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“On Your Body”, the title of this exhibition, is an ambiguous phrase. However it immediately places the audience under a semantic lens: my body? our bodies?… we find ourselves wondering as we take in the diverse work of six Japanese photographers. All the photographers are women, and their work, while certainly diverse, strays little from ‘portraiture’, yet nowhere are these points of commonality engaged with at the curatorial level — instead, says the sign at the door, these works are about “the body” and the “now” in contemporary Japan.

There are some levels on which the bounds of photography itself seem to have become conceptually very loose, or perhaps questioned by the curators. Shizuka Yokomizo, for example, presents a simple and poignant two-channel video projection: on one wall, four elderly women play the same tranquil piece of Chopin at the piano in their homes; on the adjacent wall, the camera has been fixed on the amateur pianists’ ‘habitus’, their home or garden. The different approaches of each of the women reveals the individual expression of the “same” piece of music. Yet, after a while the pace of the video conveys a forced sense of poignancy and slowness, and I couldn’t help wondering what the women were really thinking while playing Chopin, trying to look so old, wise and pensive.

Without wanting to invest too much in semantics, the reality of the exhibition seems at odd with its press release, which presents it as an “exhibition of Japanese emerging artists” — which feels rather different to saying ‘contemporary photography’. I wondered what it meant to describe these artists as ‘emerging’, considering that most have published photo-books, won major Japanese photography prizes, relocated overseas or shown in international exhibitions (such as Tomoko Sawada in “Heavy Light” at the International Center of Photography in New York this spring, or the Shizuka Yokomizo at the Tate Triennial in 2003, for example). And all this over a period of five to ten years, if not longer.

Lieko Shiga may be the youngest and most ‘emerging’ artist of the six, but her work — comprised of two series, ‘Lilly’ and ‘Canary’ — has the most conceptual and technical allure, even if ‘Lilly’ has been on show only recently in ‘Trace Elements’ at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.

On the other hand, the only interesting aspect to the inclusion of Tomoko Sawada’s ‘self-portraits’ in the show is that the curators could consider her work ‘emerging’ or reflective of the ‘now’ in Japanese photography. Having leaped to stardom with every major Japanese photo prize, with a professorship to boot, Sawada relocated to New York last year. I couldn’t help wondering if this work would seem more ‘now’ over there. Her take on the generic nature of female ‘beauty’ in Japan seems to stop at the doors of soapland chic, without a truly engaging sense of reflexivity. In a country where the Women’s Fashion section of clothing stores have an apron section, where even a purikura mini sticker photo booth brings up identity and gender issues, Sawada’s monotonous approach to self-portraiture, despite being buttressed by Photoshop magic and state-of-the-art printing techniques, seems somehow out of time with the social issues she attempts to critique.

Yumiko Shiozaki’s work remains a version of the ‘snapshot’ genre that came to prominence with the autobiographical styles of young female photographers from the late 1990s, though here executed with real poignancy and tangible intimacy for her subject, also an elderly (non-Japanese) woman. This snapshot genre, however, seems to necessitate positing one’s surrounding as a strange alien landscape; while some may consider the camera’s point of view less monocular and objectifying that the history of what some consider a singularly male gaze, the lens becomes like a breathing apparatus necessary for exploration of this strange ‘new world’, and the photographer’s presence, while becoming the underlying subject of the entire genre, abrogates the critical responsibility attendant to such subjectivity. In other words, we are supposed to accept that these images are taken too ‘unconsciously’ and off the cuff to necessitate greater reflexivity.

Yoko Asakai’s work plays on the ‘seeing and being seen’ concept, the series on display depicts people who are ostensibly watching television. Again, the subjectivity of the photographer — who in this series has essentially become the television that is being watched — seems less important than the looks on her subjects’ faces, and the subsequent game of comparing their faces with the titles of movies they were watching — Psycho or All about Eve — leads to the surprising realization that although the photographer has captured such an eclectic bunch of people watching such different films at different times of day and in different places, their faces all show the same expression of impassivity.

Finally, leaving aside her three-screen video installation, Junko Takahashi has presented a series of straight portraits of female employees of large Japanese companies. The initial portraits have been re-photographed through a layer of clear acrylic cubes, giving her subjects a fractured or caged feel. However, using this device, in her words, to “symbolize the various elements between people” seems only to emphasize that each subject’s dilemma may be the same, rather than drawing out individual concerns to counter the monotony of the office environments in which they have been photographed.

