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RIKA MINAMITANI

Tomio Koyama Gallery is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with Rika Minamitani. In her oil paintings of varying scales Minamitani depicts motifs of everyday objects, landscapes, animals, and human figures through animated brushstrokes and dynamic compositions. Loaded with a unique sense of humor, her images are akin to snapshots of fleeting impressions of the world. The images also result from experimentation with formal elements such as color, form, and outline—for, as the artist states, “figures are just containers for colors and shapes.”

EIJI UEMATSU

Over the course of his five-decade career Eiji Uematsu has created ceramic works that reflect his fascination with soil and his ongoing dialogue with the natural world. From the lifelike shapes of the mud to the cracks and distortions on the surface of the clay, his forms bear traces of the earth and the fire of the kiln. Uematsu refuses to be bound by either existing methodologies or the constraints of his consciousness, drawing instead upon his emotional relationship to matter. His work invites us to discover intricate dimensions of time and space hidden inside seemingly familiar landscapes.

WOMAN WAS THE SUN CURATED BY CHUS MARTÍNEZ

On view November 2–5 at SMBC East Tower in Marunochi, AWT Video presents a selection of single-channel moving-image works by Japanese and international artists drawn from Art Week Tokyo’s participating galleries. Curated by Chus Martínez, Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature at Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, this year’s program, “Woman Was the Sun,” features 17 works by 14 artists.

WORLDS IN BALANCE: ART IN JAPAN FROM THE POSTWAR TO THE PRESENT CURATED BY KENJIRO HOSAKA

SAORI MIYAKE: NOWHERE IN BLUE

Waitingroom presents a solo exhibition by Saori Miyake, an artist who interrogates the internalization of the pictorial image in our gaze by exploring the phenomena of inversion and multiplication associated with the shadow, the apocryphal origin of painting. Miyake’s newest work reconsiders notions of the landscape/landscape painting. Her multimedia installation of cyanotypes and videos is inspired both by the walks through gardens and forests the artist began taking during the Covid-19 pandemic and by the concurrent spread of generative AI technology.

YASUHIRO ISHIMOTO

This exhibition focuses on Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s photographs of urban landscapes in Tokyo and Chicago, taken from the 1940s to the 1960s. Ishimoto (1921–2012) was born into a Japanese immigrant farming family in San Francisco. During World War II, he was interned in Camp Amache, a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Colorado, where he was first exposed to photography. Three years after the war ended, Ishimoto attended the Institute of Design, a design school in Chicago that followed in the footsteps of the Bauhaus, and began his career as a photographer under the tutelage of Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and others.

Ishimoto traveled to Japan in 1953 and produced a series of photographs of Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, one of his signature projects. In 1958, he published his first photo book, Someday Somewhere, which captured the people and scenes of Chicago and Tokyo—and breathed new life into the postwar Japanese art world. Ishimoto based himself in Tokyo after that, leaving behind a body of work that presents a unique perspective on subjects such as Japanese traditional beauty (as exemplified by the Ryokai Mandalas and Ise Grand Shrine), urban landscapes, portraits, the sky, and water. Ishimoto also went beyond photography to become deeply involved in postwar international trends in design, architecture, and other fields, ultimately leading to his recognition as a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government. In 2020 and 2021, a major retrospective of his career was held across three venues: the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, and the Museum of Art, Kochi.

HIDEKADO GOTO: SUJIGANE-TO-ENNICHI

The process of ideological formation that occurred during the Meiji-era modernization campaign at the end of the 19th century was driven in part by the clash of science and faith. This violent intermingling of cultures took on unique characteristics in Japan, yet it is also a universal phenomenon that has recurred throughout human history. In “Sujigane-to-Ennichi,” Hidekado Goto reflects on how these traces of the past continue to influence us and inform our thinking about the transcendent through a mix of historical events, family memories from the artist’s hometown of Ibaraki, and the story of two women. Goto, who began his career as a beatmaker in the late 1990s, works in a variety of mediums, including video, music, drawing, and installation.

