Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hôitsu

Before my visits to the Metropolitan this past summer, I had only the vaguest of ideas as to who Sakai Hôitsu was, what his paintings were like, or whether or not I liked them. A triptych of the four seasons and the rising sun changed all of that.

That set of three pieces is included in “Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hôitsu,” an exhibition focusing on Hôitsu and his chief disciple Suzuki Kiitsu, showing at Japan Society in New York through January 6th. The Society has done a lot of great shows in recent years, but I really must say, it is rare that I see an exhibit at any museum/gallery where just about every single piece grabs me and makes me want to look at it forever. Art dealers and collectors are always saying you should look for what grabs you, look for pieces that you just know you’ll truly treasure – and I think I have found mine. I likely will never be able to afford a Hôitsu or a Kiitsu, but fortunately there are a good number of later artists – “modern” “neo-traditionalist” Nihonga artists – whose work is in very much the same vein. Not that I want to make this post about buying or collecting – I say all of this simply to indicate something of how much these pieces grabbed me.

Hôitsu lived from 1761-1828, chiefly in Edo, and became quite connected to Edo’s artistic circles. One piece in the exhibition, believed to have been put together for his 60th birthday, is a conglomeration of tiny compositions by himself, Watanabe Kazan, and sixty-six others. Other pieces in the exhibit show his connections to the likes of Kameda Bôsai, his disciple Suzuki Kiitsu of course, Nakamura Hôchû, and to the cultural arena of the pleasure districts as well – though he never married, he had a lengthy and serious live-in relationship with a particular courtesan. He was born into a prominent and wealthy samurai family, which had in decades past been patrons of Ogata Kôrin. After in his early years creating a number of bijinga paintings of courtesans in the ukiyo-e style, he turned for the remainder of his career to working “in the style of Kôrin,” a phrase quite similar to the actual meaning of the word “Rinpa” (the “school” of painting to which Hôitsu is said to belong, and to which the current exhibit/rotation at the Metropolitan is devoted). In 1815, he organized an exhibition of works by Kôrin on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Kôrin’s death, and produced a woodblock printed book called Kôrin hyakuzu (Kôrin One Hundred Pictures) depicting either Kôrin’s works, or works of his own inspired by or based on Kôrin’s compositions. I thought it interesting that, as one of the gallery labels points out, we remain unclear as to whether the book served as a basis for many of Hôitsu’s compositions, or whether the book records compositions he created on his own, based on other sources.

A page from the Kôrin Hyakuzu, depicting a folding screen painting of waves by Kôrin, also included in the current Japan Society exhibit, and based on which Hôitsu produced his own screen paintings of waves, which are today a National Treasure. This copy of the book, image (c) British Museum.

In any case, the exhibition contains a surprising number of pieces with fun and interesting historical connections – all too often there are pieces that would be just incredible to include in an exhibition, and they just can’t be obtained. I’m sure that happened here, too. There’s only so much you can do. But, even so, the exhibit includes an original work by Kôrin (a two-fold folding screen depicting waves), illustrated in the Kôrin hyakuzu, alongside a pair of folding screens of waves, by Hôitsu, against a silver foil background, which is said to have been based directly upon that Kôrin work. The silver Hôitsu screens are today a National Treasure, and so it is a real coup to get to see them here in New York; National Treasures do not often leave Japan. Because of their special status, these will only be up until November 4th, so catch them while you can! The display of these screens has been extended now until November 11th!

A hanging scroll triptych depicting cranes, deer, and Jûrôjin (one of the Seven Lucky Gods), in bright brilliant colors and very clearly stylistically influenced by the Deer Scroll by Kôetsu & Sôtatsu (now at the Seattle Art Museum), and also depicted in the Kôrin hyakuzu, seems another wonderful “get” for the Society. I was personally quite taken by a pair of folding screens depicting the 36 Immortals of Poetry, or the Sanjûrokkasen, one screen by Tatebayashi Kagei (from the Cleveland Museum), and one by Hôitsu. Both seem nearly identical in composition – in which figure is positioned where, how they are posed, how they are depicted – and yet we are told that both artists based their compositions on the same original by Kôrin, never actually seeing one another’s versions. The Met currently has on display a hanging scroll by Kamisaka Sekka as well depicting the same subject, albeit not quite the same composition. The Hôitsu piece is especially interesting as it seems to be a full-scale study or preparatory work, largely unfinished, giving us therefore a glimpse into how artists of the time prepared their works. The outlines are all done, and the faces painted in, along with some sections in browns, greys, and blacks. The remaining sections each have the color written in, like a coloring book, in Japanese. This unfinished work is further interesting in that it was included in the very first exhibit in that gallery, after Japan Society first moved into this building in the 1970s.

Another work in this vein, not only attractive and skillful and whatever but of actual art historical importance, and great to be able to see in the show, was a two-fold screen by Hôitsu depicting a scene of “Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang,” a very standard theme for ink paintings. This is, apparently, the only known monochrome work on folding screens by Hôitsu, who as we have seen normally worked in such bright bold colors.

I also enjoyed seeing a Hôitsu painting from the MFA (right) which was among their most recent acquisitions back when I was interning there, alongside a work from a private collection attempting to recreate the same composition. Another work, a depiction of Emperor Nintoku (one of a triptych of hanging scrolls), bringing the same bright bold colors, amazing cleanliness of form, incredible fine details, and contrast of bold colors to ink wash, that I love so much in all of his works, also was displayed alongside a study (or, as those in Western art might call it, a “cartoon”).

The final two sections of the exhibition were dedicated to Hôitsu’s student Suzuki Kiitsu. I guess there are only so many Hôitsu works you can manage to get together. Not that I’m complaining – many of these Kiitsu works were just as stunning as Hôitsu’s. I so wish that they allowed photography, so that I could have images of each of these, to go through each with you and post my thoughts on each one of them. Kiitsu did a lot of gorgeous works in the mode of Hôitsu, but he also brought some great innovations. A painting of a rising dragon and Mt. Fuji (right) shows the ultimate range of what can be done in monochrome ink, using a combination of ink wash (rendering Fuji in white as a negative image against the grey sky), fine clear lines (on the dragon’s body), and bleeding effects (in smoke that surrounds the dragon), with the only color being gold used in the dragon’s eyes and in the lightning which accompanies the dragon’s storm. A pair of lines at the bottom of the composition form a “whoosh” mark, like in comicbooks, adding great force, momentum, and speed to the image, making the viewer see the dragon not as floating gently, but as rapidly, forcefully, flying up out of the water and into the sky.