One issue that recurs throughout the works was that while the camera is focused on ‘others’, it is still very much preoccupied with the photographers’ personal dilemmas about being women, about time passing between people, between environments we call ‘home’ and those that we do not; not to mention the way women respond to prescribed social models of femininity and how one ‘fits’ in with them. Trying to make such diverse works relate simply to ‘body-ness’ and ‘now-ness’ in Japan, seemed particularly difficult without articulating gender as a part of the exhibition’s curatorial concept, and without any recognition that so many of the featured artists are living in, or responding to, environments and relationships overseas. While there were certainly a number of interesting encounters that lingered with me after leaving the museum, there was neither the conceptual rigor, nor the genuine shock of freshness to pull these pieces together as a whole.

作者:Olivier Krischer

更新日:2008年11月28日 6時24分

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A former boxer and largely self-taught architect who learnt his craft based on a Grand Tour of mostly European and North American modernist masterpieces, Ando professes a deep admiration for and affinity with the “Big 3” of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Some of Ando’s larger civic and museum projects recall the expansiveness and geometric grace of Corbusier’s buildings in Chandigarh, while others draw on Lloyd Wright’s truthfulness to materials. Ando’s most distinctive signatures are perhaps his facades of carefully poured and molded unfinished concrete, seeking a halfway point between concrete’s industrial cleanness and its organic, naturally uneven textural quality.

Guiding Ando’s use of concrete are certain basic principles: geometry, integration with nature, and dialogue with site. Surveying the some thirty works on display, only a handful of which have been reconstructed in maquette form, one is forced to admit that such bases are not particularly radical or unique – what architectural form does not emerge from geometrical measurements and proportions? Contextuality and environmental assimilation, too, seem now to be fairly universal objectives — which is why Ando might be said, in his rationality and reasoned approach to analytic building, to represent a certain catholicism. In the current architectural economy of attention and spectacle — and especially in the global starchitect arena where Ando now predominantly works — this exhibition serves as a timely reminder of architecture’s fundamental bases and its degree zero conditions, through a returned and sensible focus on the sites themselves.

An interesting and potentially problematic instance of faithfulness to these “bases” is Ando’s Church of Light (1989) in Ibaraki, a suburb of Osaka. The 1:10 model on display exposes and illuminates the structure of this building: it consists of an L-shaped shaft of concrete slotted at a dramatic diagonal angle through a thin slot in a rectangular concrete box with no other openings or windows. This dynamic wedging of a fissure is echoed in the way light enters into the building: through a cross-shaped lateral skylight carved into the far wall, the only gap through which light is able to slice the space.

Inspired by the similarly pronounced contrast between radiant illumination and dour gloom found in Romanesque churches, where light from outside is admitted directly in controlled doses into an inner sanctum, Ando intensifies the quality of that contrast by using only unfinished concrete, with its rough, variations-on-monotone texture. When clear winter light pierces the gloom and animates the dull, blank concrete canvas, the effect is no doubt ravishing — but what about the prospect of oppressive grayness during overcast weather? This purist approach and dependence on natural illumination, while making the Church prone to a tomb-like splendor on cloudier days, nonetheless remains faithful in a sense to Ando’s will to achieve integration with nature. To integrate is in part to enter into a relationship of willing co-dependence with the other variables; in this case, delegating responsibility for illumination to nature is to wager on its fickleness and natural variation. For each resplendent light-flooded afternoon, worshippers will have to endure sitting in the dark once in a while.

This purism comes through more clearly in the 1:1 wooden mockup of Ando’s first commission, the Row House in Sumiyoshi (1976), a low-rise, somewhat ramshackle shitamachi area of downtown Osaka. Ando renovated the middle unit of a set of three traditional merchant nagaya dwellings, almost completely gutting the long, slender site with a frontage of only two ken (3.64 meters). Out of a total site area of 57.3 square meters, Ando allocated a whole third of that to an internal courtyard situated roughly in the middle of the long plot, so that, thanks to its deep approach, one has the impression of broaching an inner private space even within this small site. Extremely simple in conception and, again, rendered entirely in unfinished concrete, the courtyard is both a rupture and a gap of reprieve in what could otherwise be an oppressively enclosed space. The rectangular courtyard measuring about 24 square meters is divided lengthwise, from left to right, into three sections: opening, corridor (connecting the two rooms on the upper floor), and open-plan staircase leading upstairs. According to Ando, looking up through the opening while seated at a patio table in the courtyard, one “feels the wind”, a connection to nature graspable even in this severely “land-locked” situation. In urban areas with sticky restrictions on space and cost, it is especially imperative to prioritize not just convenience and cheapness, but to try to create a space in which one can dwell with visible lines of flight toward what nature remains glimpsable in the city.

One questions how much of a sound application of Ando’s founding principles could be fruitfully applied to the gigantic scale of a project like the Abu Dhabi Maritime Museum, or the massive underground transit project to thread through the new Fukutoshin subway line in Tokyo. It is his smaller commissions — individual dwellings, temples and churches and museums — where his “bases” are more easily applied and appreciated.

