In a commentary on the ongoing threat of nuclear radiation in Japan, Kenji Kubota, associate professor at the University of Tsukubacurat in Japan, has curated an exhibition inside the exclusionary zone at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, a space only accessible to visitors wearing hazmat suits.  The exhibition, featuring work by Ai Weiwei, Taryn Simon and others, will remain open until the public is able to see it. (more…)

Takashi Murakami is the subject of the most recent “Lunch with the FT” Interview this week, joining a writer from the newspaper for lunch at the Kaikai Kiki Co. studios outside Tokyo, and discussing his role in a generation of artists investigating capitalism and its intertwined relationship with fine art, including his relationship to otaku subcultures.  “People say, ‘Oh, Takashi steals from our culture.’ But wait a minute. Our culture means my culture, too, right?” (more…)

Lee Ufan, (Installation View), via Bria Cole for Art Observed

If tranquility could serve as a physical construct, rather than a state of mind, then a state of calm could perhaps be considered as a reconditioning of vision, a way to perceive extended relations of time, material and space.  This sense of the perceptual retooling, and its effects, is one reading offered by Lee Ufan’s continuous series Relatum and Dialogue, the most recent version of which is currently on view at Pace Gallery.   The artist tends towards a relationship between philosophy and the objects he creates with artistic significance, in order to provoke subtle perceptual reconsiderations, as proposed in his writings and contributions to the Mono-ha school of artistic practice.

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Yayoi Kusama, Obliteration Room (2002 – present), via Art Observed

Yayoi Kusama returns to New York City this summer at David Zwirner, bringing a new body of paintings, sculptures, and one of her popular, full-room installation pieces, all of which offers a nuanced look at the 86 year-old artist’s prolific output.

Yayoi Kusama, My Life (2014), via Art Observed

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Lee Ufan, Dialogue-Silence (2013)

Lisson Gallery is currently presenting a new body of work by Lee Ufan, the influential artist who first gained recognition within the avant-garde art movement Mono-ha (School of Things) during the 1960’s. Considerably less known and understood in the West, Mono-ha emerged in Japan as a response to Eurocentric notions of representational and descriptive art making, focusing instead on the dialogue between nature and material.  Ufan, who started his career as a professor and art critic, stands out as an influential figure from the movement with his visually serene yet intellectually intriguing works, often harmonizing sculpture with works on canvas. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama has earned the hyperbolic title of the “world’s most popular artist” following the release of Art Newspaper’s annual survey.  “Kusama is the only one of our artists who sells on every continent.  “She’s very rare in that she has this kind of credibility within the art world establishment, but she also has a very broad popular appeal,” says Glenn Scott Wright, co-director of Victoria Miro. (more…)

The Japanese city of Saitama, just north of Tokyo, has announced that will launch its own triennale next year, headed by director Takashi Serizawa, who formerly led nomadic exhibition space P3.  “Cities are not just accumulations of buildings and roads, but rather a composite of human endeavor, history, and culture that develops over time,” says Serizawa.  “I envision the Saitama Triennale as a kind of “soft urbanism” — a social experiment intended to breathe some creativity into the workings of this city, as a nucleus of culture and art.” (more…)

Gabriel Orozco, Cats and Watermelons (1992), all images courtesy MoCA Tokyo

Inner Cycles is an exhibition of new works and historically significant pieces by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, who has been an influential figure in the international contemporary art community since the early 90’s.  Composed of found objects, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition is meant to show a “universe in flux” as objects are constantly appropriated and re-appropriated for new uses.

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MoMA has announced plans for an exhibition focusing on the work of Japanese conceptualist Yoko Ono.  Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 will include 125 of Ms. Ono’s early works, including sculpture, videos and other pieces.  It will open in May. (more…)

Takashi Murakami, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow (Installation View), via Ellen Burke for Art Observed

The recent work of Takashi Murakami is firmly embedded in the critical state of Japan in the 21st Century, a sense of the ecological peril that the country has attempted to deal with since the disasters of Fukushima several months ago.  Taking this cataclysmic event as the jumping-off point for much of his recent work, the artist has taken his signature style, replete with smirking characters, huge swaths of psychedelic color, and the delicate iconography of classical Japanese art, applying it to a new series of works on view through January at Gagosian Gallery’s Chelsea exhibition space. (more…)

Takashi Murakami, Oval Buddha Silver (2008), all images via Palazzo Reale

After more than a decade, Takashi Murakami has returned to Italy for an exhibition of his Arhat Cycle. The father of the Superflat movement, Murakami’s most recent work blends his signature style, in which he usually combines traditional elements of Japanese culture with consumeristic pop-culture imagery, into a series of paintings and sculptures depicting the artist alongside a dizzying cast of surreal characters.