Right: A scene in the Yoshiwara licensed quarters, by Suzuki Kiitsu. The other hanging scroll of the pair depicts a scene in Shinagawa, an unlicensed pleasure district also in Edo. I just adore the bright colors and fine details in these works. Indianapolis Museum of Art.

In a painting of the bodhisattva Kokuzô (of which I sadly cannot find a photo online), Kiitsu deploys an extensive amount of a beautiful deep blue mineral pigment, and a variety of other bright bold colors, creating an effect reminiscent of Tibetan thankas and really quite different from what we normally see in Japanese Buddhist paintings – he goes further, painting in the entirety of the painting’s mounting, down to the sections of silk that wrap around the wooden rollers, imitating or emulating, in trompe l’oiel fashion the appearance of a painting mounted in the traditional way within sections of brocade.

And, of course, the exhibit ends with Kiitsu’s massive Morning Glories (Asagao) screens, a classic example of purely decorative Rinpa composition very much “in the style of Kôrin,” in all their bright blue, green, and gold glory. Throughout this exhibition, we see the things I fell for in the Hôitsu works I saw at the Metropolitan exhibit – bold bright colors, incl. red maple leaves, green leaves, deep blue flowers, pinks used against white backgrounds to create incredibly textured sakura petals, and a multitude of fine, fine details in color, such as the lines of gold for veins of a leaf, or in the fine details of a figure’s garments. If I could get replicas of some of these works, to hang in my office, I would be a very happy man.

I have notes on so many of the works in this show, and am partially tempted to share them all. But, I think this post has gone on long enough, so I encourage you, if you can, if you have the chance, to make the time and go check out this exhibition, “Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hôitsu”, at Japan Society (333 East 47th St, NYC) before it closes on January 6th.

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Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hôitsu

WordPress seems confused as to whether this is my 500th or 501st post. Either way, I’m amazed to have reached this milestone, and happy for either this post, summarizing exciting upcoming events at New York’s Japan Society, or the previous post, on a serious academic dilemma, to stand as my 500th post.

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I have mentioned briefly before the artist Sakai Hôitsu and the upcoming exhibit of his work at New York’s Japan Society. I was very glad to get to see some stunning Hôitsu works at the Metropolitan this summer, and am sad that I won’t be around to get to go to any of the many events the Society is holding in conjunction with the exhibition.

Chief among them is a symposium scheduled for Sept. 29, which will feature some of the top scholars of Japanese art history in the world, including Kobayashi Tadashi – a top expert on Edo period painting, and someone whose work I have read a lot of, but whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting – along with Matthew McKelway and Haruo Shirane, both very big names in the field as well, from Columbia University. I hope there is some kind of transcript or publication afterwards that those of us who cannot attend might be able to get our hands on.

Prof. McKelway will also give another lecture on the subject of Sakai Hôitsu and Rinpa on October 18.

Judging from his style, and perhaps more so the immaculate condition of the works I saw, and the vibrancy of the colors, I would have guessed Hôitsu to be a Nihonga artist of the late 19th or early 20th century. But, knowing that he lived so much earlier, from 1761-1828, very firmly within the Edo period, I’d guess to place him instead with the so-called “Eccentrics,” people like Nagasawa Rosetsu who, similarly, produced works with a certain simplicity and cleanliness, but also with bright vibrant colors and dramatic content.

Right: A painting by Nagasawa Rosetsu, dated 1798, depicting the destruction in that year of the Great Buddha Hall of Kyoto. (Sometimes mistaken for being the Great Buddha Hall of Tôdai-ji in Nara, but I’m fairly certain it was the Great Buddha of Kyoto that’s referred to here.)

But, then, what do I know? If the experts call Hôitsu “Rinpa,” placing him in a category with artists like Tawaraya Sôtatsu, Ogata Kôrin, and Suzuki Kiitsu, known for their large compositions on gold-backed folding screens, then I guess they have very good reasons for saying so. Prof. McKelway, who guest curated this exhibit with the help of a PhD student specializing in Rinpa, is one of the leading Rinpa scholars himself, so if he and everyone else involved with the exhibit say he’s Rinpa, who am I to argue? What’s important is that his work is stunningly beautiful, expertly executed, and employs classical themes and references that give the works deeper meaning, making them all the more captivating.

As Rinpa works very often draw upon seasonal and classical literary themes, Prof. Haruo Shirane will be leading two events as well, discussing on Nov. 11 selections from the Heian period Tales of Genji and Ise, and on December 13 his own newest book, on seasonal references in the Japanese arts.

Meanwhile, Japan Society’s Performing Arts Department has an exciting season planned, as always. It includes a fair share of very modern/contemporary sort of things, but also on Oct 27-28, a rare opportunity to see Kagura, a sort of Shintô religious / folk tradition dance form.

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Japan Cuts: Rent-a-Cat & Loan Shark Ushijima

レンターネコ。ネコネコ。寂しい人に、。。。猫貸します。

Japan Cuts is finally coming to an end. There were plenty of films I missed, and indeed several still to come this weekend that I won’t be going to, but, after seeing about ten films in the last few weeks, well, it’s over for me, for this year. Big thanks to everyone involved in making Japan Cuts happen, and for having me as a volunteer. It’s a great feeling to be involved, not just as a spectator, but as a member of a team, an insider in whatever tiny way, rather than a total outsider simply paying to come…

The highlight of tonight, and for me one of the highlights of the whole festival, was that I got to meet Ogigami Naoko (Director of Megane, Toilet, Kamome Shokudô, and now Rent-a-Neko). It’s one thing to see celebrities from a distance – and seeing Yakusho Kōji speak was certainly exciting in its own way – but actually getting to talk to someone is a whole different level. It was very brief of course – just a little more than “I really like your movies, thank you so much for coming here tonight,” “Oh, thank you. I’m glad you like them.” But, still. A special opportunity. And she was very nice, very personable. Shy even. Not like a celebrity at all.

They screened her newest film, Rent-a-Neko, tonight. It was followed by Loan Shark Ushijima, which is a very different film, and which I’ll get to. But, between the two films, I think the theme of the night was very much one of deviating completely from the Hollywood formula, defying expectations or norms.

