Tokyo art beat-off

[imomus]

Even when I'm in New York, I like to keep up with what's going down on the Tokyo art scene. A scan of websites may not replace the experience of gallery-going, but it can give you a scent, a whiff of what themes are playing out in Tokyo's white cubes. So here's a whirlwind thematic survey of the city's shows this spring, mostly based on listings on websites Tokyo Art Beat, RealTokyo, and Tactical.

WEIRD MACHINES
Tokyoites love strange gadgets and new technology, and their art curators seem to have arranged an array of wondrous machines for them to marvel at. Head out to the Tokyo Bay area and into Maru Gallery and you'll see Makoto Ishiwata's new piece, "Vacuum Packing Heartbeat", "a polyhedron-shaped giant capsule which will vacuum pack the visitor from all sides in rubber, with additional rhythmic soundscape."

If you survive being vacuum-packed in rubber, you may find you've lost your memory. In that case, head to Art Front Gallery, Ebisu and have a good look at Scott de Vacherie's memory machines. Due to a traffic accident when he was 25, Scott has a memory which only lasts one day. He's made these machines to record his experience and help him remember stuff. Since he forgets each invention the day after he makes it, his sister helps him maintain the technology. Actually, to be honest, I don't believe this guy is real. His name, after all, is French for "messing about". Nevertheless, it sounds like a fun fiction to base a show around.

Roger McDonald of Tactical is interested in artist initiatives and parasitical gallery spaces (a bit like Maurizio Cattelan's Wrong Gallery). He's curated "Off the Record", a locker art project in Shibuya by Tokyo-based Belgian artist Eric Van Hove. Shibuya station uses a locker system called X-CUBE©, which allows multiple users to exchange packages through a touch screen, using cell phone numbers as digital-keys. Off the Record substitutes the package with an artwork or installation. "The curator or the artist places the artwork, then invites the first person to the show by registering his cell phone number with the X-CUBE©, and calling him to confirm. In the following hours, the invited viewer arrives at the station, uses his cell phone to unlock the gallery space (the locker), and pays ¥100 to view the work. He then invites the next person by registering a new cell phone number and calling to confirm, and so on...
Think of a Chinese whisper," explains Eric. I don't think this would work in the security-paranoid West.

Finally, the Mitaka City Gallery of Art seems to be cutting up amps, for those of you who harbour a secret Akihabara rubberneck character who likes to see the insides of machines. It's part of art critic Makoto Ohoka's show The Eyes of a Poet, of which Real Tokyo's Shirasaka Yuri says: "When I began to visit art exhibitions I was wondering why so many art critics are poets. Now it appears to me that the vocabulary used for discussing art is growing on soil that is different from where logical thinking comes from. I'm not sure yet though..."

That's a great cue for us to take our leave of technology and pass to something more girly...



FASHION CROSSOVER
Aya Takano is part of Takashi Murakami's Kaikaikiki stable. She's showing her girly, perverse, erotic paintings (they have a watery, blossomy, soft-edged manga feel) at Parco Museum, atop the Parco department store in Shibuya. Look here, though, and you'll see a somewhat worrying development. Like Takashi, Aya has enthusiastically embraced commerce. Her languid beanpoles used to be set in imaginary landscapes, on bicycles, in apple trees. Now they're posing in front of the Parco logo, or a Family Mart deli.

Has Aya Takano sold out? The question doesn't make much sense in Tokyo, where art and commerce flow back and forth with ease. Parco is a department store, but it houses an art museum. Laforet is a teen fashion emporium, one of the main motors of the Harajuku phenomenon (Marxy will tell you it peaked in 1996), and it also boasts a museum on its top floor. Right now it's showing, appropriately for its location, an unashamedly commercial show: Stylist Meets, an "Exhibition by 8 Stylists and Creator Teams". Well, didn't postmodernism collapse high and low forms? Hasn't Japan always failed to separate art from craft?

