Tokyo art beat-off 2
May. 2nd, 2006 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusYesterday we took a thematic survey of art shows going on in Tokyo, finding weird 
machines and fashion crossover. Today it's the turn of cool foreigners, women being sensitive, "men's exhibitions", nature worship and dream cities.
COOL FOREIGNERS
One of the things art does in Tokyo is promote other nations. It does this for the simple reason that, in the absence of major art collectors, national governments step in as the big players, splashing their cash around the artworld to gain favourable coverage for their national image. The German Year in Japan may have ended, but Swiss Contemporary Arts in Japan continues. And why not? As someone wrote yesterday in the comments section, "are collectors a good thing?" Given the choice between an art world being run by an influential collector-investor figure like Charles Saatchi and an art world being run by foreign governments on promo sprees... well. After all, that money does filter down. Look at Jean Snow's efforts to promote Swedish and Canadian "style" events at his beloved Cafe Pause.
But what makes foreigners really cool is that some of them are simply really cool artists. Take Scotsman Jim Lambie, whose tape installation "P.I.L." is currently decorating the floor at Mizuma. Lambie's optimistic, colourful and decorative work fits right into Japan's love of all things positive and non-confrontational. I just hope the Japanese don't start holidaying in Lambie's home town of Glasgow expecting to find it as friendly, cool and colourful as Lambie's work. And it's here we come up against the problem with art as national promo: artists are often touting the polar opposite of typical national values.
Can't leave the "cool foreigners" section without mentioning that the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) is currently showing the Collection of the Fondation Cartier. Funny, whenever I visit the Fondation Cartier in Paris it's showing something Japanese. Well, such are the joys of mutual exoticization, I suppose. Moving on...
WOMEN BEING SENSITIVE
One of my favourite Tokyo galleries, Scai the Bathhouse in picturesque shitamachi district Yanaka, is showing our old friend Mariko Mori, niece of Minoru Mori, the property tycoon who built Laforet in Harajuku, half of Roppongi, and lately Omotesando Hills; a man who's able to turn the fortunes of entire districts around.
His niece is currently into Celtic lore. Her installation "Tom Na H-iu" celebrates "a place where souls waited to pass onto their next life in ancient Celts lore. The "standing stones" that were built according to these ancient myths inspired Mariko Mori to create a present day monument signaling life and death. The piece is 3m tall, and made from glass. Mori's "Tom Na H-iu" captures the death of stars and indicates its rebirth. This is realized by a computer connected to Super-Kamioka Neutrino Detection Experiment (Super-Kamiokande) that catches the light that stars generate when they die. The piece interacts with the incoming signals to radiate a new ray."
All I can say is that Mariko is so 90s. This Celtic-electronic crossover thing (like the brainwave space capsule she had in the Venice
Biennale) is so New Age, like some sort of "spiritual vibe" trance music compilation, some half-baked Bjork album sleeve from 1993. And her works are always flashy, polished, smooth-edged, super-expensive to construct. I think they're in very poor taste, very tired. Poor little rich girl, in search of a soul!
I prefer the look of what's going on at Nadiff, where three artists are keeping a collage diary. (Sounds a bit like what Oslo designers Yokoland have been doing at Shift this month.) And at Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoko Murase shows her paintings. By the way, there's a whole long story about how Ishii and Koyama are having to move their spaces again, after vacating the Shokuryo Building and moving to a new building just four years ago. But this isn't the place, and that's Tokyo: permanent flux.
MEN'S MEN'S MEN'S EXHIBITIONS
"This is a man's man's man's exhibition by six male artists!!!" exclaims the blurb for Ikemen the Rainbow Town, a group show at Zenshi with the gimmick that the artists participating are all... men! It's true that Tokyo's art scene seems particularly female-dominated. This may be due
to the fact that, whereas art scenes in other countries may be full of wealthy middle-aged people or thrusting hipsters, in Japan it tends to be meek and relatively poor young women in their 20s who turn up at any given exhibition. They tend to respond to a gentle imagery of pandas and flowers... and pictures of Vincent Gallo.
