Things Worth Remembering 2010: NTC

An association of seven emerging galleries, New Tokyo Contemporaries was established in 2008 to create a new context for contemporary art in Tokyo, and organizes annual exhibitions and panel discussions drawing upon the unique perspectives of its members. With the member galleries regularly traveling Japan and the world to participate in art events, we asked each of their principals to select one exhibition from the past year that reflects their ideas about art. What follows are their “Things Worth Remembering” for 2010:

AOYAMA|MEGURO
Hideki Aoyama

Rinjiro Hasegawa at Hiratsuka Museum of Art


Paper Bags

These works were like that rare book that unfolds after repeated readings. That is where the strength of art lies. Similarly moving exhibitions this year included those by Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver, Tomoharu Murakami, Kazuo Okazaki, Jun Yang and Lee Kit.

Details: Rinjiro Hasegawa at Hiratsuka Museum of Art, April 17 to June 13; Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver, “EX-SIGN,” at the Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, February 27 to April 11; Tomoharu Murakami, “Out of Silence,” at Nagoya City Art Museum, June 1 to July 4; Kazuo Okazaki, “Garden of Supplements,” at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, September 11 to November 3; Jun Yang, “A Short Story about Forgetting and Remembering,” at ShugoArts, Tokyo, July 24 to September 11; Lee Kit, “Well, that’s just a chill,” at ShugoArts, Tokyo, October 30 to November 20. Image credit: Rinjiro Hasegawa – Paper Bags (1970), courtesy Hiratsuka Museum of Art.

 

ARATANIURANO
Tomoko Aratani & Mutsumi Urano

Felix Gonzalez-Torres,
‘Specific Objects without Specific Form’


Untitled (Golden) (1995) between Giacometti, Bacon

Displayed in a beautiful space suffused with natural light and overlooking the surrounding rural landscape, the works of Gonzalez-Torres maintained their own presence even as they were juxtaposed against the fantastic holdings of modern and contemporary art that distinguish the Beyeler collection, including masterpieces by Picasso, Monet, Giacometti, Pollock, Bacon and Richter. An impressive exhibition.

Details: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, May 22 to August 29. Image credit: Installation view of “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form” at Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2010, with works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon visible, photo Serge Hasenböhler, courtesy Fondation Beyeler.

MISAKO & ROSEN
Misako & Jeffrey Rosen

Man Ray / Ruth Laskey


Ruth Laskey

Even though Man Ray is one of the figures who defines my artistic sensibility, the National Art Center’s show of rarely exhibited works from the Man Ray Trust provided new vantage points into his world and plenty of stimulation for my obsession with him. It was particularly rewarding to discuss this exhibition with the artists in my circle.
Seemingly a guilty pleasure, the work of Ruth Laskey evokes a certain calm through what appears to be tradition; yet, even slight engagement – perhaps the most appropriate kind – reveals that the work is thoroughly contemporary, and this fact makes it all the more remarkable.

Details: “Man Ray: Unconcerned But Not Indifferent,” National Art Center, Tokyo, July 14 to September 13; Ruth Laskey, Ratio 3, San Francisco, September 10 to October 23. Image credit: Installation view of Ruth Laskey at Ratio 3, San Francisco, 2010, courtesy Ratio 3.

MUJIN-TO PRODUCTION
Rika Fujiki

Cai Guo-Qiang, ‘Peasant Da Vincis’

It was a personal trip, but this year I made my first visit to China. Among the exhibitions that I saw there, Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Peasant Da Vincis” inaugurating the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai was far and away the best. Opening concurrent to the Shanghai World Expo, this exhibition comprised a collection of uncanny robots, flying saucers, helicopters and other contraptions that had been built by amateur inventors from across China and “curated” by Cai. Adding his own touches to the exhibition, Cai spread works across the museum interior and exterior grounds in a sprawling installation. Painted in large strokes across a wall leading to the museum entrance, the phrase “Peasants make the city better” (Nongmin rang chengshi geng meihao) was a canny inversion of the Chinese-language theme of the Expo, “The city makes living better” (Chengshi rang shenghuo geng meihao; Better City, Better Life). If the Expo was a means to display the power of the nation, Cai’s exhibition provided an opportunity to see the power of the individual in China, and was a moving embodiment of the artist’s message.

Details: Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, May 4 to July 25. Image credit: Exterior view of “Peasant Da Vincis” at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, photo Rika Fujiki.

TAKE NINAGAWA
Atsuko Ninagawa

Paul Thek, ‘Diver, A Retrospective’


Untitled (Four Tube Meat Piece)

Working primarily during the height of minimalism, Paul Thek also borrowed elements from Pop art and numerous disparate media to create his own unique artistic language. The artist’s first retrospective in his native US, this exhibition provided new perspective on the standard post-war art history. The last room is a restaging of Thek’s final exhibition – held on the eve of his death from AIDS in 1988 – with paintings presented low to the ground in a beautiful and moving installation. Beginning with the artist’s “meat pieces” and concluding with a painting that features the phrase “time is a river,” this exhibition eloquently questions the nature of life itself.

Details: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 21, 2010, to January 9, 2011. Image credit: Paul Thek – Untitled (Four Tube Meat Piece) (1964), from the series “Technological Reliquaries,” wax, metal, wood, paint, glass, plaster, rubber, resin and glass, 41 x 41.3 x 13.7 cm, in the Kolodny Family Collection, photo Orcutt & Van Der Putten, © The Estate of George Paul Thek, courtesy of Alexander & Bonin, New York.

YUKA SASAHARA GALLERY
Yuka Sasahara

Yuichi Yokoyama, ‘A Complete Record of Neo Manga
– I am Drawing Time’

In a gallery carpeted with artificial turf, Yokoyama’s original drawings for manga publications such as Travel were laid out in concentric rows of waist-high displays arranged to encircle viewers, who had to make several circuits of the same space as they went through the exhibition. In a small backroom, the desk that Yokoyama himself uses for drawing was installed alongside a cassette tape playing back the “sounds” to which the artist listens as he works. The exhibition effectively recreated the “time” and “space” that Yokoyama depicts in his sparsely narrated “neo-manga” works.

Details: Kawasaki City Museum, April 24 to June 20. Image credit: Installation view of “A Complete Record of Neo Manga – ‘I am Drawing Time'” at Kawasaki City Museum, 2010, courtesy Kawasaki City Museum.

ZENSHI
Zenshi Mikami

‘The Traveling Show’

The largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Central and South America, Fundación/Colección Jumex periodically invites curators to organize exhibitions from its holdings. The Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, a co-curator along with Jens Hoffmann of the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, contributed this exhibition, with works by an impressive lineup of artists including Vito Acconci and Doug Aitken. Jumex’s exhibitions are an annual must-see for those visiting Mexico City for the Zona Maco art fair.

Details: Fundación/Colección Jumex, Ecatepec, Mexico, April 15 to September 17. Image credit: Installation view of “The Traveling Show” at Fundación/Colección Jumex, 2010, photo Zenshi.

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Things Worth Remembering 2010

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