More art-fashion crossover is happening in Hellen Van Meene's photography exhibition "Tokyo Girls: A sense of you, created by me" at Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya. And the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography has a show of French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin's work. He died in 1991.

I remember Bourdin's name from 1970s copies of Vogue (my mum bought it, and I sneaked it up to my room to look at the sexy pictures) -- you'd see a tiny platform shoe perched on a red carpet leading up to a jet, that kind of thing. It was enough to distract me from teenage masturbation, anyway, so it must be good stuff.

There's lots more going on in the Tokyo cubes, so I'll do a Part 2 tomorrow looking at more themes: cool foreigners, women being sensitive, "men's exhibitions", nature worship and dream cities.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea what art is, but people all around me are talking about it.
Am I missing out on something very special?

Please help me understand the world better! ♥

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I think there's a certain grudgefulness about art, because people see it as the thing people who don't have to do anything do when they don't have anything to do. (You can quote me on that.)

In other words, they think of art as a leisure activity for people richer than they are, people "ahead of them on the ladder". That's where the grudges come in. But they forget that people "behind them on the ladder" do stuff when they don't have stuff to do. Children play, and we've all been children. They're coming up behind us, and they're playing.

Think of art as child's play, that's my advice. Who but a monster would be grudgeful against a child?

Who but a monster would be grudgeful against a child?

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

oh, a child can be a grudgeful monster - but don't be grudgeful against the monstruous child. it just wants to play its innocent little devil's games.
"monster", by the way, derives from the latin word "monere" = make think of something, recall, admonish, warn.
hm, in that sense, most art these days isn't that much of a monster - rather as beautiful and thin as a fashion magazine would be without the ads. but art wants to have the ads now, too. 'cause they are the best about most fashion magazines. but not many can get ads or advertise in as artful a way as andy warhol could. that's "the art of selling" versus "selling out".

[bricology.livejournal.com]

Thoroughly interesting post!

Every time I visit Tokyo I try to spend as much time as possible visiting the galleries and other art venues with which I'm already familiar (SCAI the Bathhouse, Shugo Arts, etc.), and I enjoy wandering around Shinkawa and NakaMeguro, but I realize that I'm still missing a huge amount of good stuff. Beyond the venues listed above (and those in Metropolis), what other galleries do you recommend checking out?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, the rest of the ones on my normal, er, "beat" are going to be listed in tomorrow's post. Scai the Bathhouse is on the list.

Glad you liked this, I notice the comments go skyhigh when I'm talking about what I don't like in American culture, but flatline when I'm talking about the things I love, and specifically art and design topics.

[bricology.livejournal.com]

Well, you could consider it a testament to your ability to frame provocative issues. That and the fact that there are some rather polemical people who follow your posts.

But I'm all for more posts on art, and I just should recuse myself in matters of American culture and politics. Either way, I look forward to tomorrow's entry.

[auto-nalle.livejournal.com]

talking about fashion,
i just stole your favorite pants.
the sky-blue-plastic-japanese-fishmonger's-trousers
or whatever.
now i'm holding them to ransom.

pro-love.

[auto-nalle.livejournal.com]

momus, why do you think people fuss so much about politics?
it's a bit boring. i know it's supposedly important and constructive, but it's a bit boring.
and does it really lead anywhere?
bathing and food for example, are so much more fun, and make people happy without antagonizing them at the same time.
talk more about the things you love, please.

[(Anonymous)]

Has Aya Takano sold out? The question doesn't make much sense in Tokyo, where art and commerce flow back and forth with ease.

Its kind of a ridiculous point in Tokyo where actual art collectors hardly exist. I am hardly a fan of Murakami and his ridiculousness, but honestly for being as large a city as Tokyo is there is so little support for the arts it is depressing. I'm certainly not talking about things like TWS (although a glance at their schedule reveals that they are bringing in more foreign then domestic artists), but rather simply the collecting scene itself is a joke.

If an artist like Takano doesn't branch out of the galleries then she won't sell at all. At least not to anyone in Japan. Thats the really sad thing about art in Tokyo, all the artists people think are hip are predominantly supported by a steady stream of foreigners lining up as clients at Koyama, Hiromi Yoshii, and Wako.