When the men try to elbow their way back in, it's probably a gay thing. Taka Ishii gallery has gay Berlin artists Elmgreen & Dragset in a show called "The Incidental Self". But actually, that works for the girls too. A sort of gay slash fiction for them to fantasize about, with safely foreign actors.
NATURE WORSHIP
Mountains are in fashion this month. Gallery 360 Degrees, perched high above the Omote-Sando crossing, features Takashi Homma's "Photographs of the Torahiko Mountains". Homma's gaze has always been steely, chill, blue-toned and objective, so mountains seem like a logical subject for him. Meanwhile, at Tokyo Art Museum, there's a show called Two Mountains featuring photographer Balthasar Burkhard and painter Naoya Hatakeyama.
DREAM CITIES
At 80s candy-striped Aoyama bunker-museum Watarium (the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art) you can see "Beautiful Cities in Dreams", an "array of installation and video works that set the stage for cities which we encounter in dreams". Meanwhile, over at Shinagawa's Hara Museum (itself a very beautiful place set in a lovely garden) Zaha Hadid is curating and showing her macho, angular shapes. I don't care for Hadid's work at all; much more to my taste is Namaiki's goofy, lyrical installation in the Hara garden.
Cities are also the theme of the Berlin Tokyo show, which continues at the Mori Museum and will switch to Berlin in June. Berlin Tokyo brings us back full circle to the theme of exhibitions being used to boost national prestige, but also takes in Mr Mori's niece and even mountains: on a clear day you can see Mount Fuji from the museum on top of Roppongi Hills.
machines and fashion crossover. Today it's the turn of cool foreigners, women being sensitive, "men's exhibitions", nature worship and dream cities.COOL FOREIGNERS
One of the things art does in Tokyo is promote other nations. It does this for the simple reason that, in the absence of major art collectors, national governments step in as the big players, splashing their cash around the artworld to gain favourable coverage for their national image. The German Year in Japan may have ended, but Swiss Contemporary Arts in Japan continues. And why not? As someone wrote yesterday in the comments section, "are collectors a good thing?" Given the choice between an art world being run by an influential collector-investor figure like Charles Saatchi and an art world being run by foreign governments on promo sprees... well. After all, that money does filter down. Look at Jean Snow's efforts to promote Swedish and Canadian "style" events at his beloved Cafe Pause.
But what makes foreigners really cool is that some of them are simply really cool artists. Take Scotsman Jim Lambie, whose tape installation "P.I.L." is currently decorating the floor at Mizuma. Lambie's optimistic, colourful and decorative work fits right into Japan's love of all things positive and non-confrontational. I just hope the Japanese don't start holidaying in Lambie's home town of Glasgow expecting to find it as friendly, cool and colourful as Lambie's work. And it's here we come up against the problem with art as national promo: artists are often touting the polar opposite of typical national values.Can't leave the "cool foreigners" section without mentioning that the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) is currently showing the Collection of the Fondation Cartier. Funny, whenever I visit the Fondation Cartier in Paris it's showing something Japanese. Well, such are the joys of mutual exoticization, I suppose. Moving on...
WOMEN BEING SENSITIVE
One of my favourite Tokyo galleries, Scai the Bathhouse in picturesque shitamachi district Yanaka, is showing our old friend Mariko Mori, niece of Minoru Mori, the property tycoon who built Laforet in Harajuku, half of Roppongi, and lately Omotesando Hills; a man who's able to turn the fortunes of entire districts around.