Rent-a-Neko follows a young woman who rents out cats, to help people suffering from loneliness. She herself has been quite lonely since her grandmother passed away, and herself without any boyfriend or husband, just a whole bunch of cats who, it would seem, are strangely attracted to her. There’s something very sweet about her, as she charges very little, and seems to really genuinely provide people with true comfort, both with her cats, and her words. The film is, for the most part, episodic, focusing on one person after another whom she helps. But nothing ever really develops out of it. There is very little overall plot, and no real resolution at the end.

I’m guessing that Motai Masako, who plays the friendly but decidedly odd older woman in Megane and in Kamome Diner, as well as the grandmother in Toilet, must not have been free for this. Perhaps I’m judging Ogigami’s distinctive style too much from those two films alone [I had not yet seen Toilet when I wrote this post], and expecting too much that this film too ought to have a similar feel. But, with Motai absent, and for other reasons besides – reasons I cannot quite put my finger on – Rent-a-Neko, while certainly enjoyable, lacked that particular feel or flavor which I have come to expect from Ogigami-sensei.

The world premiere of the film Loan Shark Ushijima (Yamikin Ushijima) was the second film of the night. An extension of a live-action television drama based on a manga, and centering on a world of loan sharks, prostitutes, protection money extortionists, and sadistic blackmailers, Ushijima is decidedly a very different film. But, here too we see a deviation from norms that leaves me scratching my head.

Films, of course, do not need to follow the standard, oh-so-predictable, Hollywood formulas. They don’t even have to have clear-cut good guys and bad guys. But, still, there should be some straightforward sense of a plot, and some underlying theme or message, as to how one ought to behave. Or something.

The chief protagonist of this film, perhaps, is the young ikemen Ogawa Jun (played by Hayashi Kento), leader and event organizer of a sort of ikemen idols group. He seems a good guy, near as we can tell, with innocent sorts of goals. He seeks fame and success, seeks to turn this idols group thing into a successful career for himself as head of a modeling agency, or event organizer for big nightclub events… And he’s gotten himself into trouble with a loan shark, with a protection racket, and with a crazy frightening blackmailer / serial killer / torture artist. Now he owes too many people too much money, and everything he does to try to resolve it only makes things worse.

There are a couple of other characters in the movie who are relatively innocent, who are not quote-unquote “bad guys,” but who have simply gotten involved in bad stuff, and who we root for to get out of it, and to survive. But basically everyone else in this film is one kind of wretched criminal or another, making it hard to really feel like we want to root for any of these people.

Maybe I just need to suspend my disbelief or something, but there were just way too many parts of this film that made no sense. Some of it can be chalked up to characters just making very dumb choices, but… To start with, the loan shark Ushijima charges truly ludicrous amounts of interest (e.g. something like 50% interest added on every day), and somehow is able to get away with it. Granted, we do get to see the full process of why it is that the cops can’t seem to hold him. But even so, the very idea that one can buy up others’ debts and then apply your own arbitrary and ludicrously high interest rates seems bizarre. Then again, I guess when you’re operating an illegal extortion racket, anything goes.

Why does Jun never call the cops? And where was the security at this very large, well-attended, high-profile venue, that everyone from the loan shark to the protection racket guys are able to get in without even the slightest indication that they had pushed through, or even ever encountered security to begin with? Where were the security guys, or the police, to kick them out? And, again, why does Jun try to play these terrible people against one another rather than call the cops?

In the end, I feel bad for Jun because he had such innocent, non-criminal goals and intentions. But, in a sense, he really brings it on himself by handling the situation so poorly. At every step, he has people making utterly unreasonable demands of him, and rather than tell them how unreasonable it is, rather than demonstrating any degree of business acumen or law-abiding common sense, he runs off to borrow more money to pay these extortionists, getting himself more and more in the hole. Miko, a friend of Jun’s who is forced by Ushijima to pay off her mother’s gambling debts, similarly makes asinine decisions. She agrees, for some reason, to pay all the interest on her mother’s debts, week after week, but on principle refuses to pay the principal, i.e. the original debts. What nonsense. If she had any marbles in her head at all, she would pay the principal, and refuse to pay the interest. At least then, very quickly, there would come to be no principal to owe interest on. Meanwhile, I guess we are to assume that her mother keeps accumulating new gambling debts because otherwise the whole thing should have been paid off ages ago.

Perhaps the message of the film is that our world is a twisted, nasty place, where the violent and criminal win, and the innocent and noble-minded lose. The message that you need to be careful, to not be naive, or else the world will ruin you, will destroy you. That if you’re going to get involved with the seedier aspects of our society, you had better know what you’re getting yourself into, or you will get eaten alive.

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Someday – A Tribute to Harada Yoshio

Japan Cuts continues! Of course, there have been plenty of films at the festival that I have not seen. But the one I saw tonight was the unusually English-titled “Someday” (大鹿村騒動記, Ōshikamura sōdōki, lit. Record of the Ōshika Village Disturbance). The film was shown as part of a small tribute to actor Harada Yoshio, who passed away one year ago today, at the age of 71.

In this film, he plays a man who has returned to his hometown after running away with someone else’s wife 18 years ago. She has begun suffering from an Alzheimers-like disease, and has begun confusing Osamu (played by Ittoku Kishibe) for her former husband, Zen (played by Harada). Osamu decides it might be best for them both if Takako (Michiyo Ôkusu) returns to live with Zen. And so, he takes her back.

When they arrive back home in Ōshika village, the village they left 18 years earlier, it is almost time for the annual jishibai (local rural amateur kabuki) performance. This, of course, is what interested me most about the film going in. I *love* kabuki, but have never seen a jishibai performance, and thought that this would be a really neat film to see, including how a town relates to the kabuki, as part of their own local tradition, and seeing some of the behind-the-scenes aspects as the characters prepare for the performance. In any case, at the very least, it would be an opportunity to see some kabuki!

I’m intrigued by the notion of making a movie that features jishibai so strongly. Mort Japanese people I have spoken to have very little interest in kabuki, or, even if they’re open to it, they’ve never seen it and know little about it. What would such an audience think about this film? Would it get them interested in kabuki? (I think not; the film just doesn’t quite have that vibe) Would they see it as dry and boring, inaccessible because it’s too traditional? Or would they relate to the feeling of local pride for village traditions?

