Arcane Gate, 2009
Marker, spray paint and house paint on paper
Image courtesy of Motus Fort gallery
Jeffrey Chiedo’s Motus Fort gallery is now showing the works of Kadar Brock. The key word of the exhibition is “conjuring,” in reference to the conflicting modes of painting and the obscured words and textures that come and go seemingly at the will of the artist-magitian. The two types of works on display are the monochrome mixed media paintings from 2009, like the one above, and the smaller figurative images in color. The monochromes picture the writing obscured by paint smears in what could be described as a gesture of materialization—the artist-magitian realizes the words as he crosses them out. The immateriality of the legible is made into a material sensibility using the physical solidity of paint. Several of the monochromes recall the later works of Anthony Tapies although Brock’s pictorial concerns seem to be less expressive and more phenomenological.
The other portion of the exhibition are the color multi-media Wizards paintings on paper framed by the artist (all 2010). These already have their designated art history references (i.e. Holbein, Titian, Carravagio), and present, as the title suggests, a gallery of various wizards and conjurors. One name not mentioned in the dead artist roster was Mark Chagall’s, but I certainly sensed his hovering hand all around the color wizards.
The show is on view through July 17th.
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Nobuyoshi Araki, “Koki No Shashin : Photographs of A Seventy Year Old” 2010, RP Direct print, Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery
With the big anniversary exhibition “Koki No Shashin : Photographs of A Seventy Year Old” at the Taka Ishii gallery having just closed, “the ultimate photographer” is featuring more of his latest work in a new show at the Rat Hole Gallery in Omotesando. It coincides with the release of Araki’s most recent publication “Sentimental Journey, Spring Journey.” You might even be able to get a glimpse at the man himself at the opening reception scheduled for 7 pm on June 11.
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Posted
on June 8, 2010, 6:24 PM,
by jfriedman,
under
Uncategorized.
There is a new (commercial) art space in town, it opened just last month. TABLOID is self-described as a “complex culture place….where work and play are created.” Their next event is coming up this Saturday, June 12th, and looks quite interesting because it involves the very artists-designers that made a big splash at S/S 2009 Tokyo Fashion Week. It will consist of Makoto Tanijiri’s installation (doors open at 17:00), followed by a show of the ultra-modern brand writtenafterwards. The show is from 18:00 until 18:30. After that you can view the brand’s installation and drop in on another one by coconogacco x driff open-classroom. Or, you can join the on-site party organized by Art Hotel Nest Tokyo.
The event, enigmatically titled “Crime and Punishment” is curated by fashion designer Yoshikazu Yamagata. The entry fee is ¥1500. You can find all the information on the ART HOTEL NEST TOKYO page.
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Posted
on June 5, 2010, 6:23 PM,
by jfriedman,
under
Andrea Witzmann,
Austrian art,
Dorit Margreiter,
Marcus Schinwald,
Maria Hahnenkamp,
Sabine Bitter/Helmut Weber,
Tokyo Wonder Site,
Ursula Mayer.
Markus Schinwald, Ten in Love, 2006, 35mm film on DVD, 4’37“
The Tokyo Wonder Site in Shibuya is hosting an exhibition of (mostly) video and photo art by eight Austrian artists. The show examines how the country’s psychoanalytical heritage, that came to be seen as one of its biggest cultural imports, relates to the varying notions of “Metropolis.” The Vienna and Vancouver-based duo Bitter and Weber are represented by several digital collages where urban images are comprised of typographic symbols and letters. Their images feature an interplay of patterns that change depending on the viewer’s proximity and the level of visual concentration; same goes for Maria Hahnenkamp’s lush pigment prints. Architectural settings of Aglaia Konrad’s and Andrea Witzmann’s respective video and c-print contributions can alternate between functioning as main subjects or auxiliary elements. Dorit Margreiter’s Pavillion (2009), a 35 mm film, scrutinizes the intersection of architecture and gender, while Ursula Mayer’s Fallen Imperial video installation from 2003 focuses exclusively on gender—perhaps an inevitable nod to the discourse born of the investigations into the psyche of the sexes. I particularly liked Markus Schinwald’s room where the Ten in Love video (2006) provided a futuristic backdrop for the wistfully old-fashioned representations of obscurity in his 2007 wood and metal sculpture Legs (Untitled), and the 2010 pigment prints of Lukas, Magnus, Nicklaus and Gunter. The latter echo Max Klinger’s prefiguration of fetishism in his 1881 series Ein Handschuh (A Glove).
This project is a part of the Austria-Japan Friendship Year which rendered several other quality exhibitions. There is also a handsomely printed bilingual catalogue available for purchase.
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Last night the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art inaugurated the exhibition of William Eggleston’s photographs and drawings—the artist’s first solo museum show in Japan. The majority of the work on view comes from the two recent series shot in Paris and Kyoto respectively. Among the photographs are light jet prints and type-C prints, many framed together with a pendant drawing. One of the galleries is devoted entirely to the 1976 William Eggleston’s Guide shown the same year at the MoMA in New York. The Hara exhibition is backed by two collections: the Cartier Foundation and of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. The show will be open through August 22. If you visit on Sunday you can take advantage of the “BloomBus” shuttle that runs between the museum and the Shinagawa station.
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The Tokyo branch of the Kodama Gallery is now showing the last nine years of Mamoru Sakagawa’s work. The objects range from the 2001 acrylics of muscle men, to drawings, to the latest experiments with india ink and fabric appliqué. The oldest works, interestingly enough, suggest a loosely visceral quality in the artist’s approach: it is as if even when the actual anatomical visualization disappeared, the physicality transferred into the very process of looking.
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Yoshitomo Nara
White Riot
2010
ceramic
h.278 x w.176 x d.126 cm
If you have not seen it yet, Tomio Koyama gallery is showing Nara’s recent experimentation with ceramics. The seventh floor gallery features a selection of oversized sculpture. White Riot takes up the smaller gallery on the left, it sort of springs up at the viewer as they enter the room. The vast space next door houses three oversized heads decorated with platinum, gold and silver liquid, one even sporting a colorful fabric scarf. The gallery on the sixth is filled with inscribed pottery in black and white design. Here too, the objects are shaped as figurines (or vice versa), and the tongue-in-cheek inscriptions serve as a legend to these ghoulish but cute characters.
This exhibition will be on view through June 19th.
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