Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery

Jam: Tokyo-London. A unique overview of the globalisation of urban culture by energetic 44 creators across the various fields including fashion, graphic design, photograph, fine art and music from those two cities. {Sic}

So read the introduction to the show on the Invitation Card.

Quite the contrary really. There was no sense of globalisation at all, nor a clear definition was given by what the curators meant by globalisation of urban culture. (But then this maybe in the catalogue, which I have ordered).

My own view is that the globalisation of urban culture is a myth. On a superficial level, certain similarities and common strands can be found: teenagers wearing Levis, Nike sneakers or Gap t-shirts, the influx of MTV and Harry Potter. But this is on the surface. Japanese teenagers prefer listening to Japanese pop music (which in turn doesn’t export well). They watch Japanese TV programmes not American imports. They don’t wear Nike sneakers in the same way as in the west. There is a reinterpretation of fashion in a uniquely localised way. Manga characters are a cult in the UK not in the mainstream as they are in Japan. I could go on...

Inadvertently it would seem, if this show highlighted anything, it was to reaffirm how wide apart the two cultures are and, no doubt unintentionally, the schism between UK and Japanese artists, in terms of both the nature of the work and the quality.

Not that the latter was high with either nationalities but the British based artists erred on the side of being more inventive with their ideas. This wasn’t a show where the work will stand the test of time. Much of it - with one or two exceptions - was expendable, unmemorable and will find that beyond the life of the show it has no further existence other than in the artist’s studio. Besides the standard being low, there was also too much work in the show, crammed in too small a space within an overall design concept that overwhelmed the exhibits itself. Was it necessary to have hundreds of pink Jam carrier bags suspended from the ceiling? What were they symbolising? Japan’s love affair with the carrier bag? (This is a country where it is possible to buy second-hand, luxury Brand carrier bags). Were they a metaphor for the ubiquitous Tokyo neon sign?

If there was an upside to the sheer density and proximity of work, it was that it reflected the urban brutality of Tokyo, where space - or at least western concepts of space - do not exist. The downside was that the work couldn't breathe. For many of the exhibits, their neighbours were an intrusion that detracted rather than added any resonance; there was no sense of relationship as to why one work was placed next to another. But perhaps this was deliberate: jumble and randomness, reflecting today’s urban culture.

Overall there was no coherence to the show, not even a broad theme which could act as an umbrella to gather up and make sense of the choice, other than a freneticism that comes from an over reliance of computer graphics, music and videos. Yet, within this desire to show “energy” there were selections that were out of place. I couldn’t see how Yoshitomo Nara’s work fitted in at all. Someone suggested it was because of the need to give some weight to the selection. That this was needed was true but Nara?

If there were themes, then a cynical viewpoint was that they could be summed up by the poor state of photography, that artists shouldn’t try to be usurp pop videos and that there was a distinct lack of craft and finish. It was as if the artist had realised that their work was transitory before they even started. Why a photograph should be thought to take on merit because it is blown up to a 3 feet square C-Print is puzzling. Yoshinga’s photographs of Japanese bikers were not art but bland photo-reportage. Elaine Constantine took a series of very tedious photographs of a teenager which when blown up just exacerbated their lack of merit. There were black and white photographs by Ewen Spencer of teenagers dancing at a garage night, neither memorable nor offering any new insight to the subject.

There were highlights: Steve Gontarski's sleek, sensuous, flowing fibreglass figures that cried out to be caressed. The fact that Jay Jopling is a collector underscored their beauty and stature.

Kyoichi Tzuzuki created an installation in homage to the Love Hotel; an institution he claims is fast disappearing due to new government regulations. (I hadn't noticed this). On the outside of a booth, there were several tens of photographs of love hotel bedrooms with the name of the hotel and the price for an overnight stay or a short rest. Part the curtains, walk in to the booth and you could sit on a revolving bed watching an ever-changing slide show of the gaudy interiors of love hotels. This was very popular, particularly with girls. At times, it was impossible to find a space to sit.

In short, it brought the love hotel experience to life without resorting to erotica (although sadly there was too little of that in the show).

Another installation with merit was Final Home by Kosuke Tsumura. A family of three mannequins, dressed as if they were the survivors of nuclear fall out, were plaintively living their no hope-fragmented futuristic existence.

That’s three out of 43 artists. Could it be as bad as that. Yes, it could.