In any case, while the kabuki did feature prominently in the film, I couldn’t help but find it somehow somewhat lacking, as compared to my excitement at seeing a film that featured kabuki in it. I don’t quite know why this was. Perhaps the behind-the-scenes aspects destroyed the illusion of the colorful ‘magic’ of the kabuki stage. Seeing all these rural local village characters, who we’ve seen so much of out of makeup/costume, now onstage, it’s easy to see them as ordinary people in blotchy makeup, and difficult to believe them in their kabuki characters, or in the setting of the play. Frequent cut-aways, and the application of a normal movie soundtrack over the kabuki shamisen/taiko/hayashi music, certainly did not help. Plus, of course, that the kabuki aspects, though extensive, were overshadowed by the tragic plot narrative of Takako, and of her relationships with Zen and Osamu.

Still, the film has rekindled my desire to go see some jishibai performances in Japan. They seem most common in Gifu and Nagano, but I’d be particularly eager to see Ise Ondo Koi no Netaba, the play we did last year in Hawaii, as performed in Ise. The Kabuki-za, the lead professional kabuki theatre in Tokyo, was closed and knocked down in 2010; plans are to reopen the reconstructed Kabuki-za in 2013. Next summer is going to be a great time for kabuki.

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Art Deco Japan at Japan Society

While other museums continue to show the same standard stuff – hanging scrolls and folding screens by the Kanô school and Rinpa artists, with themes like “the four seasons” *yawn* – Japan Society amazes with another breakthrough exhibit. Any history book will tell you that in the Taishô (1912-1926) to early Shôwa periods (1926-1930s), Japan embraced many of the same fashions and trends that were popular at the same time in the West. Clubs & cafés. Jazz and cinemas. Flapper dresses and short bob hairdos. But what this Art Deco Japan looked like is not usually so clearly or thoroughly displayed. The exhibition Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 showing at New York’s Japan Society until June 10 fills in this lacuna in Japanese art history, featuring many wonderful sorts of objects I’d never seen before, or perhaps even suspected existed.

We see kimono with designs featuring very modern/Western subjects, including skyscrapers and movie cameras; metalwork objects, including a small shakudô and shibuichi box with an extremely Art Deco design of a city fountain. The exhibit contains many decorative objects, from lacquerware and ceramics to metalwork objects.

But perhaps the most beautiful and impressive objects in the exhibit are the large-scale Nihonga paintings, including one of two young women on a sailboat, which I saw at the MFA’s “Shôwa Sophistication” exhibit a few years ago.

Junpû (順風) by Miki Suizan (三木翠山), 1933. Ink, colors, and mica on silk, mounted as a panel. 95 1/8 x 75 3/8 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photo taken myself, 25 April 2009. Click here for a cleaner image at the official MFA website.

A pair of paintings by Enomoto Chikatoshi feature a woman skiing. Both employ squares of silver – not cut foil, but painted on in a metallic pigment – to simulate the snowy air. One, entitled Sekihô (“Snow Mountain”), is a framed panel behind glass, and visitors are allowed to walk right up to it. I appreciate, of course, the need to protect paintings by forcing visitors to stand behind the velvet rope, a few feet away from the object, but when it is possible to get up close, one can get a much greater appreciation of the textures and techniques used in the painting. The texture of the silk itself, as well as the way the colors are blended so expertly, so smoothly, creating solid areas of color and hiding the brushstrokes completely.

A pair of bronze fox sculptures/figurines by Tsuda Shinobu (1875-1946) are beautifully elegant, smooth and graceful. They seem almost soft, as if they were real, and living. Tsuda’s Lion is also quite impressive, as is a slightly more minimalist polar bear by Yamamoto Junnin. A bull by Hiramatsu Koshun is even more minimalist, in a good way. Normally, I’m not particularly interested in sculpture, especially modern, bronze sculpture, but these are surprisingly captivating.

It’s interesting to see how the Japanese, even as they adopt Western motifs, and new types of objects as needed for modern/Western-style lifestyles, continue to make traditional objects such as lacquerware boxes with sprinkled gold decoration, combining the old and the new (or the traditional and the Western/modern) in a single object.

In the third room of the gallery, we are finally formally introduced to the concept of the moga (モガ), or “modern girl,” the most representative icons of the style of the era. They have long dresses, high heels, curled hair, and long pearl necklaces unlike anything the kimono-wearing women of several decades prior had ever seen. The section includes a beautiful triptych of panel paintings by Enomoto, depicting scenes from the Ballroom Florida in golden fan shapes against a white, gold flecked background. The Ballroom Florida was, apparently, a rather high-profile nightclub of the time; Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks are known to have spent time there on at least one occasion. A 1935 photograph of a dancer looking at herself in the mirror brings to life the abstract idea of the Ballroom Florida, hammering home the idea that this was in fact a real place of that time.

While the pieces in the first room have certainly gotten me interested in the likes of Miki Suizan and Enomoto Chikatoshi, it was fun to see some more familiar names in this third room, which featured works by Itô Shinsui and Nakamura Daizaburô.

The exhibition ends with something of a reproduction of a living room of the time, furnished in a Western style, with a framed painting on the wall of a kimono-clad woman before a Christmas tree – an even stronger symbol of the dramatic cultural shifts that had taken root by that time.

I do wish that the exhibit had provided some more information on each label, fleshing out our understanding of the people and places of this time; as is, it was my understandings of the history and cultural trends of the time that I brought in with me that made the exhibit make sense, and that made it exciting. I’m sure that for someone more familiar with the Art Deco movement as it existed in the West, the exhibit would have meant a lot, too. But, while I do genuinely feel bad to be critical, I do think that the exhibit would not have provided enough information, enough background to really inform, really fill in the more uninitiated visitor. …

Still, the works are gorgeous, and, again, it’s a colorful, wonderful cultural period of Japanese history that we normally see very little of in museums, and in classes. If you have the chance, I definitely recommend heading over, checking it out, and taking your time. Some of these pieces, if you really slow down, and take time to focus in on one object, you can really get so much more out of the experience.

Japan Society, 333 East 47th St, NYC. Exhibit ends Sunday June 10.

EDIT: Salon.com has a brief interview with guest curator Kendall Brown, explaining in more depth the ideas behind the show, and a slide show with more images. Sadly, a lot of the pieces that caught my eye and which I mention in this post are not in the slide show, but, other very attractive pieces are, giving a good sense of the sorts of things in the exhibition.