Apart from these two signature works, there are several other less elaborate architectural models of more recent international projects, notably for the monumental wave-like Maritime Museum in Abu Dhabi and a university building in Monterey, New Mexico. These massive projects testify to Ando’s stellar reputation as a top international architect, but also to the rapidly burgeoning scale of his work that has forced him to adopt shifting positions and approaches to the integration with nature. This integration comes across more clearly in his earlier, smaller buildings — including a number of provincial art museums in Japan, like the Water Temple on Awaji Island. Nonetheless, in its selection of both smaller and larger commissions, this exhibition is a comprehensive showcase of the applications of Ando’s “bases” across a wide range of contexts and site conditions.

作者:Darryl Jingwen Wee

更新日:2008年11月28日 1時5分

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The most idealistic projects on view at the Good Design Awards exhibition are also the least attractive. The atmosphere of the competition is unabashedly optimistic, particularly in the “Mobility” category. There, designers attempt to imagine a cleaner, greener, and more convenient future, with ingenious but not always beautiful results. The Dual Mode Vehicle (DMV) from the Hokkaido Railway Company is big, yellow, and clunky, for example, but its looks are more than offset by its functionality: it can operate on both roads and railway tracks, switching between the two modes in only fifteen seconds.

Also promising is the Wireless Earthquake Detector and Outlet Control System from Tokyo Denki, a gadget that automatically disconnects hazards like irons in the event of an earthquake. Given the massive fire damage caused by hot lunchtime ovens at the time of the 1923 quake, this could be a lifesaving innovation.

Prettier but much less important are the paper “trash pots” proposed by Drill Design in three neutral colors: there’s just something daring about a waste receptacle that’s made of the same material as the waste itself. But the company claims this trashcan is hardy and long lasting, and when its life cycle eventually ends it can be responsibly recycled.

And in the “gotta have it” category: CD protectors in candy colors from Kanou Seiko Corp. and even brighter-colored USB memory sticks from Rightning Inc., whose soft rubber tails can tie onto a belt loop or backpack strap for easy transport.

Takenaka’s Gyre building, designed by the Dutch firm MVRDV, makes it into the room, represented by a swanky lit-Plexiglas model. Mori Shoji Company offers a ruffly towel that would be a hit in Harajuku. Shin + Tomoko Azumi are showing a modular seating system whose laminate seat is bent three-dimensionally into sinuous curves: lovely as a bench, but unfortunately lumpy and awkward when stacked. Keep working on that one, guys, and better luck next year.

作者:Jessica Niles DeHoff

更新日:2008年11月26日 6時43分

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Tokyo Art Beat / NY Art Beat is proud to participate as a media partner in Scope Art Fair Miami, held from December 3-7, 2008, at 2951 NE 1st Avenue, Miami, FL 33127 . Please come visit us at our media booth to say hello and meet the people behind Tokyo Art Beat and NY Art Beat.

SCOPE Miami, Miami’s original emerging contemporary art fair, returns for its seventh year this December. Expanded in size and global in reach, SCOPE will host 88 exhibitors from 22 countries in a new 60,000 square foot pavilion. SCOPE’s new location is centrally located in the Wynwood Art District, convenient to the Rubell Family Collection, the Margulies Collection, as well as Miami’s top galleries. 5 Japanese galleries will participate SCOPE Miami, ARATANIURANO, Gallery Terra Tokyo, hpgrp Gallery Tokyo, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, and Yuka Sasahara Gallery.

Fair hours

* Wednesday, December 3 (FirstView for all VIPs and press) 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Thursday, December 4 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Friday, December 5 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday, December 6 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday, December 7 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Admission Fees

* FirstView $100 | Free for VIP cardholders
* General $15 | Free for VIP cardholders
* Students $10

Scope Miami
Schedule: From 2008-12-03 To 2008-12-07
Address: 2951 NE 1st Avenue, Miami, FL 33127
Phone: 212-268-1522

作者:Kosuke Fujitaka

更新日:2008年11月26日 1時14分

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Pedro Reyes’ installation Baby Marx is one of the few works at the Yokohama Triennale to overtly mix politics and humor. Consisting of twelve rod puppets and some small props arranged on a wide shelf, we find the pantheon of the International Left in effigy — Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevara — and other figures, youthful but anonymous. With their mechanisms exposed to view, we are invited to admire the craftsmanship of the puppets, and yet, the center of attention in Baby Marx is a lone video display, playing a seven-minute narrative drama — a shibai — of the puppets in a simple décor, with music, subtitles, and no dialog. In this piece, Reyes’ story begins in an empty library. Slow, wistful piano chords set the tone as a schoolmarmish woman with bobbed hair scans the shelves, gathering books. The subtitles tell us that: “Somewhere, sometime in the XXIst century [a] wise man said history had ended and ideology was to be no more. Lost forgotten theories of fancy social utopias now rest in oblivion.” The image dissolves into a close-up shot of the books stacked on a table behind a small sign that says “scheduled for disposal” [shobun yotei].