Bump/Shorditch Twat is awarded a half star. He attended dressed just like a twat in a white peaked hat, jeans and cowboy boots. In his work, he creates posters which make satirical, wry comments on today’s lifestyle magazine obsessed culture. Funny in parts but sometimes his wit is flat and obvious. More attention required to detail, his school report would say.

Local boys, Deluxe, who are an architectural partnership should stick to their daytime job. They had (yes another) installation based on Deluxe Time. Photographs of their work flipped over like the seconds on one of those clocks popular in the sixties. I scribbled in my notes “not quite”. Quite.

Yohimoto Nara scored high for popularity. Once again, girls were taking lots of photographs of his cute little character. But the work was out of place and was a lazy assemblage of a collection of his scribbles. Were they his working studies? No idea.

Of course, there were the installations based upon the detritus and sub-culture of everyday Tokyo life. ‘A Bathing Ape’ by Nigo took the neat approach: perfectly placed Planet of the Ape dolls and pairs of trainers were hung on a wall or displayed in glass cabinets, creating an effect like a smart designer retail store. (Which is what Bathing Ape is...a fashion label so what's it doing here. Go figure).

Conversely, Kazuhiko Hachiya took the 'throw it all together like a Japanese corner store' route for his installation using Post Pet, his e-mail character. No doubt, we would be told that this wasn’t a haphazard jumble but that each of the hundreds of items was specifically placed in position.

Ben Judd had two videos playing side by side. He was upset because there should have been sound but it had been turned off and there was no way he could switch it back on.

I was amused by one video. The camera’s viewpoint was from the passenger seat, positioned so that it was super-imposed over the head or hair of an outside passer-by. It made me smile. The other may have benefited from sound. A stripper was standing on a low stage dressed in underwear and a top, which she pulled up from time to time. Soundless it had no meaning what so ever.

Otherwise, there wasn’t too much else of interest and a lot that would fit a viewpoint that there is too much conceptual art, which is hype, and no substance. In this instance not a lot of concept either. As to be expected, there were photographs of sex workers, large manga based graphics, photographs of teenagers having fun in clubs, the tedious faux pop videos, and a number of artists who believe that hanging clothes in mid-air is art. What is it about suspending clothes in mid-air. All of this should have been kept in the packing cases they were transported in.

If any trend stood out. I couldn’t see one. If what was meant by globalisation was that work lost a local identity and was becoming seamless I don’t believe that would be held up by this show. Technique maybe global but not the content. Most of the work was based on local subjects and themes. But then I don’t think that the essence of either city was captured. Or was it? Isn’t London about hype now and Tokyo superficial and transitory with no self-confidence?

The pity is that in their formlessness and lack of ideas, they didn’t even attempt to be shocking or radical. Frankly, I was bored. There was nothing progressive about the work nor did it offer a new take on the two cities, their culture or people. (It was as much a stereotype as it proclaimed to be avoiding).

The better work wasn’t in this show but upstairs in another. Tanaka Eiko is a young artist who completed her studies in 1995 and is based in Osaka. She works mainly in acrylic on canvas, where she takes a landscape, a view or a still life and paints with a firm flat brush that takes away the detail leaving blocks of limited colour shades. There was a confidence in her work and I enjoyed the way she was highly selective: she was directing what she wanted the viewer to see. I asked her if she drew from life. No, she said. Her inspiration came from magazine or newspaper photographs.

It was work that you had to put yourself in. Not to everyone’s taste though and perhaps a tad too much like Kaii Higashiyama’s landscape reductions.

National Museum of Modern Art

The Unfinished Century: Legacies of 20^th century art.

In its first show since undergoing extensive renovation, the Museum has put together an overview of modern Japanese art from the turn of the 20^th century to the new millennium. At the same time, the curators have juxtaposed work from the West to demonstrate the influences that have come to play on Japanese artists, and how they responded. You are asked to make comparisons. A rather invidious exercise I thought but fun none the less. There are also examples of nihonga, Japanese art that is said to be unique and uninfluenced by the west. However, it is worth noting at the outset, that this show is too ambitious in subject. It is impossible within the space to fully explore and give a comprehensive picture of modern Japanese art. Too little space is given to Japanese artists post-war which underplays the richness of work and thinking that exists.

