Clear Your Calendars: G-TOKYO 2011

Alfredo Jaar Solo Exhibition, Kenji Taki Gallery

The most anticipated Tokyo art fair of the year is just around the corner. G-TOKYO 2011, no in its second year, will again be held at the Mori Arts Center Gallery where leading commercial galleries in town will compete for attention. This year the event will incorporate the two-day art fair (February 19th and 20th), followed by exhibition week (February 21–27). This year's exhibitors are: ARATANIURANO, Gallery Koyanagi, Gallery Side 2, hiromiyoshii, KENJI TAKI GALLERY, Kodama Gallery, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Mizuma Art Gallery, Ota Fine Arts, Scai the Bathhouse, ShugoArts, Taka Ishii Gallery, TARONASU, WAKO WORKS OF ART and Yamanoto Gendai. 

For mor information please visit the event website. 

Openings: Kiyosumi and Shirokane Art Complexes

Another night of openings in the Kiyosumi and Shirokane art complexes. Tomio Koyama Gallery presented video works of the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize winner Marcus Coates. His video work Dawn Chorus (2007) is a set up of several screens that show people in their natural habitat lipsynching bird songs recorded in the woodlands of Northern England.

One floor below hiromiyoshii gallery inaugurated an exhibition of Takehito Koganezawa's planetary photography and sculptures, with a separate little room devoted to his earlier drawings and sketches.

The Kodama Gallery showed Kenji Nohara's painting, sculpture and 3D objects. My favorite was a souvenir mask he brought back from Mexico. The gimpish-looking silver mask, lined with pieces of mirror fragments, was suspended on the little clothing rack.

Nanzuka Underground had a selection of large and colorful canvas by the veteran artist Keiichi Tanaami. The story depicted in the paintings was inspired by traditional Chinese narratives and history.

On the opposite end of the visual scale were Etsuko Fukaya's minutely detailed prints at the Yamomoto Gendai gallery.

Most shows will be on through the first week of December. Please refer to galleries' sites for details.