His niece is currently into Celtic lore. Her installation "Tom Na H-iu" celebrates "a place where souls waited to pass onto their next life in ancient Celts lore. The "standing stones" that were built according to these ancient myths inspired Mariko Mori to create a present day monument signaling life and death. The piece is 3m tall, and made from glass. Mori's "Tom Na H-iu" captures the death of stars and indicates its rebirth. This is realized by a computer connected to Super-Kamioka Neutrino Detection Experiment (Super-Kamiokande) that catches the light that stars generate when they die. The piece interacts with the incoming signals to radiate a new ray."All I can say is that Mariko is so 90s. This Celtic-electronic crossover thing (like the brainwave space capsule she had in the Venice
Biennale) is so New Age, like some sort of "spiritual vibe" trance music compilation, some half-baked Bjork album sleeve from 1993. And her works are always flashy, polished, smooth-edged, super-expensive to construct. I think they're in very poor taste, very tired. Poor little rich girl, in search of a soul!I prefer the look of what's going on at Nadiff, where three artists are keeping a collage diary. (Sounds a bit like what Oslo designers Yokoland have been doing at Shift this month.) And at Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoko Murase shows her paintings. By the way, there's a whole long story about how Ishii and Koyama are having to move their spaces again, after vacating the Shokuryo Building and moving to a new building just four years ago. But this isn't the place, and that's Tokyo: permanent flux.
MEN'S MEN'S MEN'S EXHIBITIONS
"This is a man's man's man's exhibition by six male artists!!!" exclaims the blurb for Ikemen the Rainbow Town, a group show at Zenshi with the gimmick that the artists participating are all... men! It's true that Tokyo's art scene seems particularly female-dominated. This may be due
to the fact that, whereas art scenes in other countries may be full of wealthy middle-aged people or thrusting hipsters, in Japan it tends to be meek and relatively poor young women in their 20s who turn up at any given exhibition. They tend to respond to a gentle imagery of pandas and flowers... and pictures of Vincent Gallo.When the men try to elbow their way back in, it's probably a gay thing. Taka Ishii gallery has gay Berlin artists Elmgreen & Dragset in a show called "The Incidental Self". But actually, that works for the girls too. A sort of gay slash fiction for them to fantasize about, with safely foreign actors.
NATURE WORSHIP
Mountains are in fashion this month. Gallery 360 Degrees, perched high above the Omote-Sando crossing, features Takashi Homma's "Photographs of the Torahiko Mountains". Homma's gaze has always been steely, chill, blue-toned and objective, so mountains seem like a logical subject for him. Meanwhile, at Tokyo Art Museum, there's a show called Two Mountains featuring photographer Balthasar Burkhard and painter Naoya Hatakeyama.DREAM CITIES
At 80s candy-striped Aoyama bunker-museum Watarium (the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art) you can see "Beautiful Cities in Dreams", an "array of installation and video works that set the stage for cities which we encounter in dreams". Meanwhile, over at Shinagawa's Hara Museum (itself a very beautiful place set in a lovely garden) Zaha Hadid is curating and showing her macho, angular shapes. I don't care for Hadid's work at all; much more to my taste is Namaiki's goofy, lyrical installation in the Hara garden.
Cities are also the theme of the Berlin Tokyo show, which continues at the Mori Museum and will switch to Berlin in June. Berlin Tokyo brings us back full circle to the theme of exhibitions being used to boost national prestige, but also takes in Mr Mori's niece and even mountains: on a clear day you can see Mount Fuji from the museum on top of Roppongi Hills.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 04:13 pm (UTC)Also great: Yokoland (http://www.shift.jp.org/113/yokoland/).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 05:34 pm (UTC)Today's post does raise a few questions for me. Does no contemporary art sell in Japan? In the absence of the equivalent of a Saatchi, are there no mid-level collectors? Or does Western contemporary art sell, but not Japanese? 2-D, but not 3-D? Is it just the government and institutions that keep emerging artists afloat? And who is that elderly, gay white man that I see at all of the high-end openings and shows? He seems to be pretty deep in the Japanese art world. And what the hell is the deal with Vincent Gallo?! His picture is everywhere in Japan!
As you point out, Western artists seem to be surprisingly well-represented in Tokyo, with galleries like Gallery Side2 and Gallery 360 Degrees showing little else. Is this just--as you say--exoticism, or does the Japanese art world have an inferiority complex about a lack of "soul" in their artists' work? I keep flashing back to that segment of Kurosawa's "Dreams" where the earnest Japanese man is devotedly following van Gogh through the fields of Arles. Or is it that they're the supreme cultural magpies; gathering up the shiniest bits from all over the world?