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NYT Review of Kabuki Dance at Japan Society

New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay shares with us today his review of a series of performances by Bandô Kotoji at Japan Society in New York last week.

I imagine the performances were marketed as “Kabuki Dance” so as to help attract potential audiences, and to help people get a sense of what it was they were going to see. Though this dance form is known in Japan as nihon buyô (lit. “Japan dance”), it seems not uncommon at all in English to refer to it as “kabuki dance.” There is merit in this, as buyô is extremely closely related to kabuki. Many of the dances in buyô come directly from the kabuki theatre – that is to say, many of these dances are taken directly from dance segments in longer plays – and the forms are essentially identical, so far as I know, in the sense that all professional kabuki actors train extensively in nihon buyô and employ buyô movements and style in their movement on stage.

Yet, this application of the term “kabuki dance” can lead to confusion, and in Mr. Macaulay’s review, it seems to have done just that. He writes “Many Westerners assume that Kabuki is an all-male genre, with female roles taken by male players in the onnagata tradition. Mr. Bando’s troupe, however, is not the first I have seen to feature women.” As a specialist (I’m assuming) in Western/modern dance, I cannot blame him for not knowing the intricacies of Japanese art forms, though, then again, as a dance critic with such a prominent paper as the New York Times, and as someone who’s reviewing a “kabuki dance” performance, perhaps we might expect him to do just a little more research. In fact, professional kabuki theatre remains wholly the realm of men, and dance is a separate story. There are all=women kabuki troupes, and regional/local (jishibai) troupes which include women, but the chief professional, official, “core” kabuki, as performed at Kabuki-za and the National Theatre, and as performed on rare occasions on the road (e.g. in New York and Washington DC in 2007), remains an all-male affair, making use of onnagata to play the male roles.

In the remainder of the review, Macaulay offers some fascinating insights into questions behind Westerners’ reception of kabuki. He writes, “So when Westerners find they like some Kabuki, are they admiring something that has been subtly Westernized in unascertainable ways? When a Kabuki performance leaves us cold, is that because we’re seeing something authentic but distanced from our sensibilities, or because we are simply seeing a poor rendition?” Can we ever fully set aside our Western upbringing / identity / cultural background, and appreciate Kabuki as a Japanese would, i.e. as it is meant to be appreciated? Now that I write this out, I realize it sounds like a Nihonjinron argument, albeit phrased by an American. I’d rather not go down that road. Still, I appreciate very much Mr. Macaulay’s investigations, and questioning what it is he enjoys in the kabuki, and how it is that he engages with it, as a Westerner. We must acknowledge our own background, our own biases, and throw objectivity out of the window in order to appreciate how it is that we react to, appreciate, and judge art forms, whether they be “foreign” or from a more familiar source.

I regret that I was not able to be in New York for this performance (or in San Francisco or LA for other performances & workshops which took place recently). You can’t be everywhere at once, of course, but being in a major world city is a start. I hope that those who attended enjoyed it, got a lot out of it, and I hope to be able to see such performances, and take part in nihon buyô / kabuki workshops again myself soon.

For some reason it does not seem to be listed anywhere online, but in fact, our own buyô / kabuki movement teacher, Onoe Kikunobu-sensei, (who I studied under in preparation for the kabuki production last year) will be holding a recital along with her troupe here in Honolulu, on Easter Sunday, at Orvis Auditorium (Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Music building).

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Joe Earle Announces Retirement

Joe Earle, director of Japan Society Gallery in New York, has announced his retirement. He’s not leaving until roughly a year from now – September 2012 – by which time I just might actually be back in New York to say goodbye in person. But, it’s sad to see him go. Mr. Earle has done a lot of great work for the Society, both in terms of organizing some really groundbreaking, and extremely well put together exhibitions (including KRAZY!, Bye Bye Kitty, and Hakuin), and also in terms of behind-the-scenes administration and leadership. It’s been great for me, especially, having such a contact within the NYC Japanese art world.

I had heard this news a good few days ago, but much thanks to Susan of JapanCulture・NYC for publishing the news first, making it public, so that I could feel okay about putting it out there myself.

Having met him back when he was Chair of the Art of Asia, Africa, and Oceania department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mr. Earle has always been to my mind a major player in the Boston/NYC Japanese art scene, a mainstay in a way. But now I learn, or realize, that he’s really only been here in the States for about nine years, after a lengthy career in the UK, spent mostly, I gather, at the Victoria & Albert. So, I guess, it’s more the case of saying a great big thank you to Joe for bringing his expertise and brilliant talent to us here in the US, so far from home. I assume he’ll be going home to the UK after he retires, but I look forward to hopefully continuing to see him at art events and such, whether in NY, or elsewhere, or if & when I ever make my own way to the UK…

There are quite a few great exhibits still going on under Earle’s watch – “Fiber Futures,” an exhibition of contemporary textile art, has just opened, and meanwhile, downstairs in the so-called “A level,” there’s an exhibit of postcard-sized artworks created by Tôhoku artists in response to the earthquake/tsunami disaster. Next year, we’ll see exhibits on Japanese Art Deco, and one on the painter Sakai Hoitsu. Looking forward to it!

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Quick Links Sept 2011

Through RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, email, we’re exposed to more about our world everyday than ever before. Not just the stuff the local paper feels worthy of printing, but news on a whole myriad of topics, curated by ourselves to match our interests. And, so, every now and then, I find myself with more tabs open, more things I want to share, than I really have time or energy to devote full posts to. So, it’s time for another Quick Links.

*Science Daily reports on a new way to date silk. Rather than using carbon dating techniques, which apparently require the destruction of more material than we are usually willing to spare from, for example, a priceless ancient Chinese ink painting, the new technique dates silks based on the deterioration rate of the amino acids, or proteins, which form the silk. Scientists used the technique on a number of already-dated objects ranging from a Warring States period (475-221 B.C.) Chinese textile to a 19th century Mexican War flag, to establish baselines for the rate of deterioration, against which newly tested objects can be compared.

*Japanese fashion/textile artist Izukura Akihiko will be enjoying a show at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and simultaneously at the Linekona Art Center downtown, in January-Feburary 2012. I’ll admit, I’d never heard of him before, was not at all familiar with his work. But, local Hawaii-based fashion critic Paula Rath has put together a beautiful blog post giving us a glimpse at what we can look forward to.