The exhibition starts with a selection of early figurative paintings that portray a simple frugal Elysian existence of the Japanese peasant and farmer. (Indeed one nihonga painting by Kobei Kobayashi is called Elysian Well). The setting of the season and the use of sunsets create a pastoral genre that today would look touching on postcards but highlights the limited vision of these painters. Of course, this was within a few decades of Japan opening up to the West and the opportunity for painters to see a breadth of western work was limited. Japan was still conservative and traditional in its approach to the arts. These are paintings very much in the decorative Victorian style with those artists painting in a western idiom still using nihonga themes where life and people are simple and beautiful. With one exception: the work of Shigeru Aoki whose dark brooding transient figures reflected a distraught undercurrent of confusion and a questioning of religious themes.

The 1910s come across as an unsettled period with the representative work not showing any singular influence until after the first world war when the paintings begin to imitate the emerging movements in the West: cubism, abstraction, surreal et al. It is Paris which is heavily influencing this early Japanese modern art, and there is a blossoming of Japan’s artistic expression from the 1920s onwards. This was also a time when minority groups of artists began to rebel against the stifling salon system that had been established in Japan.

It is difficult, in at least in this selection, to see anything particularly Japanese in the reinterpretation of Western art either thematically or in style. But then of course, Japan itself was becoming quickly Westernised in the period between the two world wars, and Paris represented the best of Western painting. However, this did lead to criticism by some artist groups within Japan. Murayama Tomoyoshie wrote in 1924: “Most of it is an imitation of spineless French Imperial salon style boiled down from Picasso and Braque” and the truth of this statement can be seen in the work on show.

(One early painting did stand out. Pissing Monk with no Clothes, painted in 1915 by Kaita Murayama. A shock. Using heavy bold strokes, a naked monk stands having a piss. His penis painted golden and standing out thick and strong from his crimson haloed body).

At this time most Japanese artists, if they travelled abroad were going to Paris to study; a few more adventurous souls including Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Hideo Noda immigrated to the US.

In the late 30s, I could sense that Japan’s military incursions in to China and Korea were influencing work - as well as a strong influence from the Soviet Union. There was turmoil, fear, bleakness and isolation coming through. Saburo Aso’s self-portrait of 1937 was full of dread as if he had witnessed the horrors of Japanese atrocities. Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s Upside Down Table with Mask spoke of the turmoil and demonic character of war. Although not heavily represented in the show, there were, in Japan at the time, a number of artists who were driven to show social realism with art that was sympathetic to communist ideals. But the police and state were authoritarian in their pressure, limiting their output.

At last, it seems, the emotions of war and politics had given Japanese artists their own voice.

This energisation then blossoms in the paintings of the Second World War. Suddenly they have a passion whether initially celebrating Japan’s victorious efforts or showing scenes of desperation when the bombs begin to fall on the cities or battles are lost.

There were a number of paintings that brought a smile to my face. Toshi Shimiza’s Engineers Bridge Construction in Malaya had a group of well-fed Japanese engineers working diligently on a bridge. Not a malnourished beaten and tortured POW in sight. In a painting of the surrender of Singapore, the British are denuded of any medals, decorations or badges of rank whilst the conquering group of General Yamashita are shown in all their imperial splendour.

After the war, there is the inevitable influence of the atomic bomb and the wholesale devastation that Japan faced following defeat. (It is of course interesting that no equivalent paintings were done of Japan’s earlier invasion of Manchuria and the destruction wrought there).

The symbolism is raw, heavy, powerful and wrought with pain and despair. The Hiroshima Panels by Iri, Toshi Maruki are indicative are the period. But was this approach eventually became too heavy handed. Was this a stimulus for a movement like Gutai who wanted to break away from this figurative self –pity? It was during the 1950s that Japanese artists lost their shackles and were able to take on unique identities of their own. This reflected the greater opening up of the country to Western (and particularly American) influences whether from the influx of magazines, visiting artists and exhibitions. Whilst using techniques developed in the elsewehere, there was a clear unambiguous use of Japanese symbolism, calligraphy and iconography. There was an emergence of confidence that could be seen from the work of the Gutai movement in the show: Yoshihara, Saito, and Imai.

In the 1960s, pop art makes an appearance with the work of Tadanori Yokoo and the liberalisation of Japanese artists continued. Artists such as Kudo and Miki demonstrating the abilities of Japanese based artists to carve their own furrow.