Takashi Murakami, Arhat Cycle (Installation View) (more…)

Artist Yayoi Kusama is interviewed in The Telegraph this week, in the run-up to the artist’s show of new work at Victoria Miro next month.  In the article, the artist discusses her life between Japan and New York, and her reasons for moving to New York in the late 1950’s.  “Japan was a very feudalistic society and I felt I wanted to live more freely,” Kusama notes. “So I decided to go to America. I thought lots of people were making beautiful images in America… It was a very interesting society to me, especially the younger generation. Everyone seemed to try really hard to find their own way.” (more…)

Yusuke Suga, Mediator (2013), Courtesy of Friedman Benda and the artists

The inarguable force of nature and its fearful destructive impact hit Japan in March 2011 during the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, afflicting millions of lives and causing billions of damage. The number one earthquake in terms of strength in the history of Japan and the fifth in world records, and its resulting tsunami left the coast of Japan reeling from its physical and psychological damage, particularly after the meltdown of three plants at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Aside from the massive physical devastation it caused, the catastrophe carried charged memories and impacts to those who witnessed the disaster, either first-hand or indirectly. (more…)

On Kawara, 5 Feb. 2006

Artist On Kawara, whose ongoing artistic project involved the painting of each day of his life, has passed away at the age of 81.

Born in 1933 in Japan, Kawara worked in Tokyo until 1965, when he moved to New York City.  Shortly after arriving, Kawara began his famous “date paintings” series, painting the calendar date for each day of his life, meticulously recording the passage of his life on canvas through a simple, tracing of dates and time.  His absurdist, heavily conceptual bent opened a new engagement with the processes of time and context in art, making him an unlikely air to the work of early Dadaists like Duchamp and Magritte. (more…)

Hiroshi Sugimoto has been awarded the inaugural Isamu Noguchi prize for his work as an artist.  The photographer and architect was awarded the prize in an award ceremony at the Noguchi Museum in New York by Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations Motohide Yoshikawa. (more…)

Nowness has posted a video piece by Martin Rietti focusing on Yayoi Kusama’s studio work, and her fascination with patterns and motifs such as the polka-dot.  “When I was painting I found the same pattern on the ceiling, stairs and windows like they were all over,” Kusama says. (more…)

Takashi Murakami’s debut film Jellyfish Eyes is set to premiere in the United States next week, bringing some of the artist’s signature characters to the silver screen.  The film, which centers around a series of magical creatures that only children can see, will show in select cities May 1st through the 5th. (more…)

Laurie Simmons, How We See/Look 1/Julia (2014)

Currently on at Salon 94 Bowery is an exhibition of new photos by Laurie Simmons, based on her research on a subgenre of Japanese cosplay called “Kigurumi,” in which characters called “Dollers” or “Kiggers” change their identities, often flipping genders or becoming cartoon characters, by wearing onesie spandex suits and cartoonish masks.

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Hiroshi Sugimoto, Accelerated Buddha, exhibition view, all images courtesy Fondation Pierre Bergé

Currently on view at Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent is an exhibition of work by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, exploring the historical/cultural emergence and relevance of Buddhism in Japanese culture. Entitled Accelerated Buddha, the exhibition is the gallery’s 20th exhibition, which opened on October 10th and will run through January 26th 2013.

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Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

One may recall the final room of The Whitney’s sprawling retrospective of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama last year, stacked floor to ceiling with bold, brightly colored canvases.  Flourishing tentacles, patterns of eyes and teeth, cartoonish faces and swirling animalistic forms dominated the work, all delivered with a wide-eyed enthusiasm that made them hard to ignore.

Yayoi Kusama, My Heart (2013), via David Zwirner (more…)

Yayoi Kusama, INFINITY NETS [FBB] (2013), via Victoria Miro

Victoria Miro Gallery is currently opening its new Mayfair gallery with an exhibition of works by Yayoi Kusama‘s newest series of White Infinity Nets, intricate canvases covered almost entirely with white paint over a wash of black and grey.

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Artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and Sculptor Antony Gormley have been awarded the highest honor for artists in Japan, the Praemium Imperiale.  Recognized by the Japan Art Association, the prize recognizes artist’s lifelong achievements and contributions to the arts.  The awards will be presented at a ceremony on October 16th. (more…)

A 1903 portrait painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, stolen from a Tokyo home last decade, was reportedly sold at Sotheby’s this past February, Japan Times reports.  The portrait, titled Madame Valtat, had disappeared from its original owner’s home along with works by Marc Chagall and Ikuo Hirayama in 2000.  Sotheby’s has stated that the work had been legally acquired by the seller, and that it will continue to investigate the sale, but the case may prove difficult to fully resolve, as the auction house keeps the names of its sellers confidential. (more…)

A selection of ancient Japanese erotic paintings, titled “shunga” or “spring pictures” are currently on view at Sotheby’s Hong Kong location.  Considered somewhat taboo in Japan, the exhibition of works from the collection of Uragami Mitsuru struggled to find a home for its exhibition before Sotheby’s offered its location.  “The Tokyo National Museum hesitated to show it and so far I haven’t been able to get the Mori Museum to agree apart from a few works. In bookshops you can see these images but why can’t the real exhibit show? It’s nonsense,” Uragami said at the exhibition. (more…)