The situation is now clear: Reyes’ story begins in the present age, as it is characterized by the American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama. Drawing heavily on Alexandre Kojève’s reading of Hegel, Fukuyama claims that the end of the Cold War is not merely the end of one chapter in twentieth-century history, but “the end of history as such”. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Western free-market democracy has emerged as the definitive and final form of mankind’s political evolution. In The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama’s controversial thesis is that world history should be seen as coherent, teleological and, above all, universal. On his account, the European and American democracies represent the end point of human government, all other pretenders and ideologies having been defeated. Fukuyama affirms a uni-polar modernity modeled on the West, the spread of consumer culture, and the idea that all countries “must increasingly resemble one another”. Here, we may ask: does Reyes accept this narrative of universal history? The answer: almost certainly not.

For meanwhile, back in the library, a group of younger-looking characters enters the scene, bows, and a discussion begins. The woman with bobbed hair proves to be a teacher, explaining the books to her young charges. The students are cheerful, engaged, and apparently politicized (one is attired in revolutionary chic). The subtitles inform us that “something unexpected is about to happen“, and a new scene begins, showing the teacher and students on break from a history class. While the others cheer her on, one of the students heats a copy of Das Kapital in a microwave oven, provoking an explosion. As the smoke clears, a puppet figure of Karl Marx ascends into view, raising his tiny fist defiantly. With the heating process serving as a metaphor for historical inquiry, Reyes poses the oven as an “intellectual defroster” that enables the students to unleash “a unique group of thinkers and revolutionaries, from their mausoleums of paper“. The music shifts into a retro-cool 60s-vintage garage rock tune, as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, and Guevara are each introduced with animated titles and snappy horizontal wipes. “They have come,” we are told, “to fight the last battle against the global empire of capitalism.” As if through a rupture in the continuum of time, the icons of the Old Left have been revivified, readied for action once again. The enemies of the Left are introduced as well: a dour Adam Smith, a rhythmically calculating Taylor, and a hypnotic Stalin each appear in succession. With his arms flailing comically, the puny Smith leaps into a vicious fistfight with the fatherly Marx. Successive shots show us Marx reading Das Kapital, Stalin gesticulating tyrannically, Guevara seducing the Schoolteacher, and finally the puppet-heroes lined up in a row, clapping and gesturing in unison as the subtitles summarize: “BRING ON THE REVOLUTION!!!”

Many visitors at the Triennale are openly amused by Baby Marx — indeed, it seems to be getting more laughs than almost any other work at Shinko Pier — but are we to take Reyes’ piece as an ironic treatment of the fate of the political Left? Well, yes and no. The work seems to oscillate between the serious and the ironic, and this is clearly part of its appeal. To a certain extent, its humor trades on the low burlesque of subjecting the heroes of the Left to a kawaii treatment, literally bringing them down to the level of puppets. Their gestures and movements evoke a comical quality that begins as something corporeal. For, insofar as the face of a puppet is static (in Baby Marx, the heads can rotate, but only Lenin’s mouth can move), the neck, arms and body become the vehicles of expression. Particular gestures are thus imbued with greater significance: the pert rotation of Adam Smith’s head stands in for the pragmatism of the “gloomy science”, Marx’s raised fist signifies insurrection, or the expansive sweep of Stalin’s arm suggests naked ambition.

This comedy of gesture and movement recalls Bergson’s notion that we are amused by the appearance of “something mechanical encrusted upon the living” [du méchanique plaqué sur du vivant]. Following Bergson’s theory, perhaps the underlying humor of the rod puppet resides in how it unites the image of man and machine, imposing human qualities on a machine, and vice versa. The sense of amusement is always a mental operation, a lightening-fast movement in the consciousness of the spectator. It doesn’t really make sense to speak of the comical “in itself”, though Bergson observes that the locus of the comic effect is very often a person or the human form, in particular one that reminds us of a machine or material thing. Just as we are amused by the absentmindedness of a comic character who is ignorant of himself or his surroundings, so too the automatism of the puppet evokes a certain mirth. Here, the artificial mechanization of the human body may equally be seen as the expression of a rigid mind or character. Therein lies the humor of dictators saluting to crowds, indeed of all ceremonial behavior where we find a “stiffness of mechanism” [raideur du mécanique] in place of the fluid and vital disorder of social life. Could it be said that Baby Marx also trades on this, by poking fun at the stiff, inflexible, or putatively dogmatic qualities of the old political Left? Isn’t there something comical about the utopian impulse itself? On this point Reyes is more ambiguous, for it seems that the humor is in fact directed, it is a way to engage us in a more serious reflection.