DEREK JARMAN

Take Ninagawa is pleased to present a solo exhibition of British artist Derek Jarman (1942–1994), an indefatigable polymath whose practice extended to painting, filmmaking, activism, costume and set design, writing, and gardening. Jarman graduated from Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 1967. He began work on his Black Paintings in 1986, around the time he was diagnosed as HIV-positive and moved to Dungeness, a hamlet on the English coast next to a nuclear power plant. Variously incorporating glass shards, photographs, an empty tube of K-Y Jelly, and bits of flotsam on thickly painted black backgrounds, these intimately scaled mixed-media works register the intersections between Jarman’s personal history and his filmmaking. The paintings also refer to broader social currents at a time of pervasive homophobia toward people living with AIDS, and they can be seen in dialogue with works by artists ranging from Kurt Schwitters to Robert Rauschenberg and Paul Thek. On view in this exhibition is a selection of Black Paintings made between 1986 and 1991, alongside Jarman’s first film, Electric Fairy (1971), and the film Imagining October (1984).

KIM TAEK SANG: PURITY

Taguchi Fine Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Kim Taek Sang, a key figure in the second generation of Korean Dansaekhwa painters. Kim creates his works slowly, soaking unstretched canvases in a mix of acrylic paint and water, then waiting for them to dry. What results are paintings in soft and gentle colors with a quality of ripeness gained over time.

The works on view will show how Kim has expanded his practice since his previous solo exhibition at the gallery in 2018. He now uses irregularly shaped fabrics as an underlay when soaking his canvases, and his palette now includes fluorescent colors evocative of the Northern Lights as well as natural dyes derived from beetles.

YURIKO ASANO

Yuriko Asano travels to various places to learn about local food cultures and uses of plants. Drawing on her personal observations and interviews with the people she encounters in each place, she makes paintings in Japanese pigments and oils that explore our relationship to nature. The resulting works are characterized by rich colors, a positive worldview, and great vitality.

MASATO KOBAYASHI: ABOUT FREEDOM

ShugoArts is pleased to present “About Freedom,” a solo exhibition by Masato Kobayashi. “Freedom,” as Kobayashi understands it, is not about abandoning the frameworks of art and society but rather imagining what we can do within their constraints in order to expand the practice of painting. The exhibition consists of several works, including Artist (2023), which evolves out of a massive, 2-by-10-meter piece Kobayashi made for his 2004 solo exhibition “Starry Paint” at Tensta Konsthall in Sweden. At the conclusion of the exhibition, Kobayashi cut the original work into fragments that were then turned into works themselves. In a similar fashion Artist transforms the remnants of the original work into a completely new entity.

NAOYOSHI HIKOSAKA
PWP: PRACTICE BY WOOD PAINTING

Misa Shin Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Naoyoshi Hikosaka, an artist who challenged the institutional framework of art in Japan in the 1970s. “PWP: Practice by Wood Painting” features 12 wood paintings from the 1980s and 1990s that were recently discovered in Hikosaka’s studio. On view for the first time, they include abstract works on wooden supports of various shapes and are characterized by minimalistic forms and tones, layers of colorful transparent paint, and fractal elements. Following performances such as Floor Event (1970), Hikosaka’s wood pieces further his experiments with “post-painting painting.”

BOSCO SODI: GALAXY

The Mexican-born, New York–based artist Bosco Sodi is known for his richly textured, vividly colored large-scale paintings. Sodi has discovered an emotive power within the inherent crudeness of the materials that he uses to produce his paintings. He seeks to transcend conceptual barriers by emphasizing material exploration, the creative gesture, and the spiritual connection between the artist and his work. He also applies this approach to making site-specific installations, which incorporate raw materials such as wood, stones, clay, and earth. The artist’s first solo show at the gallery in five years, this exhibition surveys his recent projects, presents new works, and looks ahead to developments to come.

HARUKA YAMADA: MIRAGE OF SUNDIALS

Poetic Scape is pleased to announce “Mirage of Sundials,” Haruka Yamada’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Since commencing her Sun of the City project in 2013, Yamada has traveled to cities around the world to turn buildings into site-specific sundials. The works on view in “Mirage of Sundials” reflect on this project in various ways.

