<em>Theaster Gates</em>, <em>Doric Temple</em>, 2022 High fire stoneware with glaze, Dimensions variable, <em>Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces</em>, New Museum, New York, 2022-2023 | Photo: Chris Strong
地址: 53F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6 Chome−10−1, Minato City Tokyo 106-6150 Tokyo
When in 1928 the Japanese philosopher Yanagi Sōetsu theorized the theoretical and aesthetic proposal of Mingei - what we now define as popular or folk Japanese art and craftsmanship - his aim was to demonstrate that beauty could be found in ordinary and utilitarian everyday objects made by unknown and unnamed artisans, as opposed to the higher art forms created by named artists. This theme greatly fascinated the American artist Theaster Gates who in this exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo appropriated the Japanese concept to reinterpret it in a new "black" key in an original experiment of cross-cultural contamination between two worlds very distant from each other and with the aim of bringing out an art centered on black beauty and aesthetics. Theaster Gates masterfully translates the complexities of darkness through clay, objectivity, space and materiality. While black culture and history remain relatively little known to Japanese audiences, this exhibition aims to convey the contemporary importance of art that celebrates craftsmanship, issues of race, politics and cultural hybridity by offering a comprehensive overview of Gates' practice.
This exhibition features more than 70 new works by seven groups of eight high-profile artists from Japan, Vietnam and Finland. The theme is that of photography which goes beyond the idea of "memory".
For Henri Matisse his atelier was a fundamental space to exercise his artistic practice. This exhibition explores the relationship between the artist and his creative space and the crucial role that Matisse's studio played in the imagination of the great French painter in the last phase of his life.
The famous opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - part of the "Lorenzo Da Ponte trilogy", together with The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni - arrives in Tokyo in a grandiose show directed by Norichika Iimori and with the voices of Serena Gamberoni, Daniela Pini and Joel Prieto.
The relationship with the mountains and the sea have been an object of faith and spirituality since ancient times in Japan. This exhibition presents works created by Japanese painters on this theme accompanied by the reading of the writings of the famous landscape scholar Shiga Shigeaki.