The artist Satoshi Ohno recently held an Open Studio in the city of Fujiyoshida in Yamanashi prefecture. Ohno was one of four artists whose work was featured in the exhibition Art Scope 2012-2014 – Remains of Their Journeys, which opened at the Hara Museum on July 12.
On Sunday, August 9, a group of Hara Museum members went to Fujiyoshida to visit his studio under the guidance of the artist, and to view various other exhibitions and studios being held as part of Art Kurabiraki Fujiyoshida 2014.
Art Kurabiraki Fujiyoshida 2014 is a program of art exhibitions, screenings and other events by young artists using the town’s old factories, warehouses and stores as venues.
First on the itinerary was the Shimoyoshida Warehouse in front of the station. Tomohiko Saito of cino lab, the organizer of Art Kurabiraki Fujiyoshida 2014, was on hand as our guide.
Mr. Saito of cino lab.
Mr. Saito spoke with enthusiasm about the potential of the town of Yoshida, located at the foot of Mt. Fuji, a designated World Heritage Site. He spoke about the various art activities taking place there and his dream of creating a movie theater there in the future.
Also on view was the exhibition Utopia featuring the work of seven young artists from Japan and abroad. Its venue was the former factory of the Fuji Ice-Making Company.
In the left-front part of the venue, a picture story by Nicolas Buffe was on view. The same picture story was presented in June as part of the Nicolas’ Kid’s Art Room event at the Hara Museum, which was highly popular (we apologize for the poor visibility in this photo).
This is an exhibit by Tetsuro Kano, an artist who participated in an open studio art residency at Hara Museum ARC.
This exhibit is by Shunsuke Imai.
This is Zsófi Barabás, who was visiting Japan from Hungary. She spoke to us about her artworks.
Because Fujiyoshida is so high up, its crisp cool air made us forget that we were still in the middle of summer. At times, even fog would roll in. Mr. Ohno, who last year lived for three months in Germany, experiencing a foreign milieu as part of the Art Scope residency program, created works for this exhibition that take into account Japan’s unique humidity and climate. One wonders what influence the climate of Yoshida had on Ohno’s art.
After enjoying several different exhibits and then lunch, we finally went on to the studio of Mr. Ohno.
In this photo, Satoshi Ohno stands on the left. It is a large studio with a high ceiling. He was evidently working at the same time on several pictures shown here.
In the open studio, there were artworks by three other artists whom Ohno holds in esteem: Daisuke Fukunaga, Rie Yamada and Yu Nishimura. One can sense from Ohno’s works what he strives to do, which is to display a fresh new power of painting that overturns preconceptions and appeals directly to the viewers’ sensibilities.
We were filled with memories of the rich events of the day as we pulled into Fujisan Station on our way back home (even the cars of the train were emblazoned with Mt. Fuji!).
We want to thank Mr. Ohno for putting together this program specially for the Hara Museum membership and all the artists for their invaluable commentary.
Satoshi Ohno’s Open Studio and Art Kurabiraki Fujiyoshida 2014 were open to the public until August 17 (Sunday).