I share your disdain for Zaha Hadid's work, but I think that Mori Mariko should be given a little slack for being born into a rich family; it's not like she had any say in the matter. And being rich doesn't preclude having "soul" any more than being poor guarantees it. For her being a former cosplayer and a dilettante, I find much of her work pretty impressive and formally inventive, if a bit hollow. Her glass menhir reminds me a bit of Bill Viola's "Heaven and Earth", and was probably about as expensive to produce. I'll trade a dozen popular graffiti artists with "soul" for one Mori Mariko, out on her own odd luxury space trip.
But quibbles aside, your post was exactly what I like to read: informed, observant, breezy and opinionated. As an artist who often visits Japan, but has yet to try to show my stuff there, you're the closest thing I know of to a reliable tour guide to the scene. And if you have a chance to share any advice about how best to approach Japanese galleries and other venues as one of those "exotic" Western emerging artists, I'd be very interested to read it. Thanks again!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 06:48 pm (UTC)I'm more interested in what art says than how it sells, but I understand the market for art in Japan is very under-developed. The art schools I've seen in Tokyo are pretty pathetic too, compared with art schools in London. Talented Japanese tend to study abroad. No idea who the elderly gay man is... Donald Keene? Monty DiPietro? (Oh, he's only 38.)
As for Western artists, I think they're present because Japan imports everything from the West if it's a luxury good of some sort, high end. This isn't an inferiority complex, it's the power of the yen, and a mark of Japanese curiosity.
If it's any consolation, I dislike Bill Viola as much as Mariko Mori.
As for breaking into the Japanese art world, I don't know, perhaps you should go to Ishii Gallery and talk to Jeffrey, he knows more about it than I do! Or get involved with AIT (http://rogermc.blogs.com/tactical/).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 08:53 am (UTC)Of course, but until landlords start accepting sketches in exchange for rent, working artists will need to sell their work. And in lieu of Emerging Western Artists Working in Japan for Dummies, the sort of info that's been offered here is invaluable to me (and probably others as well).
Re Bill Viola and Mori Mariko--is it their media you dislike, their content, or what? I mean, I can see why you would find her stuff dated and superficially "spiritual". But does her exoticism not interest you at all? I find myself being a bit seduced by some of her work, despite myself.
I'll look up Jeffrey at Ishii this fall when I'm back in Japan. And I've applied for an AiR at the US-Japan Creative Artists' Program / International House. I'll see if anything comes of that; it's very competitive.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 01:15 am (UTC)From an artist's perspective, Tokyo's art scene does tend to be a bit disappointing though doesn't it. Most of the foreign artists who show here have luck because they are outside the country and can be marketted effectively as a hot commodity from overseas. For young Japanese artists as well as foreign or those considered Korean by default despite being born and raised in Japan, there just isn't much room/money to be inclusive. The most succesful foreign artists living in Japan are those dedicated to traditional Japanese arts, and its the same for Japanese arts.
Taka Ishii has their new Sora Gallery for emerging artists and Koyama has his project room, but might also be worth it to check out Magical Art room(despite its name) its a new space with connections to Hiromi Yoshii. And other possibilities exist.
The worst thing about the Tokyo art scene though is the proliferation of rental galleries. I see a lot of foreign and domestic artist spending upwards of ¥200,000 for 2 weeks of time. The profiteering on the backs of young artists is horrendous!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 01:39 am (UTC)Nope. At least I don't think so.
Ah, and here is another resource about Tokyo art. One of my Fav's!
http://www.pingmag.jp/
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 06:45 am (UTC)It definitely has some of the best interviews with artists here.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 06:31 am (UTC)Thank you for detailing some of the dynamics in the art scene there, respective to foreign artists. You mentioned traditional Japanese arts, by which I presume you mean such as hanga artist Clifton Karhu. Would you say that contemporary woodblock prints in general from Western artists are well received, or just those using the more traditional Japanese motifs/subjects (like Karhu employs)?
