Archive for March 2010

ARTFORUM Critics’ Picks: MeeNa Park at the Kukje (Seoul)

BK0, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 160 cm. Photographer: Sangtae Kim, photo courtesy: artist, Kukje Gallery. My review of MeeNa Park’s recent work has just been posted on the Artforum Critics’ Picks. This RISD graduate is having her first solo show at the Kukje Gallery in Seoul.

3331 ARTS CYD

The inaugural exhibitions in 3331 Arts Chiyoda complex proved to be as exciting as I have anticipated. The renovated space of the former school had just enough of the old spirit to make the venue not seem white cube commercial, yet, the remodeling of the classrooms-come-galleries was to a high standard—in the fully finished spaces […]

Roppongi Crossing 2010

This year’s Roppongi Crossing exhibition poses a mega-rhetorical question: “Can There Be Art?” We know the answer, of course, but for the sake of doing a convincing lineup of the new talent, the Mori Art Museum built the show around the theme of street-generated art using the works works of young Japanese artists. Similarly to […]

VOCA 2010: The Vision of Contemporary Art

Beginning in 1994, a group of Japanese curators and art critics put together an annual exhibition of about three dozen young emerging artists whom they want to spotlight. The exhibition, now hosted by the Ueno Royal Museum, is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue where these curators and critics introduce their nominees in short essays. Because […]

Wonder Seeds 2010: Katsuhiro Maeda

untitled (無題) 2009  230mm×230mm アクリル・顔料インク・紙 Copyright (c) Katsuhiro Maeda All rights reserved. Amongst the one hundred budding artists, showcased in this year’s Wonder Seeds exhibition held at the TWS in Shibuya, there are several whose works could grace the walls of Tokyo’s better galleries. More or less arbitrarily, I would like to comment here on […]

Clear Your Calendars for Sunday, March 14

On Sunday, March 14 Tokyo will add another contemporary art initiative—3331 Arts Chiyoda, to the very happening network that goes under the umbrella name of Tokyo Wonder Site. The new three-story art center will open in a renovated high school building in Akihabara, and will incorporate a variety of spaces, labs and galleries housed in […]

Tamotsu Ikeya ARTFORUM review

My review of Tamotsu Ikeya’s show in the Kyoto branch of Kodama Gallery has been printed in the March issue of Artforum.