Soap bubbles, inflatable alter egos and crystal baubles all feature amongst the handful of artists representing Japan in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, currently showing at GOMA in Brisbane [read more]
One day, I meet … Parts 1 + 2, the first works from the collaborative unit Ine wo Ueru hito, are teeming with visual trickery, reconfigured animals and the strangely comforting relentless mundanely of vacuuming [read more]
With new energy and expression being granted to everyday things like floors, furniture and air, the allure of Yukihiro Taguchi’s work is that of the ancient art form of puppetry; making the inanimate animate and creating life from lifelessness [read more]
Bringing together two of Japan’s most visionary and free spirited women, an installation from SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima for Comme des Garçons has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo [read more]
Besides moss and ferns Takashi Kuribayashi’s other running motifs are seals and penguins, which he often uses in latex form for his instillations where audiences are invited to peer through walls or ceilings into fragments of alternative aquatic worlds [read more]
On the rooftop of an abandoned school near the flashing lights and madness of Tokyo’s Akihabara Electric Town, there is a nightly happening comprising kinetic sculpture, balloons, instrumental inventions, light, sound and performance art [read more]
It is a festival factory line here in Tokyo. Design Festa, the Tokyo International Film Festival and Japan Fashion Week are all happening this month (with reports on all of them coming from yours truly), and a unique performing arts programme called Festival/Tokyo is about to kick off, starting with Rojishiki by Ishinha. Since forming in the early ‘70s the theatre/dance company has become renowned for their site-specific outdoor roaming performances – often set in the Muroji Temple in Nara or the isolated islands of Okayama – and this one is taking place in an old junior high school [read more]
A major retrospective of Kosho Ito’s work was recently held at the Museum of Contemporary At Tokyo, focusing on how he shows that chaos exists inherently in order, and vice versa [read more]
Tatzu Nishi’s homes are finished! The instillations I wrote about several weeks ago are about to open to the public, and the artist will be discussing his work in a free public talk at the AGNSW on October 2 from 1-2.30pm. Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is also holding a solo show for him from October 3–24 so we can all get totally Tatzud out. [read more]
Chu Enoki’s public interventions in the ’70s and ’80s shook up the divides between public and private spaces, art and the every day, spectatorship and participation. In more recent years the artist has moved away from body and performance based works towards sculpture and instillation that utilise found objects and materials including weaponry, ammunition and industrial detritus; such as this sci-fi city skyline made from highly polished junk metal bits [read more]
Why bring art to the home when you can bring home to the art? Two new homes are currently being constructed outside the Art Gallery of NSW, swallowing up Gilbert Bayes’ monumental bronze equestrian statues. When they open up at the start of next month visitors will be able to enter via a ramp into a cosy bedroom or living room – perfectly reconstructed with windows, carpets and furnishings – with the larger-than-life hoarse and rider structures protruding out of the floor or bed. The project is the latest from Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi who has been building domestic spaces around public monuments, artworks and streetlights for over a decade. By incorporating familiar, pre-existing structures and images into temporary, intimate domains he literally recontextualises them, forcing us to reconsider the public/private divide. [read more]
Stepping into a Hiromi Tango instillation is like seeing the results of her chaotic/kawaii soul stripped bare and laid out, in all its lo-fi psychedelic glory. There’s origami, balls of wool, faux flowers, needle-crafts, nick-knacks, letters, sequins, dolls and every shade of pink. Hiromi’s art is one of intimacy and conversation. She temporarily occupies public spaces like shop windows with her personal things and her self, and from there she interacts with anyone who passes by, swapping letters and gifts, even having them sleep over. Currently on show in the IMA’s Fresh Cuts exhibition is the most recent incarnation of the Japanese-born Brisbane-based artist’s Hiromi Hotel series, which dissolves the line between public and domestic spaces, as well as the artist/spectator divide [read more]
Tokyo, August 3. High up on the 5th floor of Shibuya store Cannabis. The ksubi collective have erected a bright blue plastic home away from home. Inspired by the hand built shelters of the homeless people of Tokyo’s streets, the installation Home honey, I’m hi! reflects both the Japanese obsession for material comforts and our desire for a simpler hassle-free existence. Post exhibition, the installation became ksubi’s first “pop n shop” pop up store [read more]
For his current exhibition at bld gallery in Tokyo, Kenji Yanobe has created an installation of Mini Toyarans, based on his iconic Giant Toyaran sculpture. Part man, part child and in a nuclear suit, Toyaran is modelled on a ventriloquist’s dummy used by Kenji’s father. Running until August 9, the exhibition features a legion of Mini Toyaran. This small army might stand at 10% of the size of their predecessor, but they are 100% as fascinating (and frightening!) [read more]
In a short space of time Kazuya Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA have achieved international acclaim with projects around the world such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Louvre Annex, Lens, France; the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio; and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan [read more]
Paramodal installations are like dioramas gone wild; with electric blue plastic railway worlds, biddy mountain goats and mini-lorries snuggling alongside sarariimen at a sushi bar, obachan scrubbing down in onsens and kawaii kids galore in a school gym [read more]