*The Asahi Shinbun reports that the 1570 Battle of Anegawa fought between a combined Oda-Tokugawa army and the allied Asai and Asakura clans, may have been much smaller in scope than previously believed. The battle features several giants of Japanese history – namely Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu – or, at least, their troops (I’m not clear on whether Ieyasu and Nobunaga were there in person; such fine details of Sengoku battles are not among my strong points), and has been, like most major battles, romanticized and fictionalized and retold numerous times over. Some sources give army size numbers in the 15-20,000 range. Whether this is realistic, I don’t know. But, at some point soon I hope to actually read the article, and see what it has to say.

*The Honolulu Academy of Arts has just announced on its Facebook page that from now on the museum will be allowing photography! This is a wonderful turn of events. Now I can go and record the images that I find most beautiful or interesting, and be able to come back to them again, to remind myself what I saw, remind myself which artists to look into… Take photos of gallery labels and save myself the time copying them down by hand in the gallery.

The museum does specify, however, that “No photographs or videotapes may be reproduced, distributed, or sold without written permission from the museum,” which seems a pretty standard disclaimer. Except that I remain unclear as to whether a blog such as this one – or uploading photos to Flickr – counts as “personal use” or “fair use” in some other way, e.g. “educational use”, or whether, on the contrary, it counts as “reproduction and distribution” and is thus not allowed. Having photos for my own study and such will be wonderful, and I look forward to being able to take some photos for that purpose. However, being able to freely share those photos in a context such as a blog, or on Flickr, without worrying whether it counts as fair use, that’s the next important step.

*UK newspaper The Independent reports on analysis of skeletons of people who committed suicide after the 1333 siege of Kamakura. Thanks to further discussion of this article on the Samurai-Archives forums, I am reminded and able to put it together that this is talking about the Hôjô clan “harakiri yagura” or “suicide cave” which I’ve actually seen, in Kamakura. Check out the article, and the discussion thread on the Samurai-Archives forums for more.

*The building housing Japan Society, built by Junzo Yoshimura in 1971, the first building in NYC to be designed by a Japanese architect, has just been officially named a “landmark” by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

I love that the article acknowledges that some might call it a “modernist box.” This is more or less the same terminology I use to criticize countless buildings I see, the style of which I just have no interest in whatsoever. But the appealing thing about the Japan Society building is that it’s not purely that; it’s not purely a modernist box, but it’s a modernist box with enough touches of hints of traditional Japanese architecture that it’s actually interesting and (somewhat) attractive, and not simply just another of more of the same. Personally, I would prefer to see more buildings that much more closely resemble truly traditional-style machiya, rather than just recalling it in an otherwise very modernist form. But, unattractive though it may be, at least on a conceptual level, the Japan Society building, as it is, represents the fusion of traditional and ultra-modern that is contemporary Japan.

*I’ve just come across an old blog post from a blog called Edwardian Promenade, discussing the modern history of women’s dress in Meiji Japan, more specifically, the adoption of yôfuku (Western garments – dresses, corsets, bustles, hats etc.) and the transformation of the furisode, kosode, and various other kinds of traditional Japanese garments into “the kimono”, a newly defined “national costume” for a newly defined Nation.

The post is wonderfully detailed, including lots of dates and such, and describing ways in which the kimono, or the way it is worn, changed in this period. I bet you didn’t even know the kimono changed at all – it’s so traditional, after all, right? Unchanged? Hardly. Like so many things held up as symbols of “traditional Japan” today, the kimono, like tea ceremony, underwent dramatic changes in the Meiji period. Evangeline, the author of the blog, goes into great detail about the way the kimono, and Western Victorian fashions, created different silhouettes, and their relationship to ideas of ideal beauty.

*Finally, there’s apparently an ongoing controversy about the relocation of a writing hut where Roald Dahl did a lot of his writing. The hut, in the garden of his home in Buckinghamshire, is in desperate need of repair, or it might not last another year. There is a plan, therefore, to move its contents – pens, pictures, balls of yarn, his La-Z-Boy, all kinds of things, to the Roald Dahl Museum. However, the museum claims that it will cost £500,000 to move, and more importantly, conserve, all of these objects. I think, if I’m not misunderstanding, the £500,000 also includes the costs of designing and building new museum displays to construct an exhibition around the objects.

Yet, there is apparently some public outrage over the idea that the museum, and Dahl’s family, should be asking for help raising the £500,000 when many allege that Dahl’s widow could (and should) just pay for it entirely herself, out of pocket, from the vast riches she earns off royalties and book sales and such.

…

Well, that’s it for now (phew!). Sometimes those links just really add up. I look forward to your thoughts, comments, and feedback. Sayonara for now!

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Bye Bye Kitty – Review Part 3

This is Part 3 of my review of the recent contemporary art exhibition “Bye Bye Kitty” held at Japan Society in New York, March-June 2011. See Part 1 and Part 2 here.

*TENMYOUYA HISASHI

Tenmyouya Hisashi is, along with Yamaguchi Akira, another big name in what might be termed “Neo-Nihonga.” Though he does not work in traditional media (sumi ink, mineral pigments on paper or silk), his subject matter and elements of his style are extremely evocative of conventions in traditional/historical Japanese art.

“Defeat at a Single Blow” (seen here), a triptych of tattooed yakuza/bosôzoku types on tiger, elephant, and crane mounts recalls the triptych schema & “mounts” iconography of Buddhist painting, which the bright colors, martial atmosphere, and gold background (in acrylics, not real gold) recall the kabukimono of the early 17th century, as seen in the Hikone Screen and numerous other paintings of that time. Traditionally, it is bodhisattvas and other Buddhist or Hindu-derived entities who sit on animal mounts – Monju, bodhisattva of wisdom, on his lion, and the bodhisattva Fugen on an elephant are two prominent examples. Yet here, Tenmyouya has moved from the peaceful and enlightened imagery of bodhisattvas to a more martial sensibility.

*IKEDA MANABU

Ikeda Manabu’s works, like Yamaguchi’s, are fascinating and stunning in their level of detail, “History of Rise and Fall” (seen here) especially so, with its many castle-like roofs and gables, a giant sakura tree twisting around the buildings (or is it the other way around?). Hundreds of tiny samurai, in white silhouette, human-shaped negative spaces against a fully textured background, run and race, climb, battle, and even bicycle over a complicated, twisted landscape that conflates and juxtaposes periods from throughout Japanese (military) history.