HIROYUKI TAKENOUCHI: L/C/R

Whether photographing cityscapes, flora, daily life, or dear friends, Hiroyuki Takenouchi challenges society’s unspoken rules and strives to reveal the hidden nature of his subjects. The resulting pictures, which often address loneliness and alienation, are nuanced meditations on human identity. Since “Liberty City,” his debut exhibition at PGI in 2009, Takenouchi has become a highly recognized figure in Japanese contemporary art. “L/C/R” is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

JEAN-PHILIPPE DELHOMME: VISAGE(S)

For his first solo exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo, French artist Jean-Philippe Delhomme presents a series of new portraits painted from life in his Paris studio. Unlike much contemporary figurative painting mediated by photography, Delhomme’s portraits are created through direct observation of his models. His practice could be characterized as a painting of representation: “a bringing before one,” as per the word’s etymology, of an image or figure that substitutes reality.

Each of Delhomme’s portraits records the presence of a model in the controlled situation of the studio. The artist is less interested in likeness than the exchange of gazes between painter and model, continuing a long tradition of portraiture that predates photography.

GUO-LIANG TAN

Ota Fine Arts is delighted to present Singaporean artist Guo-Liang Tan’s first solo exhibition in Japan. Tan creates abstract paintings by layering various colors of diluted acrylic paint on thin aeronautical fabric. The wooden stretcher bars, which can be observed through the translucent textile, harmonize with the layers, their shadows accentuating the light produced by the paint.

The exhibition includes large, freestanding pieces painted on both sides of the fabric. By inviting viewers to move around these works, Tan expands on the physical and conceptual space and time within and beyond the paintings.

CANDIDA HÖFER: REFLECTIONS OF SPACES—SPACES OF REFLECTION

Kotaro Nukaga is pleased to present Candida Höfer’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, “Reflections of Spaces—Spaces of Reflection.” The exhibition centers on the Cologne-based photographer’s iconic library series. Höfer meticulously crafts each image, from the framing within her camera’s lens to the lighting within each setting, to reveal and reflect the forces at play in public spaces through a fresh realist perspective.

LUCAS BLALOCK

nca | nichido contemporary art is pleased to present Lucas Blalock’s first solo show in Japan. Born in 1978 in Asheville, North Carolina, the artist currently lives and works in New York. Blalock makes a point of showing the process behind his photographs, drawing influence from poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose techniques call attention to the labor and mechanics of theatrical performance. The artist makes photographs with a large-format camera on film and then scans his images in order to digitally alter them. His awkward alterations breathe life into the images’ surreal and darkly comic imagery. Blalock likens this process to “an act of drawing, a way to try to understand the world through making a picture of it.” It is a means of investigating the limits and inherent contradictions of the medium of photography as well as its capacities of perception. This exhibition features a selection of pieces from the artist’s newest body of work.

MARCEL BROODTHAERS

Taro Nasu presents an exhibition of paintings, three-dimensional works, and editions by Marcel Broodthaers (1924–1976), a key figure in Conceptual art. Though Broodthaers began his career as a poet, he was initially drawn to Surrealism, making his first artwork in 1964 from copies of his last book of poetry. He went on to expand and evolve the field of contemporary art by producing works that critically reflect on the institutional frameworks and conventions in which it is embedded. His enormous influence shows no sign of abating, as he was the subject of recent exhibitions at Kunsthaus Zurich (2023); SMAK, Ghent (2022); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016), among other venues.

JEAN JULLIEN AND NICOLAS JULLIEN: THE GATHERING

Nanzuka is pleased to announce “The Gathering,” an exhibition by Jean Jullien and Nicolas Jullien. Drawing inspiration from the card game Magic: The Gathering, which they play daily, the brothers imbue their artwork with a quality of everyday fantasy.

“The Gathering” unfolds in two parts, with Jean’s paintings on the first floor of the gallery and Nicolas’s wood sculptures on the second. As a testament to the artists’ close relationship, the two bodies of work complement one another, from the lightness and wit of the sculptures to the sense of narrative and time in the paintings. Solo shows—by Jean at 3110NZ by LDH kitchen and Nicolas at Nanzuka 2G—run concurrently to this exhibition.

SHINJI IHARA: 1111

Shinji Ihara’s latest solo exhibition, “1111,” features a series of 22 paintings the artist began making on November 11, 2022—the day his cat, with whom he lived for many years, passed away. Entitled Lay Flowers, the paintings depict flowers and catnip held gently in the artist’s hands. In each work, Ihara renders the scene with precise brush strokes, as if he were placing minute gems one by one on the canvas.