Despite its apparent frivolity, the comic effect also reveals something to us about the collective and popular imagination. It may have no purpose other than to make us laugh, but it may also invite us to reflect. In the case of Baby Marx, that to render ironic the notions of revolution, organized labor, and social justice is the symptom of a society that has lost its collective power to imagine anything better. It seems clear that the industrialized societies are today united in their resigned inability to entertain social change of any magnitude. Our collective will has atrophied, leaving space only to hope for slightly better managers of the status quo. Here, Reyes proposes that we consider anew the meaning of the past, to consider how the visions and battles of the political Left maintain their hold on us, and that they’re a lot more fun than the tedium of mainstream politics. In place of Fukuyama’s linear, universal history ending in the present, Reyes offers us a history of future possibility breached by junctions with the past, a history that is not something consigned to the past but, like fashion, a wealth of styles or experiences, viewed pragmatically as raw material that may at any moment become relevant for re-use. For Reyes, history is a “toolbox” or “compost” that we may use to build new things in the future. Re-use and re-creation are thus important themes in his work, as we can see in his project for a Parque Vertical using the Insignia Tower at Tlatelolco in Mexico City. Here and elsewhere, Reyes explores the ways in which architecture can transport us into the past or to an imagined future. The tradition of utopian or “paper architecture” seems relevant to understand the impulses that animate his work.

Where the thinkers of the liberal and market utopias have today reached a glaring impasse, architects and artists continue to explore the social imaginary. Partaking of the architectural imaginary, Reyes is evidently interested in the power of the artwork not merely to evoke new forms of experience but to create imaginary topoi, alternate worlds or epochs. In a sense, Baby Marx seems to propose the same principle. Here, history is shown as the motor of dialectical awakening, and the artwork as a time machine. Reyes’ revivification of the Old Left may be steeped in irony, but it is perhaps equally a form of Benjamin’s infamous “tiger’s leap into the past”. Finally, we might ask ourselves whether the comic dimensions of Baby Marx have a stronger effect of trivializing their subject, or whether, in fact they also work to re-invest it with greater meaning in our supposedly post-ideological present.

作者:M. Downing Roberts

更新日:2008年11月12日 1時10分

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Tomoko Yoneda’s photographs rely heavily on the camera’s ability to capture things beyond the physical scenes and objects that lie in front of the lens at that particular moment in time. Her major solo exhibition being held at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art features a selection from her representative series “Scene”, “Between Visible and Invisible”, and her latest series of work “The Parallel Lives of Others”, all of which are seemingly nondescript photographs of places (beaches, urban scenes etc) or objects (a pair of glasses, textbooks), but upon reading their titles they reveal histories or stories that are undeniably etched within the portrayed subjects.

The first floor of the museum features Yoneda’s earliest series “Topographical Analogy” as well as the newer series “Between Visible and Invisible”. “Topographical Analogy”, which in a sense reflects the essential concept that runs through her later works, consists of photographs showing walls and furniture scorched by fire. The violently burnt wallpaper conveys the heat of the fire that was present before the picture was taken — a “physical memory” of a past event. Meanwhile, “Between Visible and Invisible” shows pages of books seen through the reading glasses of key historical figures who might have read and been influenced by those particular texts: Walter Benjamin through Brecht’s glasses, Jung through Freud’s glasses, and so on. Only the words shown within the lens are in focus, and everything else outside it is blurry; the text only makes sense through the subjective “eyes” of the owner of the glasses, and in turn, the audience is only allowed to “see” the text through this subjectivity — of the glasses, or of the camera lens itself and the photographer behind it.

The filter through which Yoneda presents her photographs is not necessarily her own personal vision, but rather the collective memory of humankind, as is evident in “Scene”, and the related series “After the Thaw” and “The Parallel Lives of Others” featured on the second floor. Locations that were once battlefields (the site of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, the forest where the Battle of Somme occurred in France, etc) and sites of national and political trauma are photographed as they are now, in crisp contemporary colors and often showing children or couples standing nonchalantly, apparently unaware of the implicit significance of those places. Without reading the titles, the scenes are banal; yet in becoming aware of “where” these places are, or more precisely, of the events that happened there years ago, they begin to take on a strangely unsettling quality, as if there is a silent turmoil bubbling underneath their tranquility.