But oh, this is a terrible response!

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

to whom it may concern:

I would like very much to order one (1) copy of Hellen van Meene's pictured "Tokyo Girl." We shall share clothes and she shall sleep on my beautiful new shag carpet.

If the selected item is no longer in-stock or otherwise unavailable, just her coat will suffice, as I feel it would be quite fetching on me. If her coat is no longer available, I will accept one (1) afternoon of Momus cleaning my house.

Please note that I have no alterior [i.e. "erotic"] motives in placing this order; I simply feel that the healthiest and most appropriate placement for a fuzzy-coated cute girl is in the household of another cute girl.

I look forward to speaking with you regarding this order.

Best,
M. Shoni

p.s. Nick, i am willing to trade as many 1970s issues of Vogue as your young brain can handle should you obtain me the desired goods.

[illyich.livejournal.com]

On my way home today I saw you walking across the Williamsburg Bridge. I wanted to stop you and tell you how much I like your work, but you looked like maybe you were busy thinking about something else and didn't want to be bugged, so I guess I'll tell you here.

[(Anonymous)]

Are collectors good?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, hello! Thanks. I was probably scribbling down notes about "Procrustean Seeing", a theory I shall propound some day in these parts.

Later I joined the pro-immigration march, had dinner with the editor of Vice, and attended a Ron Athey performance in which he had hooks in his face and a baseball bat up his ass, and got Vaseline smeared all over him by members of the public (not me, though). Just another day in New York City.

Re: Who but a monster would be grudgeful against a child?

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

On that note, have you seen the (not terribly) recent craze for Yoshitomo Nara t-shirts?

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

Aya Takano vs. Chiho Aoshima? I wonder. I always felt more affinity for Aoshima. Which is strange, because there's a cruelty in her art that Takano easily replaces with meek femininity. But there's a sincerity to both, even now, that Murakami has definitely lost.

Re: Who but a monster would be grudgeful against a child?

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

it's really not that i'm only for "politically relevant" art - i favour profound contemplation. but yoshitomo nara just strikes me as an utter unimaginative one-trick-pony - one which now almost gives me physical pain, whenever i'm confronted with his images.
but, they are just perfect for postcards, calenders, and of course also t-shirts for the museum shop.
in his "direction", it has at least to be marcel dzama for me - but much better: a look into # 4 or 5 of "kramer's ergot" and much illustrators on the art market don't really matter any more.

[bricology.livejournal.com]

I'd vote for Aoshima. She's going on a much more interesting--and less predictable--trip. There's a huge work of hers up at the UC Berkeley Museum that just knocks me on my ass.

[iamcoreyd.livejournal.com]

Nick, my friend said he saw you this past weekend, while watching his friends in Mimi Secue. I think he was too intimidated to say anything to you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, that noodling improv gig at the Austrian Cultural Center? Just as well your friend didn't say anything, I may well have been asleep.

[iamcoreyd.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I like their music either, but they seem like nice guys

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! I should go check that out soon. Thanks for mentioning it!

[(Anonymous)]

Between Aoshima and Takano, I would also tend toward Aoshima as the more substantial artist as well. Takano's work is sweet, but technically and conceptually Aoshima is much more astute. This was confirmed for me after seeing Aoshima's installation "City Lights" in which her world of lizards, cacti, graves, and female figures all come to life via animation. Really impressive stuff.

What are people's thoughts on Ai Yamaguchi? It's interesting to note that all these artists owe a great deal to Murakami for beginning (and continuing--in some cases) their careers, but of the three, Yamaguchi is the only one to have left Murakami's studio early on (1999).

This image is intoxicating

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

The reds and the oranges, the shine of the stiletto heels. And the blue of the window offset by the diagonal darker blue in the bottom right. I want this image on my wall, to inspire me every day.

I like this...

[(Anonymous)]

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My feedback

[(Anonymous)]

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