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…)

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…)

The New Art Dealer’s Alliance has announced the exhibitors list for this year’s edition of the fair, held concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach.  This year’s fair features a group of 80 galleries, with a high number of spaces from NADA’s home city of New York, including Feature Inc. and Zach Feuer, among many others.  The fair will also feature a special exhibition section from 11 galleries worldwide, including Rob Tuffnell in London, SculptureCenter in New York, and XYZ Collective in Tokyo. (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…)

“Francis Bacon in Raincoat,” 1967, photo by John Deakin, (c) The Estate of Francis Bacon, all images courtesy the National Museum of Art Tokyo and The Estate of Francis Bacon

Recently concluded at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo is a solo exhibition of works by Francis Bacon. Marking the first viewing of Bacon’s work in Japan in 30 years the exhibit is a retrospective focusing on the theme of the body, as well as the first exhibition of the artist’s work since his death in 1983.

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The Art Newspaper has published its annual survey of museum attendance for 2012, highlighting the best attended shows and museums of the past year.  While the top names on the list stayed relatively unchanged from past years (The Louvre still remains the world’s best attended museum, with The Met close behind), the recently opened Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas surged onto the list, and MOCA in Los Angeles also noted a dip in the face of board defections and budgetary concerns.  Also of note is the top exhibition of last year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum’s Old Masters show, which drew more than 10,000 visitors a day to see Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. (more…)

Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto has unveiled his new design for the Tokyo office of Christie’s Japan.  Situated in a pre-war stone building in Tokyo’s prestigious Marunouchi District, the new office design emphasizes its gallery space and entranceways, all based on Sugimoto’s adherence to Japanese heritage and literature.  “Mr. Sugimoto, a globally renowned artist, successfully created a space where the East and the West harmonize, and the past and the present blend together seamlessly.”  Says Managing Director Ryutaro Katayama.

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Installation view, Yoshitomo Nara, 2010. All images via Tomio Koyama Gallery.

Yoshitomo Nara has unveiled his first series of ceramic sculptures at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo.  Nara has been studying sculpture for the past year at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, where he created almost 20 pieces.  Nara’s new work maintains his characteristic stylization of children, a trademark painter A.R. Penk has described as “angelic.” Like Nara’s drawings, his sculptures seem both innocent and disconcerting: lines are thick and simple, colors are bold and basic, eyes are either closed or blank.  Nara’s subjects, however, often cry, bleed, possess fangs, and brandish knives.  Of this conflation of puerility and severity, Nara explains, “I kind of see the children among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives…”

Installation view, Yoshitomo Nara, 2010

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Shooting into the Corner, Anish Kapoor, 2009. Image via Scai the Bathhouse.

Anish Kapoor has installed five new sculptures at Scai the Bathhouse, Tokyo.  This is the third time Kapoor has exhibited his sculptures at the Japanese contemporary art gallery.  Although from Mumbai, India, Scai’s location prompted Kapoor to draw inspiration from Japanese craft, and to collaborate with an urushi lacquerware artist.

Untitled, Anish Kapoor, 2009. Image via Scai the Bathhouse.

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