Recent entries of "Art"

Photo by myself of the mysterious dog at the entrance of a building of 1, Ginza.

This dog is a sculpture, but seems to come out of the wall.
The face is expressionless, and I feel slightly sorry.

Hata3 and my partner went for Okinawa trip from August 13 to 16 in latter half of our summer vacation. It was the first time for me and was the second time for my partner. But she said to me that it's been 30 years since she went to Okinawa last. We have just come back home yesterday.

We had two purposes of this Okinawa trip. The first purpose was to watch the exhibition of the teacher of our Art school days. The teacher's name is Shigeo Kategawa, is a painter who was born in Okinawa prefecture. He was famous as an avant-garde artist in Tokyo in 1950's, however, he has left major painting circles of Tokyo in 1970's. Therefore, his exhibition in this Okinawa Art Museum is an exhibition for the first time in 30 years.

The upper photograph is an entrance of the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum in Naha city, Okinawa prefecture and a poster of the exhibition of Shigeo Kategawa.

The second purpose was to enjoy snorkeling in a beach of the Kerama-Shoto (Islands). We stayed at the hotel of Tokashiki Island for two days and enjoyed snorkeling very much. The blue sea called "Kerama Blue" was truly beautiful, and we were greatly satisfied. Besides, I have taken this trip photograph more than 1,500 pieces.

Because I don't come out of the excitement of this trip, I will write some entry for a while about Okinawa from today.

Related Links:
♥ Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum
♥ Okinawa Prefecture: Wikipedia

Last Saturday, I went seeing another photo event titled "LOVE CALL -PORTRAITS OF THE AGE-" in Marunouchi area, Tokyo. This photo event exhibits more than 900 portraits photographs of famous people that made the cover of weekly news magazine "AERA" for its 20 years celebration from May 9th to June 8th.

I thought this photo event was very ambitious, but it was unimpressive than I thought. Because this event is too highlighted the face of famous people as the object of shooting more than photograph itself. I might have more felt it after seeing Moriyama Daido Exhibition. I began to lose understanding what photograph is.

Related Link：
♠ AERA-net.jp (Japanese only)
♠ CANON:event-culture page (Japanese only)

Today's Photos:
♠ LOVE CALL -Portraits of the age- at Marunouchi Build.
♠ Exhibition at Gyoukou Underground Gallery

Yesterday, Hata3 went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. The purpose is to see the photo exhibition of Moriyama Daido. The official website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography described about the works of Moriyama Daido as followings:

"He continued to publish work in various photographic magazines, the high-contrast, grainy images he produced during the sixties and seventies being criticized as 'coarse, camera-shaken and blurred', but they were to cause a revolution in the Japanese photographic world."

"Capturing daily life in the form of ‘snapshots’ taken in the street, his powerful works stir up emotions such as desire, loneliness, unease, etc. in the viewer."

In all honesty, I didn't know his name and also he is the charisma of the Japanese photographic circles. But his many photographs makes me bring back my embarrassed memories of my youth when I wanted be an art painter and I always read novels of Jack Kerouac, Shuuji Terayama and so on. I think I am going to consider a little bit seriously again the problem what photography is......

Related Link：
♠ Moriyama Daido Official Site (Japanese only)
♠ Syabi: Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Today's Photos:
♠ Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
♠ Ticket of Moriyama Daido Exhibition

Click image for larger view.

Today, Hata3 and my partner went to The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) in Roppongi district. This museum has opened in January 2007 as Japan's fifth national art institution. Now, "the 85th exhibition of the shunyo-kai art society" is being held on this art center from April 16 to April 29.

My partner, Naoko Matsumiya is belonging to this artist association as a full membership and showing her painting at this exhibition. In this year, she said she wasn't satisfied with her work, but I think that's not so bad.

If you want to see another her works, please visit Shunyo-kai's web site as follows:

♥ Works of Naoko Matsumiya (Japanese language page)

Today's Photos:
♥ The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT)
♥ 85th Exhibition of The Shunyo-kai Art Society
♥ Red Berry (Naoko Matsumiya)

Last saturday, Hata3 and my partner went to a kind of gallery named "CHANEL NEXUS HALL" in Ginza. This gallery is in the store of Chanel which is well-known for a high quality boutique in the world. Wow, it was my first time that I have come into the Chanel's store.

By the way, we went to the Chanel's hall because there is an exhibition of Japanese artist named Morio Murai who lives in Paris, Corsica. We heard that the exhibition was very great from our friend.

At first glance we easily think that his "all-over" paintings are very much like works of Jackson Pollock. But he doesn't use the technique of pouring and dropping like Pollock. He paints his works by his hands. When you look at his paintings apart from the distance, you can see the natural scenery likes Sansui-ga [Chinese landscape paintings by sumi (India ink)] in his works. That made me surprised very much.

Anyway, this exhibition was surely very great, I think. I wonder that he is not famous in Japan. I am always disgusted at unsociable narrow circles of the Japanese art scene.

If you love painting or art, it's highly recommended.

♠ CHANEL NEXUS HALL
♠ JacksonPollock.com
♠ Jackson Pollock Online