The way in which Yoneda attempts to capture a certain aura or atmosphere that might exist in such key locations through the lens is similar to another Japanese photographer Shozo Agata’s series “Hanzai no Keshiki” (“Scenes of Crime”), which specifically focuses on locations of famous crimes in Japan, such as the school where the teenage murderer Seito Sakakibara left the head of his 11 year old victim at the school gates. Obviously the scenes are not remarkable in themselves, but given knowledge of their histories, it is up to the viewer to access the collective memory associated with those incidents, and identify the sadness and trauma that are supposedly imbedded there. Thus, these photographs both challenge the notion that the camera can capture the intangible — mood, atmosphere, karma — that supposedly exist in a scene or a subject, while simultaneously suggesting that it is not necessarily the picture portrayed, but the subjective knowledge or interpretation of the viewer that determines the significance of a photograph.

Yoneda’s latest series “The Parallel Lives of Others” moves more into the realm of the latter. The series consists of photographs showing numerous locations where members of the Sorge Spy Ring apparently met in secret, such as Kyoto’s Heian Shrine and Ueno Park in Tokyo. Each photo is small and hazy, where the nondescript locations are depicted in blurred black and white shapes; indeed, unlike the “official” historical locations featured in “Scene”, these are portrayals of fleeting, unofficial “non-events” that were for a long time merely fragments of a spy member’s personal memory. The exhibition’s shifting from such personal memories (“Parallel Lives…” and “Between Visible and Invisible”) and collective social memories (“Scene”, “After the Thaw”), as well as the shifting of subjectivities between the camera, the photographer, and the audience, make this a compelling and important re-questioning of the dual roles of photography as a recording tool, and as an expressive medium that projects and reflects an individual’s subjectivity.

作者:Lena Oishi

更新日:2008年11月8日 2時1分

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Design week. Whether you love it, hate it, or couldn’t care less, you would have noticed that last weekend Design Week was all over central Tokyo. And it definitely necessitated an entire holiday weekend: with main venues in both Aoyama and Roppongi, plus satellite exhibits and parties planned for boutiques, galleries, and cafés from Harajuku to Ginza, the ambitious event cast a wide shadow over the city, covering aspects of interest to everyone from industry professionals to the simply curious.

For novices, the easiest entry into the world of contemporary design was through Design Tide, an exhibit of over thirty individual designers and firms, both domestic and international. Overall, the works, generally prototypes, effectively revealed new ways of looking at form, space, light, time — I don’t know if this is particular to harried Tokyo, but there were a disproportionate number of clocks on display — and increasingly, the reuse of materials. Design at its best is perhaps the most immediate and concrete means for accessing these concepts, reminding us of the infinite possibilities for cultivating our personal and collective style of living.

This year’s edition seemed more contemplative and noticeably less gimmicky than last year’s installment, where the most memorable piece was an alarm clock controlled by a vintage Nintendo controller. The previous year’s slogan “Play = Communication” had drawn criticism, notably from Nick Currie (aka Momus) on his Click Opera blog, where he prompted an on debate among the English-speaking Japan watching/residing world. Worth a read, as is coverage on PingMag and Néojaponsime, for a primer on the different angles one can use to approach the current cult of design.

Gimmickry, it must be noted, has its charm and without its catchiness I am hard pressed to nail down this year’s Design Tide stand-out entry. 100%’s faceless watch for its cool technology assimilation? Emmanuelle Moureau’s brutal “Stick chair” or the delicate rocking horse clocks by Tomatsu Koshima? How about On Ground’s clever personal, canopied “park” cum floor rug?

All of this unfolds in the sealed-off, soundproof chamber that is the event hall at Tokyo Midtown, with individual displays housed in semi-sheer tents, illuminated by spot lighting, and set to some very Midtown-esque ambient music. I want to dislike Tokyo Midtown, but I also have to concede that the luxury super-mall does regularly hold exhibitions that are noteworthy both in content and for an advertising scale that draws substantial interest from a public that otherwise might not care.

Down the hall in the atrium there is also Design Touch, a display of works from iconic creators (such as a Marc Newson bicycle and a Taro Okamoto couch) that ends in an auction—a reminder that those who shop (and live!) in Midtown can actually afford to buy these pieces. It is then, perhaps, a fitting location, though I missed the ad-hoc roughness of last year’s venue, a tent under the stands of the National Stadium. Though I didn’t miss the cold.

Meanwhile Design Tide’s city canvassing, treasure hunt-like “Extension” rewarded the diligent and made up for the soulless venue of its parent event. Exploring the loose collection of participating spaces—the aforementioned boutiques, cafés, and galleries—required substantial legwork and scrutiny of map, a readiness for getting lost. However, after circling the block for twenty minutes to find your target, you might be rewarded with an awesome exhibit presided over by the designer him or herself, or even a sofa showroom, with the chance of a glass of sparkling wine or a macaroon to compensate your effort.

