Nerima Art Museum 35th Anniversary: Re construction
We visited “Re construction,” an exhibition commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Nerima Art Museum.
Nerima Art Museum
Gallery 1
This exhibition brings contemporary artists into dialogue with the Nerima Art Museum collection, inviting a fresh reinterpretation of the museum’s holdings.
The four participating artists each chose a work from the collection and produced a new piece in response, proposing a new point of view.
The exhibition opens with a room drawn from the collection itself.
Shohachi Kimura, Still Life, 1919, Collection of Nerima Art MuseumKazuo Shiraga, Mongaku: Ascetic Practice at the Waterfall, 1972, Collection of Nerima Art Museum
Manika Nagare
Manika Nagare’s gallery presented seven paintings from 2020.
Selected from the collection was Eikyu Matsuoka’s Hamamura, Where May-Rain Awaits — a work drawing on the curved waterside, a motif with a long history in Japanese culture. Alongside it were recent works whose theme is the intensity of natural color and light as felt in the awareness of death.
Eikyu Matsuoka, Hamamura, Where May-Rain Awaits, 1928, Collection of Nerima Art MuseumInstallation viewInstallation viewInstallation viewInstallation viewInstallation view
Satoru Aoyama
In Satoru Aoyama’s gallery, works layered with wry, forceful expression were shown against the backdrop of Duk-Jun Kwak’s President series.
From the installation view — Duk-Jun Kwak, President series, Collection of Nerima Art Museum
Many of the works Satoru Aoyama presents come from Everyday Art Market, a limited-run project he launched during the COVID-19 crisis.
Everyday Art Market is a project in which the artist Satoru Aoyama shows and sells online a daily series of embroidered pieces improvised from small ideas. It runs as a limited engagement until the turbulent world settles down. All items are one of a kind. — excerpted from Everyday Art MarketSatoru Aoyama, I Can’t Breathe, 2020Satoru Aoyama, Flag and Olympic Flame, 2020Satoru Aoyama, ART IS AVAILABLE FOR PANIC BUYING, 2020 — Produced on March 31, 2020. Drawing on lessons from the previous piece, I corrected the position of the embroidery. Comes with a plastic-recycling mark. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketSatoru Aoyama, AMAZOM BOX, 2020 — Produced on April 20, 2020. What began as a small experiment turned into a three-dimensional embroidered work only after many prototypes and failures. The box below is the subject, the pedestal, and also the shipping carton. As someone whose mail-order habits have gone into overdrive during the stay-at-home period, this is my provisional Object of the Month #1. To make it three-dimensional, please use the attached clip. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketSatoru Aoyama, Wash Your Hands Patch, 2020 — Produced on April 21, 2020. Washing your hands is important. The PIKOTARO and Arashi videos were brilliant too. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketSatoru Aoyama, Newsweek Relief, 2020 — Produced on April 28, 2020. An embroidered relief work. The number of pieces uploaded to Everyday Art Market has now passed 35. When you keep going, you naturally start wanting to fuss over things more and more. That’s a good thing, of course, but the lightness fades from the work. Even so, right now the judgment inside me is to keep pushing forward. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketSatoru Aoyama, No Sense of Time Clock, 2020 — Produced on April 30, 2020. “The clock that lost its sense of time while staying home.” The original idea for this work came from a friend and fellow artist, Yosuke Amemiya. He sent me the sentence above along with a photo of a clock his two-year-old son had wildly swung around, so I turned it directly into an embroidered clock. It contains three clocks, and each hand moves independently. The sound is amusing. During stay-at-home life you really do lose your sense of time and even your sense of what day it is. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketInstallation view
Also striking was the display method of leaving the storage-room doors open.
When the room went dark on a timer, phosphorescent thread was set to glow.
Satoru Aoyama, Map of The World (Dedicated to unknown Embroiderers), 2020Satoru Aoyama, Light the Future Patch (remade), 2020 — Produced on May 15, 2020. Turn off the light and the future glows. ※The letters stitched in phosphorescent thread glow in the dark. An LED flashlight is included. — quoted from Everyday Art MarketInstallation view
Motohiro Tomii
Motohiro Tomii’s works were shown alongside paintings by Gaku Onogi.
Installation viewInstallation viewMotohiro Tomii, board paper board (half origami), 2019
Maki Ohkojima
Maki Ohkojima worked with pieces including those of Jippo Araki to reconstruct visions of nature and life.
It was an intensely charged space.
Installation view — Jippo Araki, Early Spring in a Quiet Garden, 1922, Collection of Nerima Art MuseumMaki Ohkojima, Entanglement hearts series, 2020Installation viewAbove: Maki Ohkojima, Fetus tree, 2020 / Below: Maki Ohkojima, Golem, 2020Maki Ohkojima, Golem, 2020Maki Ohkojima, Venus, 2020 ※DetailMaki Ohkojima, Venus, 2020 ※Detail