As we move in to the last decades of the century, I was struck by how it was Western artists who had more to say about Japan than Japanese artists but then I think this was more to do with the limitations of the exhibition than what was really happening within Japan. Tony Cragg’s 1982 “Tokyo –Wuppertal” showing a fragmented plastic person talking on the phone captures the transitory disposable nature of society that has only gotten worse since then.

Overall a brave attempt to sweep across a hundred years of art but I suspect the impetus of the show was to put on display much of the Museum’s holdings.

Mariko Mori at the Museum of Contemporary Art

Everyone who has visited this vast museum knows it is a stunning architectural realisation. Not radical or indeed remarkable but it has managed to capture a sense of space that in itself fascinates a visitor whilst not detracting from the exhibitions. It is a total experience, where the architecture is distinctive and is enjoyable in its own right. I like to visit. Most shows can be enjoyed without being overwhelmed or cramped.

But the restaurant. This looks like the worst hotel coffee shop, the type found in small Chinese cities or on an Expressway: plastic tablecloths, fake flowers, cheap mail order furniture: pine cupboards, bamboo and rattan screens and, god forbid, a barometer. And it gets worse: playing in the background is a tape of country and western greatest hits. Is this a tongue in cheek ironic statement about the West’s obsession with providing cafeterias and restaurants in their museums. Places which build a culinary reputation as strong as the museum’s scholarly and curatorial reputation (think of the Tate restaurant).

Or is it the fact that in Japan it is impossible for anything to be organised and executed perfectly to the smallest detail. That once the architect has completed his contract there is a complete disregard for the vision and dream that he had for the purity of his design.

In Mariko Mori’s work, there is no such lapse in execution. Everything is achieved with absolute (and expensive) perfection: the high gloss finish of the huge photo prints; the immaculate manicure of her nails; the reflective sheen of her costumes; the perfect finish of her Dream Temple; her flawless make-up. This is not art with a rawness. It isn’t art where you can even begin to feel (literally) the touch of the artist in her work. Mori is an aspect of her work, her presence is central to each of the pieces but she herself isn’t part of the crafting of the piece. That is left to photographers, cameramen, costume makers, set builders, stylists, make-up artists, composers, to mention a few. The credits for her video Kumano lists 25 people as well as a further dozen or so organisations. Mori is the conceptual thinker. She has the idea; she performs in it but it is left to others to realise her dream. (And much of the cost is borne by Shiseido).

Not that this self-centred approach is an untrodden path. Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman are two others quoted as influences in the catalogue: artists who appear as the focal subject of their work. Mori is a performance artist except she never does live performances but uses photography, video and three-dimensional works to act as a vehicle for her.

Mariko Mori is one of the wonder kids of the international art world. Starting out as a model in her teens, she then went to the Chelsea College of Art, London followed by an independent study programme at the Whitney in New York.

Her work is heralded because it is seen to represent the reality of the everyday life - emotional, social and physical - of young girls in Japan. The kitchness, superficiality, the drama of life in Tokyo, costume play, anime and manga are dominant themes. Above all, her work captures the isolation that can readily be found in Tokyo. In almost all her early photographs, where she assumes a role of a strange character, passers-by largely ignore her. People shy away. They try not to see her. Nobody blinks an eyelid at this fanciful creature that has appeared in their midst's. They ignore the green tea that is being offered. They are unconcerned that here is a girl with a machine gun. Only younger people are curious.

It is a reflection that within Tokyo many people live in isolation. Millions of people travel each day without saying a word to each other on the train. They walk the streets without taking any notice of the world around them. Individually they are living in their own dream world of fantasy.

In later works, her isolation is enhanced but has nothing to do with urban life. Now we are witnessing her own voyage of personal discovery. She has left the modern world and has moved back in to the traditions of Buddhist and Shintoism. She has become a goddess or shaman (a intermediary with the gods who conveys divine messages to mortals) and all other entities of life are removed entirely (except for some cute pixies that appear in some of the work). She is gradually withdrawing completely from any notion of the real world.