Thanks again for the information; it's appreciated.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 06:19 pm (UTC)I'm not so sure about that: MOT hasn't bought any new pieces for its permanent collection since it's opening and meanwhile Koizumi goes on spending sprees of dubious taste paintings for his house.
So the visual arts are yet another field in which Japan reached its peak in 1996 only to terminally crumble to below par 2006 levels.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 06:39 pm (UTC)I'd imagine lack of government spending on the arts in Japan is what leads the department stores to step into the breach and put museums in their buildings. And also a conception of art which makes it rather more seamless with commerce than ours. Personally, I wish the galleries hadn't fled SoHo when the fashion stores moved in, because West Chelsea is still a very boring and ugly place to visit. There was a brief period at the end of the 90s when SoHo had both shops and galleries side by side, and for that brief period it resembled Tokyo.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 07:40 pm (UTC)http://tokyoblog.livejournal.com/
his last assignment, also very appropriately to momus' theme of the day, took him to the hara museum, where he contemplated about art-loving corporations ...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 07:53 pm (UTC)I disagree somewhat with your friend's take on the Hara Museum and its links with Deutsche Bank (who are also a major sponsor of the Whitney Biennial, by the way, and are therefore paying for my board and lodging right now). Yes, a lot of art funding comes from guilty corporations who want to get a better public image, make amends for past misdeeds. But guilt is under-rated. Guilt is good. I believe it's Germany and Japan's guilt for their conduct in the last World War that makes them, now, the most humane and liberal of nations. And it's America's lack of guilt which makes it the most dangerous. We need to inculcate guilt in Americans, and hopefully without them first having to commit a major atrocity. Only guilt, for instance, will make them vote Democrat ever again.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 08:16 pm (UTC)but, i see the signs of a youth now expressing their naive, ahistoric, ignorant attitude as "proud new germans" in pop songs, and supported by degenerating old (pseudo)"intelectuals" like martin walser. and, very unfortunately, the rightful protest against bush et. al. is turning into anti-americanism, which at the same time is aiming at freeing "us" from having to be thankful towards the u. s. conquering of the nazis. to be proud again.
why do people have to be proud all the time? especially for things they didn't do anything for?
we have this image campaign here since a while, with big posters that say "you are germany" (or, for example, alternating it to "you are ludwig erhard" - the chancelor said to have propelled the "wirtschaftswunder")
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 12:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 01:31 am (UTC)i have 2 questions for you:
1. since you're so baroque you must have heard jean-philippe rameau's comédie-ballet "platée", where the god momus in person makes fun of a nymph that has been turned into a frog ... and i just love the french pronunciation of momus.
2. are you coming to italy soon?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 01:44 am (UTC)I was in Italy in September (http://imomus.livejournal.com/141909.html) and November, playing my first-ever concerts in Venice and Turin and teaching, so it'll be a while before I return, I think, but the links are made.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 04:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 11:56 am (UTC)i used to play "l'entretien des muses" and "les tourbillons" on a heavenly sounding double-manual flemish harpsichord at the conservatory (a copy of Dulcken from the early 18th century).
larameau
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 09:08 am (UTC)Er--sort of. AFAIK, there was no bombing of Vietnam until 1964, immediately following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Kennedy was already dead by then, and Johnson was President--and he was much more gung-ho on the heavy artillery.
It's worth pointing out that Barry Goldwater--the Republican candidate opposing Johnson in the 1964 election--actually suggested using atomic bombs on the Viet Cong. And while Nixon ordered troop reductions in as early as '69, he actually just replaced soldiery on the ground with an increase in bombing in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
But your point is essentially correct that Democrat Presidents continued along the path that (the Republican) Eisenhower had already started us down in the '50s. There's plenty of blame to spread around.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-03 12:11 pm (UTC)larameau
To sailor larameau
Date: 2006-05-08 11:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-02 09:28 pm (UTC)and here i thought i was going to have to get my start as an Araki model or something....