" height="250" /> 
The late culture critic Nancy Seki, known as “the world’s greatest TV-watcher” and admired for her caricatures and sharp-witted essays, is another artist demonstrating a keenness to absorb and reproduce subjects of fascination. A selection of eraser stamps from Seki’s collection of more than 5,000 pieces is on display.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Nancy-Seki-salaryman.jpg" alt="Nancy Seki" width="" height="308" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Nancy-Seki-Erasers-2.jpg" alt="Nancy Seki" width="257" height="308" /> 
<img class="imgcaption" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Nancy-Seki-Erasers-1.jpg" alt="Nancy Seki" width="518" height="323" /> 
“Jump” is thoroughly enjoyable on its own, but its real success is as a prelude to Towada Art Center’s remarkable permanent exhibition, engaging in ways that open our minds to the transportive sense of wonder to be experienced throughout the museum. Highlights from the permanent collection include Ron Mueck’s towering ‘Standing Woman’ statue, the nocturnal forest of Mariele Neudecker’s ‘This Thing Called Darkness,’ Hans Op de Beeck’s ‘Location (5),’ – a room-sized work that makes the viewer feel like she’s entered a film set, or perhaps Edward Hopper’s ‘<a href="http://www.edwardhopper.net/automat.jsp">Automat</a>‘ – and Takashi Kuribayashi’s ‘Sumpf Land,’ which presents a startling alternate world to those brave enough to stand on a table and put their heads through a hole in the ceiling.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ron-Mueck-Standing-Woman.jpg" alt="Ron Mueck, 'Standing Woman'" width="257" height="257" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Mitsuhiro-Yamagiwa-there-here-and-over-there.jpg" alt="Mitsuhiro Yamagiwa, there, here and over there" width="257" height="257" /> 
<img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Do-Ho-Suh-Cause-and-Effect1.jpg" alt="Do Ho Suh, 'Cause and Effect'" width="257" height="250" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ana-Laura-Alaez-Bridge-of-Light.jpg" alt="Ana Laura Aláez, 'Bridge of Light'" width="257" height="250" /> 
As the kind of show that takes interactions between works and viewers to the next level, “Jump” reminds us that art, like play, can be more than an amusement – it gives us the wings to take leave of our conventional confines, to reimagine ourselves and our surroundings.
<a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/apps/mupon">MuPon-eligible</a> “Jump” ends August 30th, 2015.
(Photography by Jennifer Pastore)

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The Appeal of Play

<img class="imgcaption" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_suit1.jpg" alt="Ready for adventure and conquest: Amy's suit and silk cocoons were viewed through color-filtering glasses. Masaya Kushino, who also collaborated on 'Nanohana Heels', designed the shoes." width="518" height="345" />
“Tranceflora— Amy’s Glowing Silk,” shown at Gucci Shinjuku last month, told the unusual tale of a girl, Amy, who meets someone special, falls in love, and genetically engineers silkworms to make a glowing, fragrant, aphrodisiac-enhanced supersuit to snare her beloved’s heart. That’s the origin myth behind this exhibit by Sputniko! (Hiromi Ozaki), the Japanese-British MIT assistant professor and 2013 Vogue Japan Woman of the Year, who is known for her narrative projects that fuse art and technology.
Sputniko!’s previous works include Menstruation Machine— Takashi’s Take (2010). It’s a music video starring a boy named Takashi who wears a device simulating the blood and cramps of a period to see what it’s like to be a woman. Crowbot Jenny (2011) is a video about a girl who builds a machine for communicating with crows, and Nanohana Heels (2012), is a pair of shoes that plant radioactivity-absorbing rapeseeds (nanohana) as the wearer walks. All of these works are based on real technologies.
<img class="imgcaption floatl" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_silkworms2.jpg" alt="Strings of silkworm cocoons illuminated the space." width="257" height="386" /><img class="imgcaption floatl" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_silkworm_moths3.jpg" alt="Bioengineered silkworm moths produced the fabric for Amy's suit." width="257" height="384" />
<img class="imgcaption" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_2015_4.jpg" alt="The silk's fluorescence comes from jellyfish or coral DNA injected into silkworm eggs by scientists at Japan's National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences." width="517" height="345" />
<img class="imgcaption" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_textile5.jpg" alt="Hosoo, a woven textile manufacturer from Kyoto with 1,200 years of history, created the fabric for Amy's suit with Gucci's floral pattern. " width="518" height="347" />
<img class="imgcaption" title="Photo: Jennifer Pastore" src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sputniko_transformation6.jpg" alt="A video projection of Amy (model Saila Kunikida) in her dazzling garb, post-transformation. The subject turns herself into a high-tech Aphrodite." width="517" height="345" />
Ultimately, the exhibit speaks to that which is ancient and eternal rather than the futuristic; technologies, fashions, and norms change, but female allure has a long and diverse history and inevitable future.

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