SACHIKO KAZAMA: NEW MATSUSHIMA

Mujin-to Production is pleased to present “New Matsushima,” a solo exhibition by Sachiko Kazama. The exhibition brings together a series of works that Kazama presented at the 2022 Reborn-Art Festival in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Kazama was intrigued by the stone warehouse that served as one of the festival venues and researched the source of the building material, nobiru stone, in nearby Matsushima and Oku-Matsushima. While these areas are known for their scenic beauty, they also have been marked by years of erosion, the devastation of the tsunami of March 11, 2011, and the construction of levees. Kazama’s drawings take inspiration from these sites as well as ideas of impermanence and “panta rhei,” Heraclitus’s notion that “everything flows.” Additional pieces show the artist’s multifaceted approach to her themes, including stereoscopic views of the old Kitakami River in Ishinomaki, works using a stamp to depict the ever-changing coast, and large woodblock prints inspired by places praised in Japanese poetry.

YOSHITAKA AMANO: BLUE

Yoshitaka Amano joined the animation studio Tatsunoko Production in 1967, when he was only 15 years old, helping design characters for countless popular anime series including Time Bokan and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. After leaving the studio to work independently, he gained worldwide renown for his contributions to the illustrations for the Vampire Hunter D novels and the character designs for the game series Final Fantasy. Amano has since shifted his focus to fine art, with his work appearing in numerous Japanese and international museum and gallery exhibitions. A forthcoming documentary will offer insight into his production process and personality.

Amano’s current exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery comprises a diverse collection of works based on the theme of “blue.” Blue evokes a range of images and associations, from natural scenes of sea and sky to tranquility, nobility, and youth. Employing a multitude of colors and a range of materials—including oil and acrylic paints, glaze, and foil—Amano has created a rich expression of blue.

KAZUYUKI TAKEZAKI

Misako & Rosen is pleased to announce its seventh exhibition with Kazuyuki Takezaki. The artist continues his long-term engagement with landscape painting, reprising a traditional genre to expand the vocabulary of contemporary painting.

YOSHIO KITAYAMA: HISTORY = REASON (　) EMOTION

Yoshio Kitayama works with painting and sculpture, with each practice often informing the other. To make his new painting History = Reason (　) Emotion (2023), for example, the artist followed a ritualistic process, first painstakingly filling the picture plane with renderings of his clay sculptures of human figures and then, once the work was complete, destroying the sculptures and proceeding to make them anew. Aside from the Icon series, to which the aforementioned work belongs, Kitayama continues to make his abstract Universe series. Although works in this series initially portrayed forms reminiscent of actual stars and planets, the most recent additions simply consist of countless millimeter-sized circles and dots covering the entirety of the paper. Kitayama, who works on this series every day, says that each circle depicts a single universe and that the totality of the composition is also another single universe. Through his approaches in both the Icon and Universe series, Kitayama continues his sweeping inquiry into the birth of our world and the endless chain of life.

From September 17 to October 9, 2023, MEM exhibited Kitayama’s drawings. This exhibition focuses on his sculptures.

RICHARD SERRA: CIRCLE, DIAMOND, TRIANGLE

Fergus McCaffrey is proud to present an exhibition of geometric, paint-stick wall drawings by Richard Serra. Commenting on the works, Serra notes that “the weight of a drawing derives not only from the number of layers of paint-stick but [also] from…[its] particular shape,” which can imply mass, volume, and load. One triangular drawing on view, for example, has “a light, very quick shape.” Accompanying the exhibition, Fergus McCaffrey is publishing a Japanese-language edition of Serra and Hal Foster’s book Conversations about Sculpture (2018).

MITSUO KIM: ATMOSPHERE

In “Atmosphere,” Mitsuo Kim presents new work applying his distinctive vision to the subject of human relationships. Kim approaches this topic through the lens of his daily life as an artist and busy father.