Finally, she has removed her physical presence from the work entirely with Dream Temple where Mori recreates her own most inner self. Her spirit. As commentators have noted, she has been on a journey that she ascribes to a death experience when she was young. She describes this as follows:

“I became motivated to make art when the thought occurred to me, “I will die.” Although my body was not damaged, I programmed the idea that I would die with my conscious mind. At the same time, I really thought I would die. At first, I lost my sight and my hearing. All my memories of my birth to the present came back. And then everything went dark. This condition of being in the dark continued for five or six hours. A long time passed before I returned to consciousness. I felt I just had to live and fought hard…I had a sense of myself being reborn in consciousness and being something different. Ever since then I have been asking myself what this experience meant, and since then I have looked at death as something of this world rather than another.”

But in doing so, she wants the participant to not only to “get in touch” with themselves, to “enter in to contact with their intimate self” but also to reach a state where “there is no more division between yourself and the outside world” In this, as in her earlier works, her role is as a shaman, acting as a bridge between you and some other world but now you longer see the physical person.

It is all too easy to look at Mori’s work as just a manifestation of many aspects of Japanese life. From the superficially obvious (manga characterisations) to the use and juxtaposition of religious and cultural symbols, taking things that are traditional and then using modern technology to recreate them. Instead, it is highly personable. She claims to be exposing herself to the viewer, asking them to come in to her world and by so doing maybe seeing themselves and the world more clearly. And maybe she believes for real that she is indeed a shaman. That this was what her near death experience was all about.

The question is whether it is all just superficial tat: a rather expensive exercise in hick philosophy and pseudo religion. After all it takes little effort to get dressed up in a fancy costume, get a video artist and computer graphics expert to throw together a few religious symbols; be photographed running through a misty forest and add some dreamy soundtrack of new age music. There is no genuine or orginal thought. Is she really wanted to be a shamen then she could join a temple. Also, Japan is full of new religious sects.

There is also a viewpoint that her later work also is no more than derivative giant album covers from the 1970s; that the early portrayals, dressing up and appearing in public places, required scant effort and again are no more than what can be seen daily for real, in comics or in advertising images. In the West, it might seem new and exciting. In Japan there is so what. This might explain why it has taken so long for a show to be mounted.

At the opening of her show she appeared looking like Princess Leila out of Star Wars wearing a futuresque cream coloured outfit and her hair tied up in two buns at the back. She speaks in a considered voice.

Play-acting or genuine it doesn’t really matter if you are prepared to take your own journey with her.

Atsuko Tanaka at Tomio Koyama Gallery

Inside the small Gallery there is a small women dressed in a beige two-piece trouser suit. Tanaka-san is now 70 years old but appears older. She is frail for her years, speaks in a whisper and when she writes her hand shakes and is weak. Yet around her are six paintings, completed within the last two years that exploded with vitality and life, which make the skin tingle. How could this small creature produce art with such power? And whilst the room is small, and each work has this tremendous power, each is able to stand on its own without being dominated or affected by the others.

Tanaka will forever be known - as a member of the 1950s Gutai movement – for her Electric Dress. Or Electric Clothes.

However, when she showed Electric Clothes for the first time in 1956 she also showed twenty drawings that she had made in the process of developing Electric Clothes (and just to note she still prepares exploratory studies for all her paintings).

The drawings were a series of circles and rectangles, and a series of interconnecting lines that were looked upon as representing electric bulbs, neon tubes and power cords.

With these drawings as a starting point, Tanaka embarked on creating a series of paintings in a style that is consistent to this day.

Her paintings are done using vinyl paint or acrylic lacquer on canvas, and always using the same two motives: circles of varying sizes with a tangle of lines running over them. That she has been able to create - over forty years or so - a body of work using these simple elements without repetition, stereotypiction (or indeed becoming bland through her own boredom) demonstrates the intensity of the vision that she has held.

A vision of her. Her work is an extension of her own body. She deliberately chose to use vinyl or acrylic as it allowed her to paint with total control as the paint offered little or no resistance to her hand movements. The painting has become an extension of her person and her own personality. If you are moved by the work, it is because you can see in to both Tanaka’s spirit and understand that she is making you think about the transient nature of your own self. Whilst it is an unconnected analogy, it is as if you have been energised by her spirit. She has plugged herself in to you.

The power comes because within that frail body is the same spirit that starting in the 1950s was able to make a significant and enduring impact on Japanese contemporary art both as an individual and through the Gutai group - in which she remained an individual element as well, not necessarily reflecting the aesthetic guidelines or rules that the group subscribed to.

A show that was worth seeing.

(c) grahamthomas.2002. No part of this text can be reproduced in any form without permission.

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