10 Things in Tokyo: June 2016

400 Years of Architectural Challenges
The Setagaya Art Museum celebrates the four-century history of one of Japan’s oldest businesses and a world leader in architecture, Takenaka Corporation. First instituted by the shrine and temple carpenter Tobei Masataka Takenaka in 1610, the early roots of this construction giant were to be found in building for the feudal lord family of Oda in Nagoya. Since then the company has continued in its commitment to quality at an artisan level, having created such iconic structures as the Takashimaya Kyoto Store, Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Dome, the New National Theatre, Tokyo. It has also been responsible for renovating the Mitsubishi Ichigokan building. This exhibition reviews the company’s practice through photographs, maquettes and construction plans, alongside art works and graphic products from the corresponding ages.
–June 19

Kosuke Okahara “Fukushima Fragments”
Photojournalist Kosuke Okahara is interested in “ibasho,” a Japanese term that translates to “the physical and emotional space in which people exist.” Having photographed war zones, Columbians immigrating illegally to the U.S., and young Japanese women who self harm, Okahara now turns his lens on Fukushima in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear accident. Espace Kuu at Taisho University shows black and white images from Okahara’s latest book, “Fukushima Fragments,” a series capturing slices of life as it carries on in an irrevocably altered landscape.
–June 25

Hiroshige Utagawa “Landscapes Along the Tokaido Road and Mt. Fuji”
The Tokaido road, some which can still be walked along today, was a route connecting Kyoto and modern-day Tokyo during the Edo period, a time when travel around the country flourished. The road’s cultural influence extending from its logistical importance cannot be overstated, and one of the most celebrated manifestations of its place in the national imagination is Hiroshige Utagawa’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido.” The Ota Memorial Museum of Art displays works from both this Ukiyo-e series and the later “Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji” masterpieces. Having inspired art around the world for generations, these originals demonstrate the artist’s development and mastery of the fukeiga (landscape pictures) genre.
–June 26

Lyota Yagi “Meta Archaeology”
In a time when the future seems difficult to face, it is perhaps apt that we look towards the past instead. Lyota Yagi attempts to revisit the origins of human life and the hidden strength that has existed in us since primitive, ancient times. Through methods of excavation, restoration, conservation and measurement, combined with participation in archeological research, Yagi draws himself closer to the life and culture of ancient civilizations, replicating expressions of the Jomon era and developing technologies to sound out the buried past.
–June 26

Light Waves: Vision
From early works of kinetic art by Shiro Takahashi to recent digital optics by Mitsuru Tokisato, this exhibition brings together seven artists working across different eras in the examination of image, projection, illusion, and focus. With contributions from award-winning artist Ryota Kuwakubo and noted young animators Asami Ike and Eri Kawaguchi, it combines the latest contemporary art explorations of media technology with a more academic investigation into the impact of image manipulation upon our psyche led by Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto psychology professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka. –July 3

Visitors should also take the opportunity to view Mitsumasa Kadota’s new painting of frantic visual energy at Earth+Gallery in the same building. – June 26.

Susumu Koshimizu
Creating studies in material, texture, and form, the Mono-ha artist Susumu Koshimizu carves into the surfaces of his table sculptures to reveal the physical properties of different types of wood. New pieces in his Working Table series, designed as variations of works lost at the 1976 Venice Biennale, can be seen at Blum & Poe.
–July 2

Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice
Held every three years, the multi-media exhibit Roppongi Crossing spotlights some of Japan’s most promising contemporary artists. This iteration features works on themes of the body and identity, alternative histories, and relationships between people and objects.

Especially notable are Tomona Matsukawa’s oil paintings depicting the intimacy between women, their bodies, and their clothes; Akira Takayama’s video installations recounting stories of construction workers from various walks of life and their tellings of the Tower of Babel; Sasa Shun’s documentary of Japanese women discussing wartime experiences and waving flags sewn from personal textiles; and Futoshi Miyagi’s elegantly meditative short film in which tales of love triangles come to form allegories for Okinawan political identity. (¥200 MuPon discount).
–July 10

Ryan McGinley “Body Loud!”
Ryan McGinley is one of America’s most watched and discussed photographers, with a solo show at the Whitney Museum of Art at age 25 among his accomplishments. His images of anonymous millennials frolicking nude through the wilderness captivate with their irrepressible spirit of liberation, laced in some takes with eerie menace. (¥200 MuPon discount).
–July 10

Gaetan Kubo “Emergencies! 028 – Research & Destroy”
During times of war all resources go toward the production of weapons, but what happens to these ammunitions once peace is restored? Gaetan Kubo is an artist compelled by the histories of objects and their cyclic transformations. Here he explores how gun cartridges came to be used in the production of 50 sen coins, the recycling of US tanks into Tokyo Tower, and the new life of a French battleship as an electric power station, whilst also following the story of the destroyer his great-grandfather served upon during the war and its reuse by the self-defense force as an escort ship. Through objects, maquettes, documentary video, photographs and diagrams, Kubo traces the resurrection of these former devices of death back into our everyday landscapes.
–August 6

Hisachika Takahashi by Yuki Okumura
Internationally recognized artist Yuki Okumura attempts to rewrite Japanese art history by shining light upon the work of Hisachika Takahashi, an oft-overlooked artist who in fact collaborated with Lucio Fontana and Robert Rauschenberg. Active in New York in the 1970s and associated with the alternative art space 112 Workshop, Takahashi rubbed shoulders with the likes of Jasper Johns, Joseph Kosuth, Brice Marden, Gordon Matta-Clark, Keith Sonnier, and Lawrence Weiner, all of whom contributed to his project “From Memory Draw a Map of America.” Also noted for being a regular cook at Gordon Matta-Clark’s legendary Food space, Takahashi took up the invitation to work in Yuki Okumura’s studio for a year. This exhibition unveils the fruits of their dialogues and collaborations, highlighting the extent to which art remains open to new contexts and interpretations.
–September 4