Born in Osaka in 1987, Kim earned an MA from the Kyoto City University of Arts in 2012. His accolades include the Encouragement Prize at the VOCA Exhibition 2014 and the city of Kyoto’s Best Young Artist Award in 2016. He has exhibited widely both in Japan and abroad, including in a solo exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2014).

MIWA OGASAWARA: HIMMEL

Maho Kubota is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Miwa Ogasawara. Ogasawara’s works are represented in major institutions like the Centre Pompidou and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. The artist is known for creating serene and powerful paintings in her studio in Hamburg, Germany, that employ intangible elements like light, shadow, and wind to convey profound emotions and ideas. Ogasawara’s latest exhibition is entitled “Himmel,” or “heaven” in English. Reflecting on a personal loss last year, the artist focuses on the sky as a physical expanse rich with meaning and associations.

SKY

Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “sky,” a group show featuring works by represented artists Takashi Kunitani, Reina Mikame, Kisho Mwkaiyama, Nerhol, and Kouichi Tabata. Since antiquity people have looked up at the constantly shifting firmament to find inspiration for literature and art. Including new works by Kunitani, Mikame, and Tabata, this exhibition explores how contemporary artists respond to this timeless subject as well as associated concepts of open space and emptiness.

NOBUYA HITSUDA

Active since the 1970s, Nobuya Hitsuda is widely known both for his subtle, evocative landscape paintings and his distinguished career as a professor. Former students include artists Yoshitomo Nara, Kyoko Murase, Hiroshi Sugito, and Emi Otaguro.

The devastated landscape of postwar Tokyo left a major impression on Hitsuda, who was born in 1941, and continues to influence his practice. His paintings often depict everyday scenes of concrete walls, weeds growing in untended plots, shadows cast by the morning sun, and broken fences. Mountain ranges and water are also signature elements of his works.

Hitsuda considers his landscape paintings to show moments glimpsed in passing and perceived in fragments. To capture these impressions, he creates a bricolage of various moments. His way of seeing and accumulating scenes across time results in compositions that appear to metamorphose right before the viewer’s eye.

AKIRA FUJIMOTO: MINERALIZATION

“Mineralization” is the latest chapter of Akira Fujimoto’s marine debris series. Since 2019, the artist has addressed the problem of ocean plastics by looking at what accumulates on our coasts. Just beyond the beaches we visit to sun and swim are outcrops where the world’s plastics pile up. These products are made of fossil fuels containing biological remnants hundreds of millions of years old. Fujimoto goes to great lengths to collect them, carry them ashore, and heat press them into works of art. This solo exhibition represents the mineralization of an enormous amount of time and energy.

NORITAKA TATEHANA: SYNCRETISM

For his ninth solo exhibition with Kosaku Kanechika, Noritaka Tatehana continues his examination and reinterpretation of traditional Japanese culture, bringing a modern perspective to its forms, motifs, and value systems. The central piece, Descending Painting (Double Doors) (2023), is a seigan triptych informed by two concepts that are key to Tatehana’s recent body of work: Shinto-Buddhist syncretism and binary homogeneity. Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, which was the primary theme of his 2020 solo exhibition “Dual Dialogue” and its Duality Painting Series, explores how two perspectives can coexist in a single work. Binary homogeneity, a concept Tatehana sees as particular to Japan, is a counterpoint to the Western idea of binary opposition.

SHOKO NAKAZAWA: HARMONY

Kaikai Kiki Gallery is pleased to present “Harmony,” Shoko Nakazawa’s long-awaited first major solo exhibition with the gallery. Nakazawa began her career as a graphic designer and illustrator, coming to build a dedicated fan base through the production of soft-vinyl monsters. For this exhibition, she has created more than 20 new paintings, including a monumental six-panel work that fills an entire gallery wall. Among these are depictions of her iconic monsters, Byron and Seedlas, as well as a portrait of a young girl who may represent the artist’s inner self.

ROSALIND NASHASHIBI: INFINITY POOL

Rosalind Nashashibi’s artistic practice ranges from painting to filmmaking, printmaking, and photography. The different aspects of her practice overlap with and inform each other, with her paintings taking on a filmic quality and her films at times operating in tandem with her other output.

In recent paintings Nashashibi works with motifs referencing literature and theater as well as images conceived in her mind. From a female “punchinella” to prismatic ripples on the surface of a pool, the paintings in “Infinity Pool” shift between solid and liquid, surface and depth—dynamics that, for Nashashibi, are key preoccupations of painting.