The work is done in acrylic paints, mainly, applied not by brush but by pen. The work is massive, easily more than a square meter, but the details are as fine, if not finer, than the average pencil drawing.

I would love posters of this piece, too, though it would be difficult to produce any kind of reproduction that could do it justice without being full-size. The details are just that incredible.

*3D Works

Moving on to the 3D works (and a few more 2D works), Nawa Kohei’s deer is impressive and amusing if only for its absurdity. What nonsense, a taxidermied deer covered in glass spheres. And the pixelization process that Nawa talks about, simulating pixelization by affixing these glass bubbles onto the body of the deer, makes no sense whatsoever. But I will say that the way the room reflects in the spheres, and the way the spheres act as magnifying lenses allowing you to see the deer’s hair in great detail, is really something, and again something you won’t experience in the reproductions.

Nawa was originally going to show an elk, but since they couldn’t logistically get the elk into the gallery, the Society commissioned him to make a smaller version, with a deer. Not that that meant there wasn’t any difficulty.

Machida Kumi is likely the painter in the show whose works least resemble, and least draw upon, [pre-modern & early modern] Japanese art history, yet she is the only artist in the show who works in traditional materials – sumi ink and mineral pigments.

Her works are somewhat cute, but somewhat unsettling. Her figures seem like child robots, with empty glances, strings or wires extending outwards and tiny hands sticking out of the head of one figure. One of the two pieces is titled “Rocking Horse,” though the reasons why remain a complete mystery.

Kojin Haruka is, I believe, the youngest artist in the show. In her piece, “reflectwo“, she arranges silk flowers, hanging from the ceiling, in such a manner that they resemble their own reflection on a non-existent water surface.

Yoneda Tomoko presents us with very plain-looking photos of a place with deep connotative associations and a dark history. The National Military Defense Security Command, or Kimusa, in Seoul, was once a center for torture and interrogation. In Yoneda’s photos, it looks empty, simple and plain, all but totally devoid of any meaning, any aura of any particular use, let alone such a serious and dark use. Today, it is being transformed into an art space.

…

The catalog for “Bye Bye Kitty” received a strong recommendation from my friend Kathryn over at her “Contemporary Japanese Literature” blog, and I wholeheartedly intended to buy a copy. This is one of the first, and one of the most major, exhibits so far as I know to introduce American audiences to contemporary Japanese art beyond Murakami, particularly of the sort that I love so much, the sort of work done by Aida Makoto, Yamaguchi Akira, and Tenmyouya Hisashi, which draws upon Japanese historical artistic themes and styles, and is colorful and playful, without being really all that connected to the anime/manga/kawaii phenomenon. There is more to Japanese art than Murakami, than anime/manga/kawaii; there is more to Japanese art than the impenetrably abstract, dark, and obscure work of Gutai, Mono-ha, Yoko Ono, and Butoh. And now New York audiences are more aware of that. I had every intention of buying the catalog for this groundbreaking exhibit.

Especially for the essays. I don’t know David Elliott – guest curator, and first director of the Mori Museum – very well, don’t know his writing, and would like to get to know his writing, his ideas. But, for me, a catalog is really about taking home the pieces, the artworks, so that you can look at them again. Essays and artist bios are wonderful, and indeed some catalogs, such as the St Louis Museum’s Nihonga catalog are indeed fantastic resources on their own, easily one of the best books on Nihonga in English, despite being “just” a catalog. But that’s an exception…

For a softcover book that’s really not so thick (125 pages), $30 seems a bit much. I might gladly pay $25, but, even then, the catalog as it exists lacks the one key thing I would want most from it – full, complete copies of Yamaguchi’s “Narita Airport” and Ikeda’s “The History of Rise and Fall,” in large fold-outs, or even better fully separate fold-out posters, in which one can appreciate, over and over again at home, the full degree of detail of these works. For works such as these, just as much as with 3D pieces I would argue, an 8.5″ x 11″ reproduction is no substitute for the real piece – it might as well be a thumbnail for all it fails to reproduce for the viewer.

Perhaps Japan Society, Mori Museum, or someone else can present these pieces online, as some institutions have done, for example, for handscroll paintings, and as the Freer-Sackler intends to do at some point in the next year or two for a massive collection of woodblock printed books (more on that later), using a Flash-like interface to allow visitors to experience the whole piece, and to zoom in on any and every part that they want, rather than relying solely on the few choice details the curators chose to put into a print catalog. The technology certainly exists – I’ve seen it in interactives in galleries and museums (there’s a great one for handscrolls in the Sackler), and in private image manipulation software such as ViewNX, and, yes, on websites as well. I adore print catalogs, and definitely do feel there is something tangibly lacking from online-only materials (not to mention the fact that online materials, as of right now, inevitably feel less official, less authoritative than printed publications), but there are also things that one can do in online applications that we simply cannot do in print. If anyone knows where we can experience these two works in their full glory, online, I would be eager to hear about it.

And that is it for my haphazard, thrown-together, review of the “Bye Bye Kitty” exhibition at Japan Society.

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Bye Bye Kitty Review – Part 2

As I walked through the exhibit, I took notes about each piece, and on my thoughts on the exhibit as a whole, as I so often now do. Using those notes as a basis to write blog posts, they tend to get quite long, and so I feel the need to divide them up into multiple parts. So, here is the second part of my thoughts on the exhibition “Bye Bye Kitty” recently held at Japan Society in New York.

*AIDA MAKOTO

The second room of the exhibit begins with one more piece by Aida Makoto. “Beautiful Flag” is surely among the most blatantly political pieces in the show, and there is so much that it might evoke or allude to, so much it might speak to, that conversely I find I have very little to say. I am sure that much has already been said.

The piece is a diptych, depicting Japanese and (South) Korean schoolgirls carrying large flags of their respective countries, standing large atop a pile of rubble, the overall aesthetic and style somewhat rough and dark, as if the painting itself has been attacked with the ashes of the flames of war. It’s a very blatantly nationalistic piece, but for which country? My first impression was that it is a piece which seeks to acknowledge, recognize, and convey that Korean nationalism is just as valid (or just as invalid) as Japanese nationalism, placing the two countries on an even footing. Though, at the same time, the Korean girl seems to me more determined, standing in a stronger stance, while the Japanese girl seems somehow, well, less so. What do these figures represent? What did Aida intend?