On the other hand, if it is an expansive, less-edited though happily contained look that you are after, there is 100% Design, held outside the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery at the end of the famous Ginko tree-lined avenue in Gaienmae. It is important to note, however, that 100% Design is more of industry tradeshow that masquerades as an innovative public exhibition, meaning that it comes off as more commercial, and less ground-breaking, then one might expect for the event that has become synonymous with Tokyo Design Week. Nevertheless, the very fact that the public is invited can be seen as a nod to the consumer’s powerful role in making design the phenomenon that it is today.

The theme for this fourth edition (since the 23 year-old event morphed into its current form) is “Love,” emblemized by the “Love Button” icon designed by creative director Michael Young. It is a theme that remains unclear in its execution and the show is marked more for cleverness (a chandelier made of cutlery) and craftiness (a cashmere sweater for your kitchen chair), than any revolutionary new aesthetic.

The event itself, however, is suitably well-designed and particularly noteworthy for the “Container Ground.” Along the perimeter of the site, industrial shipping containers house walk-in installations from creators that run the gamut from art students to local artisans to Nike. The narrow enclosure offered by these freight boxes allows exhibitors to treat them as stages for site-specific installations, where they can layer the floor with dirt, create elaborate entryways, or envelop you with the heady scent of incense—an exercise in ambience or branding, depending on the exhibitor or how you look at it.

Meanwhile the main floor was spread out inside three tents, the main one being organized into a sort of “It’s a Small World” of design. Countries as diverse as South Korea and Canada were represented, though of course there was a heavy presence from Scandanavia. In general, the works were in line with the times: employing unmuddled colors, transparent and home-spun materials, airy skeletal structures, smooth light wood, and recycled elements to the extent that anything to the contrary comes off as heavy and unnecessarily deluxe, though I’ll make an allowance for the stainless steel bath shaped like a champagne bucket.

For design fans and moreover design professionals who might find inspiration among the work, the draw lies in the possibility of encountering an innovative chair, marveling at the execution of a seemingly weightless structure, or seeing something typically hard made delightfully soft. At this uncomplicated level, there is much to be gleamed from 100% Design.

I must vent, however, that for an international event, the haphazard application of language was appalling: some booths were only in Japanese, others only in English, and still some (ditto the Design Tide program) used garbled English that is insulting to both the designers and the guests. For visitors looking for help negotiating between those two main languages, the gracious NPO Heartful Japan (located at the back of the retail area because they were also hawking Toyo Ito designed t-shirts) offered free translation services.

Speaking of retail, both 100% Design and Design Tide do have killer markets (then there are all the boutiques in Extension) and there was certainly plenty to be coveted in and around the festivities. It was while browsing the souvenir stalls that I discovered what might be, for me, a way to draw that tricky and ambiguous line between art and design: no matter how much I fall for a work of art, that affinity has nothing to do with wanting to posses it. But those “Magical Elf Cups” by Studio Subba from the Trade Council of Iceland display? I couldn’t help but appreciate them, in part, by imagining them sitting on my kitchen table filled with hot cocoa. Or maybe it was just cold and time for me to go home.

作者:Rebecca Milner

更新日:2008年11月6日 12時35分

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“Art of our Time” is a selected retrospective of the Japan Art Association’s “Praemium Imperiale” award. Launched in 1988 to commemorate the Association’s 100th anniversary, this year is a celebration of the prize’s twentieth year. The exhibition is divided into five categories — painting, sculpture, architecture, music and theatre/film — but the overall focus is on painting and sculpture.

Forty-one laureates were selected from past winners to create a show that provides a cross section of twentieth century and early twenty first century art. Featuring many well-known international artists such as Willem De Kooning, Gerhard Richter, Anthony Caro, Robert Rauchenberg and Christian Boltanski, it is a good opportunity to see a broad range of work. The exhibition is divided into five main areas; six if you include the pieces by Yayoi Kusuma displayed at the entrance. The first room is dominated by large paintings: Zao Wou-Ki’s Homage à Andre Malraux (1976), a three-paneled extravaganza of oil paint and Anselm Kiefer’s Die Meistersinger (1981 – 82), a cacophony of thick, scratched, bled, and encrusted oil paint mixed with sand over a photograph really stand out. Many of the paintings in this room reflect a recurring preoccupation with art as a means for gesture and expression through layered collage, such as Richter’s use of screen-printing and fabric. Other works such as Lee Ufan’s quiet Dialogue and Elsworth Kelly’s Red Yellow Blue IV (1966) are more meditative, making use of the canvas as a color field.