YOKO TERAUCHI

Yoko Terauchi moved to London in the late 1970s to attend Saint Martin’s School of Art and returned to Japan 20 years later. Since then, she has exhibited widely at museums and galleries in Japan and abroad. Terauchi’s practice began during a period of doubt in her study of sculpture, giving rise to works that challenge tenets and values we conventionally set in opposition to each other, such as back and front, inside and outside, and good and evil. By choosing to neither add to nor subtract from a lead plate or sheet of paper—by respecting the form a material takes on its own—Terauchi demonstrates her belief that “there is no opposition in the world.”

FIG. 9. IMMEDIACY

Fig. is pleased to present “Immediacy,” a group exhibition of works by Lisa Lapinski, Umico Niwa, Shizuka Okada, and J. Parker Valentine. The word “immediacy” implies direct and unmediated sensation, which may at first seem at odds with how we engage artistic mediums. Seeking a broader understanding of the word, this exhibition is an inquiry into what a definite, tangible, and immediate experience of art could be.

Each exhibiting artist brings a keen and critical sensibility to her practice. Lisa Lapinski is known for formally complex sculptures incorporating the terms of semiotics, craft, and other mediums. Intricately interweaving life experience and fantasy, Umico Niwa combines various materials to blur their boundaries and thus resist dominant modes of classification and quantification. Shizuka Okada’s works drift between tangible and intangible narratives, producing substantial yet fragmentary sensations. J. Parker Valentine is engaged in long-term experimentation with materials that resonate with the act of drawing.

SOL LEWITT AND JIRO TAKAMATSU: LINE FOR EARTH PROJECT

In 1967 Sol LeWitt published the essay “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” coining the term “Conceptual art” to describe certain practices emerging at the time. In Japan during the same period Jiro Takamatsu was making works of an intellectual bent that emphasized thoughts and concepts. Takamatsu’s output demonstrates that Conceptual art was not just an American phenomenon but one that occurred in various parts of the world.

Rather than uphold the belief that art is an act of individual expression LeWitt and Takamatsu set out to interrogate how art and perception come to be, focusing on their structures, systems, and constituent elements such as cubes, lines, and perspective. Though the artists were unaware of one another, they each endeavored to show the variations of representation generated by certain rules, with LeWitt giving visual form to the limitations of those variations and Takamatsu to their limitlessness.

“Line for Earth Project” primarily focuses on work by LeWitt and Takamatsu from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, displaying sculptures made from cubes alongside drawings that offer vital clues to how the thinking behind them unfolded. For both artists, drawing was as important as sculpture in developing thoughts and visualizing concepts.

HA CHONG-HYUN

Blum is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Ha Chong-hyun, featuring eight new paintings from his ongoing Conjunction series. Begun in 1974, the Conjunction series employs Ha’s original bae-ap-bub (back-pressure) technique, in which he presses viscous oil paint through the weave of the canvas to produce thick agglomerations on the front. The artist then brushes, smears, and scrapes the surface paint into abstract compositions that emphasize the materiality of the medium and its support.

Through their experiments with monochrome painting, Ha Chong-hyun and his peers—Chung Sang-Hwa, Kwon Young-Woo, Lee Ufan, Park Seo-Bo, Yun Hyong-keun, and others—came to be known as the Dansaekhwa movement. By variously pushing paint, soaking canvas, dragging pencils, and ripping paper, these pioneers refuted the conventions of traditional ink painting and questioned the distinctions separating ink painting from oil, painting from sculpture, and object from viewer.

MOTOKO ISHIBASHI

4649 is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Motoko Ishibashi. This is Ishibashi’s first solo show in Tokyo and her first project with 4649. Ishibashi graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2015 and is currently based in London. She has held exhibitions at spaces including Sebastian Gladstone, Los Angeles; Schwabinggrad, Munich; Museum of Sex, New York; and V.O Curations, London.

