Monday, November 29, 2010

CLOSED By LG Williams / Estate Of LG WilliamsAt Super Window Project, Kyoto, Japan: Starts November 19th


LG Williams, Closed (Super Project Window) 2010, 48 x 64, Vinyl and Engineer Grade Reflective Sheeting on Heavy-Duty Aluminum, Edition of 10

Where:_
When:_
More Information:_
Press Release:_
Exhibition Checklist:_
Video:_
Poster:_
Facebook Event:_

Super Window Project, Kyoto, Japan
November 19, 2010 - January 9, 2011
Gallery@SuperWindowProject.com
PDF
PDF
Click Here
Click Here
Click Here

 

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Takanobu Kobayashi and the Opening of Weekend Museum at the UNU

Johnnie Walker of A.R.T. curated the inaugural exhibition at the newly opened Weekend Museum based at the United Nations University in Omotesando. The first artist to be presented was Takanobu Kobayashi whose monosyllabic canvases served a as backdrop for the opening of Tokyo's newest museum of contemporary art.

Johnnie Walker with Julia Friedman. 

Left to right: Donald Eubank, lico Fang, Rodion Trofimchenko, Julia Friedman. 

Yukio Mishima 40th Anniversary of Death

Last Thursday, November 25th, marked the 40th anniversary of Mishima's suicide. Unfortunately, I could not be at the event (I just returned from LA and had to be in the lecture on the day), but Jeffrey Chiedo of Motus Fort kindly shared the pictures he took. I am posting a selection below. 


 

Friday, November 26, 2010

MAM project: Katerina Seda

Sent from my iPhone

Motohiko Odani: Phantom Limb

Sent from my iPhone

"Ornaments" Daisuke Nakayama at Kodama

Sent from my iPhone

Kenji Yanobe "Levitation" at YAMAMOTO GENDAI

Sent from my iPhone

Monday, November 8, 2010

Kyoto Openings: Taka Ishii and TKG Editions

Taka Ishii Kyoto branch is now showing the new work of a Los Angeles artist Lisa Lapinski. The exhibition, entitled "Th th th th th Snow White"  is more complicated than one might expect after reading the oneiric press release which clashes the many fairy tale, fictional and TV characters dear to any five year old. In fact, the "kawaii" element is limited to the smallest room of the gallery, the dark space normally dedicated to videos, but now featuring a nightmarish-looking toddler chair painted as a frowning red creature, an ominous metal shelf overhanging its flat wooden head. The rest of the installation is unapologetically adult. Setting the mood for the exhibition, the first room is dominated by five large floor sculptures—80s swimsuit pinups framed by what looks like ornamental cinder blocks—the familiar vernacular bits of LA architectural landscape. The centerpiece of the second room is a camel sculpture made with real tobacco from the eponymous brand. It reminded me of Ai Weiwei's tea sculptures shown at the Mori in 2009, but here, the Chinese artist's cultural critique gives way to socially aloof representation.

Lisa Lapinski, Untitled, 2010, Wallpaper, glue, wood, paint on paper, hardware, 101.6 x 81.3 x 3.8 cm. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Lapinski's interest in the materials and the processes of art-making comes through in her two-dimensional works—the overpainted layered wallpaper mounted on wood. Reminiscent of artists' books, these objects reveal the artist's proclivity for oblique metaphors. As in her 2008 LA MoCA exhibition, the works on view at the Kyoto Taka Ishii gallery bring together disparate notions and objects, prompting the viewer to complete the associational chain.

View of Yutaka Watanabe's installation. In front: k-001, 2010, mixed media, h. 30 x w. 36 x d. 28 cm. In the background: Untitled, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 33.3 x 24.2 cm

On the first floor of the building, Tomio Koyama's TKG Editions has mounted a colorful exhibition for one of their young artists—Yutaka Watanabe. A graduate of the Musashino Art University's College of Art and Design, he already had a solo show with Tomio Koyama in 2008. TKG combined the artist's painting, mostly from 2009 and 2010, with his latest three-dimensional work that takes Watanabe's experiments with color into three dimensions. The theme that unites his two- and three-dimensional work is his understanding of textures and colors as it is embedded in his childhood memories. Just as Lapinski, he relies on the viewer to reconstruct reality from the plastic elements (textures, shapes, colors) in the artworks, although in Watanabe's case the associations draw from the shallower pool of common experience—plastic, food coloring, virtual reality—so the viewers' task here is infinitely easier.

Both exhibitions will be on through December 11th.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

ARTFORUM Critics' Picks: "Taiji Matsue"

Taiji Matsue
QUI 100520
2010
HD video

© TAIJI MATSUE 2010 Courtesy of TARO NASU

My review of Taiji Matsue's "Survey of Time" exhibition at the Taro Nasu gallery has just been posted on Artforum.com page. The show features the photographer's latest work—HD color videos, along with a selection of vintage prints. You can see it through November 20th.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Vik Muniz "Pictures of Paper"

The Great Turf, after Dürer, 2010, Digital C-print, 136.3 x 101.6

Nichido Contemporary Art is exhibiting the latest work of Vik Muniz. The eight compositions on display interpret different points on geographical and chronological maps of art history through the aesthetic prism of ukiyo-e prints. Hiroshige, Harunobu, Hokusai, Willem van Aelst, Winslow Homer, M.J. Heade and Dürer are represented in entire compositions and close-ups of details. The works rely on the cleaner version of Muniz's trademark bricolage: the images are photographs of cut and pasted paper of various textures. 

The show will be on through November 20th.

 

ULTRA003 at SPIRAL: 11.01-11.03

Sent from my iPhone