This years’ winner of the painting category is Richard Hamilton. The two “paintings” of his that are on display are in fact Iris Digital prints that have a soft painterly quality. Richard Hamilton is often connected with the early Pop art movement and since the 1970s he has been working with prints and blurring the boundaries between art and design. As the current recipient he reflects a broad 21st century interest in the possibilities of technology within formal dialogues around the act of painting. The Marriage (1988) depicts a Japanese couple in traditional wedding clothes set against the neutral grey of a photographer’s studio backdrop. It is a photo that looks like a painting of the act of sitting for a formal photograph that imitates a formal portrait.

The layout of the second floor exhibits works well as you move from the beautiful fabric works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude to wire mannequins dressed with Issey Miyake’s white sculptural “Colombe” dresses. Other featured sculptors include Max Bill, Eduardo Chillida and a video of the site-specific architectural pieces of Dani Karavan. The final room contains large paintings by Briget Riley, Lee Ufan, Yayoi Kusama, Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke. Despite the size of the canvases in a relatively small space they balance each other well and compliment the sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg and Richard Serra. Bourgeois’ bronze Arch of Hysteria (1993) hangs limply, dominating the space with its smooth surface and headless, contorted beauty.

For contemporary art lovers this show will seem more historic than cutting edge. For fans of twentieth century painting and sculpture it is an impressive collection that includes many of the key players of the last century. Museum director Shuji Takeshita writes that while previous epochs were characterized by a discernable style, the twentieth century was “…characterized by a diverse process of opposition, conflict and co-existence between academic styles and the avant garde” This exhibition is indeed an archive of the avant garde and a reminder that all work is eventually both private property (all works have been donated from private collections in Japan) and historical artifacts from an influential past periods that have done much to shape contemporary practices.

作者:Rachel Carvosso

更新日:2008年11月6日 2時49分

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In October 1968, Nobuo Sekine constructed Phase — Mother Earth in the Sumarikyu Park in Kobe. Consisting of a hole dug into the ground, 2.7 metres deep and 2.2 metres in diameter, with the excavated earth compacted into a cylinder of exactly the same dimensions, Phase — Mother Earth was instrumental in the early development of work by the Mono-ha artist group, and has been considered a landmark work in Japanese postwar art history. For more information on the group, read this introduction.

In conjunction with the 40th anniversary of its creation, the work has been for the “Tama Art Line Project” exhibition of outdoor artwork in Den-en Chofu Seseragi Park opposite Tamagawa station (Tokyu Toyoko Line), on display from November 1 to 9.

In 1968, Sekine and some of the other Mono-ha artists — then in their twenties — dug the work up the earth themselves, but today the work is being handled by construction workers with a digger. There is only a limited number of photographs that document the 1968 version of Phase — Mother Earth and its construction. TAB brings you a detailed photo report on the recreation of this iconic art work.

Venue: Den-en Chofu Seseragi Park opposite Tamagawa station (Tokyu Toyoko Line)
Dates: November 1 to 9.

作者:Ashley Rawlings

更新日:2008年11月3日 11時23分

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Tokyo Art Beat / New York Art Beat is proud to participate as a media partner in Asian Contemporary Art Fair New York, held from November 6-10, 2008, at Pier 92, 52nd Street and 12th Avenue in NY City. Please come visit us at media booth 106 to say hello and meet the people behind NY Art Beat and Tokyo Art Beat.

At Asian Contemporary Art Fair New York, more than 60 international galleries and non-profit organizations will show a wide range of contemporary work by artists from countries including China, Japan, Korea, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. Much of the work, including paintings, sculpture, photography, works on paper, video and installations, will be on view for the first time in the U.S.

The Asian Contemporary Art Fair New York is the only international art fair in New York dedicated exclusively to Asian contemporary art. Last year’s inaugural fair was hailed as a major success, providing collectors with an unusual opportunity to gain an overview of Asian art and see work by emerging artists, as well as internationally-recognized names such as Zhang Xiaogang, Nam June Paik, Yue Minjun and Yayoi Kusama.

Fair hours

* Thursday, November 6; Preview Opening (Invitation only) - 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
* Friday, November 7 - 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday, November 8 - 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday, November 9 - 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Monday, November 10 - 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Admission Fees

* $15 one-day
* $25 multi-day
* $5 student / senior citizen
* Free : Monday, Nov. 10

Asian Contemporary Art Fair New York
Venue: Pier 92
Schedule: From 2008-11-07 To 2008-11-10
Address: 755 12th Ave., New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-563-3360

作者:Kosuke Fujitaka

更新日:2008年10月28日 14時26分

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