ARISA KUMAGAI: …APPARENTLY GOD IS FORGIVING

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to announce “…apparently God is forgiving,” a solo exhibition by Arisa Kumagai. In her practice, the artist reflects on her upbringing in a red-light district in Osaka, where her family ran a luxury clothing store that catered to the mafia and women working in the brothels. Addressing dichotomies of wealth/poverty, life/death, and love/hate, her paintings allude to this context while also referencing the iconography of Catholicism, from the images printed on the store’s Versace shirts to Velázquez’s Christ Crucified, which inspired her to become a painter.

“…apparently God is forgiving” is Kumagai’s third at Gallery Koyanagi. As part of her research process, Kumagai attended mass at churches in Japan and France in order to gain a deeper understanding of the relations between beauty and power and violence and prayer. The exhibition features new paintings and a book of poems composed by the artist.

TORAJIRO YAMADA

In 1890, a typhoon struck the Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul as it returned from Japan, claiming the lives of most of its crew. A young man named Torajiro Yamada, who was deeply affected by this incident, collected donations and brought them to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1892. At just 24 years of age, he witnessed the majesty of Ottoman culture and the warmth of its people. Commemorating the centennial of the Republic of Turkey, this exhibition tells the story of cultural exchange between Japan and Turkey through the life of this pioneering figure.

CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY VOL. 20: LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK
TAKASHI HOMMA: REVOLUTION 9
AFTER THE LANDSCAPE THEORY

The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum presents a trio of exhibitions across its three floors of gallery space during Art Week Tokyo. The third floor presents the museum’s annual Contemporary Japanese Photography exhibition, surveying Japanese artists who work in photography and moving image. Addressing the theme “Leap Before You Look,” this year’s 20th edition brings together five artists: Yuta Fuchikami, Haruto Hoshi, mumuko, Yumiko Utsu, and Shimpei Yamagami.
The second-floor galleries feature acclaimed photographer Takashi Homma’s first solo show at a Japanese institution in 10 years. “Revolution 9” focuses on Homma’s The Narcissistic City series, in which the artist turns rooms in cities around the world into pinhole cameras for capturing urban landscapes.
The basement galleries host “After the Landscape Theory,” a thematic exhibition reconsidering landscape theory, which explores the landscape in relation to culture, society, and politics through visual arts and which has exerted a powerful influence on photographers and filmmakers since around 1970.

MAO ISHIKAWA: WHAT CAN I DO?

“What can I do?” surveys the critical and compassionate practice of Okinawan artist Mao Ishikawa. Since she began taking photographs in the 1970s, Ishikawa has brought attention to the complex history and geopolitics of Okinawa and its fraught relationships with the Japanese mainland and the United States. Her celebrated series Red Flower: The Woman of Okinawa (1975–77), for instance, documents her time working at a bar that catered exclusively to African American soldiers, showing colleagues and clients in moments of intimacy and revelry. More recently, The Great Photographic Scroll of the Ryūkyū (2014–) restages the history of Okinawa on massive scrolls with her friends playing various characters. These and other works are testaments to the trust Ishikawa builds with her subjects. Comprising more than 60 historic and recent photographs, this is Ishikawa’s first solo exhibition at an art institution in Tokyo.

THE ART DECO GARDEN: EXPLORING THE AESTHETIC FRUIT OF THE RESIDENCE OF PRINCE ASAKA

Taking the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris as a key point of reference, “The Art Deco Garden” revisits trends in modern garden design in interwar-era France. The selection of 120-odd works on view—including paintings, sculptures, crafts, prints, photographs, and archival documents—shows how elements of classicism, exoticism, and Cubism informed the practices of the time. The exhibition also provides greater context for appreciating the architecture and décor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum itself.

TSUBAKI-KAI 8: THIS NEW WORLD

Tsubaki-kai is a recurring, multiyear collaborative exhibition series that launched in 1947 with the reopening of Shiseido Gallery following the wartime suspension of its activities. For the eighth iteration of Tsubaki-kai, artists [mé], Futoshi Miyagi, Aiko Miyanaga, Ryuji Nakamura, Nerhol, and Hiroshi Sugito have spent the past three years exploring the “new world” after Covid-19.

