<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.
If "calligraphy is the art of brush erosion" Kyuyo Ishikawa is its supreme master. An exhibition at the Ueno Royal Museum celebrates the history of this famous calligraphic artist and tells how this form of writing is a key to deciphering Japanese culture and civilization in modern times.
An exhibition to chronicle Leckey's fascination with the coexistence of humans with the consumer objects that surround them, led him to suggest an expanded idea of sculpture, an animist practice based on communication with industrial artifacts.
This exhibition focuses on the different trajectories of figurative works from the 1940s to the present day by Yayoi Kusama, an artist who is otherwise known for her abstract paintings.
The Owari Tokugawa family was the most important of the three clans that produced the shoguns of the military dynasty of the same name. For over 250 years, the Owari family ruled using Nagoya Castle as their main base. An exhibition tells its story through treasures now part of the Collections of the Tokugawa Art Museum.