It certainly did not occur to me on my own, but the major Japanese art magazine Brutus compares the composition of this piece to a very famous one by 17th century artist Sôtatsu, depicting Raijin & Fûjin (Gods of Thunder and Wind). What do you think? A valid comparison? Something Aida intended? Or coincidence?

What do these images say to you? What do you see in them?

*KASHIKI TOMOKO

The exhibition continues with Kashiki Tomoko, the one 2-D artist (i.e. painter) in the show with whom I was least familiar. Her pieces have a light, pastel, “girly”, child-like and innocent sort of style or aesthetic to them, a quality that reminds me of the work of Takano Aya.

Kashiki’s girls seem on first glance to be the extremely slight, willowy girls of other anime-influenced contemporary artists, especially Takano, with maybe just the slightest hint of a harkening back to the very slim and very young-looking girls of ukiyo-e print artist Suzuki Harunobu. Yet, on closer inspection, they seem, actually, quite grotesque.

The figure in “In a Box” is curled up in an unnatural way, and seems to be melting into the floor, while the feet of the girl in “Roof Garden” are too long for her legs, stretching out way in front of her like capital letter ‘L’s. She seems to be missing her nose, ner neck is too long, and her shoulders seem doughy and malformed. Granted, similar criticisms (or observations, to put it more neutrally) could be made of the figures of, for example, Utamaro, who is celebrated for his pictures of beautiful women (bijinga). Yet, even so, there is a grotesqueness here that I don’t sense in the works of Harunobu or Kiyonaga. I wonder what the artist’s intention is… Could we perhaps say something about girls’ critical perceptions of themselves and their own bodily flaws? Or something about an effort to inject a sense of malaise, or just plain old emotional complexity and reality, as a critical response to works which present a beautiful, innocent, totally positive and problem-free portrayal of the world of the cute young Japanese girl?

*YAMAGUCHI AKIRA

In “The Nine Aspects,” Yamaguchi Akira parodies a theme or mode often seen in historical handscroll paintings and woodblock printed books: that of the stages of decay of a body after death. Normally, it is a beautiful woman’s body that is portrayed in this way, as you can see in this historical painting, and in, for example, this more contemporary work by Matsui Fuyuko which references the subject. Yamaguchi, however, substitutes for the woman the half-horse / half-motorcycle which often appears in other of his works. Moving from right to left in the composition, we see the horse/cycle bucking and lively, then weak and sickly, then with people gathered around it as though it has just died, and finally, decaying and rusting, its parts taken away for scrap.

Sadly, I was not able to find an image of this work to share with you here. So you’ll have to use your imaginations.

The work is on canvas, but as in so many of Yamaguchi’s works, there are numerous elements which reflect an extensive knowledge and great expertise in the themes, modes, and styles of the traditional, from the way the clouds are depicted to the golden background, to the choice of title (九相図, kusôzu; the same title as the traditional “nine stages” paintings), to the placement of signature, date, and seal in the upper right corner. His use of the traditional pictorial narrative technique of iji dôzu, in which successive chronological scenes featuring the same characters are shown in different parts of what otherwise looks to be a single continuous space, is another major touch of the traditional used in this work.

In a further nod to the traditional, Yamaguchi Akira is the only artist in this show, and so far as I know, one of only a few prominent/major Japanese artists active today, who insists that his name be represented in Japanese name order. Why Japan Society would choose to give all the other artists’ names in Western order is beyond me, but I think this an interesting and important point. Yamaguchi may have international appeal – and I do hope that this show helps more people learn about him and about the many other artists in Japan doing exciting work; it’s not all just Murakami – but he is very much a Japanese artist, and I think that respecting the name order he uses in Japan, rather than Westernizing or “internationalizing” it, rather than bastardizing it, is important.

Of course, that said, for someone who references the traditional so very much in his work, I am surprised to realize that Yamaguchi works in pens and oils and watercolors, and not in traditional mineral pigments and sumi ink. The same goes for Tenmyouya Hisashi and several other artists in this show. I suppose we can still call their work “Neo-Nihonga” even though the traditional definition of “Nihonga” emphasizes the use of traditional media (Yamamoto Tarô, not featured in this show, actually himself uses the term “Nipponga” to refer to his work), as, regardless of media, artists such as Tenmyouya and Yamaguchi are indeed *the* top, leading artists so far as I know doing work like this which draws heavily upon the traditional to do something decidedly modern and contemporary. Looking at their work, the style in which it is done, and the truly extensive use of traditional compositional elements, etc., the question of which media they’re using seems almost irrelevant.

Image from the cover of a monograph catalog of Yamaguchi Akira’s work, featuring a detail from his “Post-Modern Silly Battle,” also on display in the “Bye Bye Kitty” exhibition.

In any case, these pieces were amazing to see in person, and the degree of detail, especially in Yamaguchi’s Narita Airport murals, is just wonderful. I have not been to Narita (Tokyo’s main int’l airport) in some time, but if I have the story right, large wall-sized murals by Yamaguchi now grace the walls of one of the terminals, and two pieces on display at Japan Society as part of this show were the originals, in pen and watercolor, from which the larger reproductions were made. As in many of Yamaguchi’s other pieces – depicting Osaka, or the Mitsukoshi Department Store, or Tokyo Tower – these two are birds-eye view landscape paintings in the rakuchû rakugai zu mode, which mix reality and historical fantasy in their depiction of the airport. It is a landscape scene from a fantasy version of Japan, in which elements from many different periods of history are thrown together into one scene. Heian era courtiers in tall eboshi and billowing robes brush elbows with t-shirt-clad foreign tourists, while other passengers enjoy a bathhouse or a game of pool onboard the planes; beautiful hipped gabled tiled roofs in the style of Japanese castles grace the control tower and terminal buildings, and the title of both pieces, “Narita Airport” (成田空港) is enclosed in an elaborate cartouche in the upper right corner of each of the two pieces.

I would very much love to own a poster of these Narita Airport paintings. The details are just incredible, as each and every person or other element within the picture adds to the complexity and diversity of the overall scene. I could sit in front of this piece for hours and never feel I had seen, and digested, all of it. I imagine that they might (if I’m lucky) sell such posters at Narita Airport, or at the Mori Museum in Roppongi, where I saw Yamaguchi’s work for the first time. But, alas, not at Japan Society.

In my next post, I shall discuss the works of Tenmyouya Hisashi and Manabu Ikeda, before moving on to the 3D (read: sculpture) parts of the exhibition. Cheers for now!

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