For their initial exhibition in 2021, “Impetus,” the artists selected works by previous Tsubaki-kai participants in the Shiseido collection that they felt sparked ideas for subsequent elaboration. For last year’s follow-up exhibition, “Quest,” they furthered this exploration by working together and engaging experts from other fields. The current exhibition, “This New World,” marks the concluding chapter of Tsubaki-kai 8.

SHIKO MUNAKATA

During his lifetime Shiko Munakata (1903–1975) garnered international acclaim for his devotion to woodblock printing. Commemorating the 120th anniversary of Munakata’s birth, this exhibition is presented jointly by three museums in regions that had a major influence on his development as an artist: the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design; the Aomori Museum of Art; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Focusing on Munakata’s relationship with each region, the exhibition reconsiders the nature of his practice by highlighting the diversity of his creative output, from printmaking, Japanese-style painting, and oil painting to book jackets, illustrations, commercial designs, and appearances in radio, television, and film.

SHINJI OHMAKI

Shinji Ohmaki is acclaimed for his large-scale installations, which expand the realms of human perception and sensation through repetition, dynamic movement, and often modest materials. Stepping into his works, we encounter new perspectives on the world that have as profound an effect on our body and sense of self as on our understanding of space and time. For this exhibition Ohmaki presents a new installation that responds to the eight-meter-high ceilings of the second-floor Special Exhibition Gallery.

DAVID HOCKNEY

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is pleased to present David Hockney’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan in 27 years. Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, Hockney is considered one of the most innovative artists of the postwar era. For over 60 years, he has produced diverse works in a variety of fields, from painting and drawing to printmaking, photography, and stage design. Featuring a selection of approximately 120 pieces, including major works created in the United Kingdom and Los Angeles, such as the multipart series The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) (2011) and a new 90-meter-long drawing made on an iPad during lockdown, this exhibition presents a rich overview of Hockney’s creative world.

OUR ECOLOGY: TOWARD A PLANETARY LIVING

The environmental crisis is a challenge of utmost urgency for the entire world and also an important theme in the current international art scene. How can contemporary art respond to this issue? Comprising four chapters, this exhibition features diverse forms of expression by 35 artists from Japan and abroad—from historical works to new commissions. In addition, the displays have been designed with environmental sustainability in mind, by means such as minimizing the use of transport and reusing and recycling as many resources as possible.

The title “Our Ecology: Toward a Planetary Living” implicitly poses questions about who we, as humans, are and to whom Earth’s environment belongs. The exhibition urges us to consider environmental problems and other issues not only from an anthropocentric perspective but also by looking at Earth’s multiple ecologies from a broader, more comprehensive standpoint, inviting us to consider possible futures together.

ECOLOGY: DIALOGUE ON CIRCULATIONS
DIALOGUE 1: “LA VITA NUOVA”—JAEEUN CHOI

The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès is pleased to present “Ecology: Dialogue on Circulations,” two counterpart exhibitions at Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum that examine ecological practices in art. The first, “Dialogue 1: ‘La Vita Nuova,’” is on view during Art Week Tokyo and surveys 40-years of practice by Jaeeun Choi. The artist’s works sound the alarm about our climate catastrophe while also managing to be quietly poetic. Her practice makes a hopeful attempt to find an ideal state of coexistence with nature, sought in the space between life’s potential for violence and beauty. Choi’s solo exhibition will be followed by a group show that further considers notions of ecology as a state of circulating energy through the works of contemporary artists.

“Ecology: Dialogue on Circulations” is held in conjunction with the Mori Art Museum’s exhibition “Our Ecology: Toward a Planetary Living.”

Jam Session: The Ishibashi Foundation Collection x Yamaguchi Akira Drawn to the Irresistible Sensation

The Jam Session exhibition series invites contemporary artists to make projects in response to the Ishibashi Foundation Collection, which includes important works of modern painting by both Japanese and international artists. In this exhibition, Akira Yamaguchi investigates the legacy of the interaction between modern painting from Europe, which began to exert influence on Japanese artists in earnest in the late 19th century, and the forms of painting that had existed in Japan to that point. Yamaguchi notes that whereas modern painting in Western Europe emerged as a reaction to realistic and academic painting, Japanese artists of the age never had a tradition of realistic painting to rebel against in the first place. His latest works propose a radical break from this contradictory history of cross-cultural influence and the institutional values it helped entrench.