The 9th Annual Taro Okamoto Memorial Award for Contemporary Art

The Kawasaki institution welcomes spring with a flourish of new art

Jiro Ishihara, Intermétro, 2005

The most compelling work in this latest iteration of the annual Taro Okamoto Memorial Award for Contemporary Art exhibition appears before you even walk through the door. Resting
at the top of the stairs to the museum are what could be the eggs of some enormous insect inhabitant of the surrounding forest. But these wild creations are actually artist Taidoh Ishida’s ongoing exploration of nature known as Drifting Objects.

One of these two oblong spheres is covered in a decaying greenish whiteness intersected and wrapped with thick twine that is unraveling and deteriorating before our eyes. The other object appears coated in an oxblood red varnish that pulls tightly on the washi-covered surface of the work like the skin of a well-basted pig at a Hawaiian barbeque. Ishida’s works—listing fire, water, sunlight and mold among its materials—are an evocative monument to nature’s influence and resonate as both supernatural and eerily familiar. Their presence is absorbing and powerful, making for a promising introduction to the rest of the exhibition.

Once inside, however, there aren’t many works to equal the fascination and effect of Ishida’s creations. Without a strong thematic purpose or even loosely structured links among its components, the exhibition is like a series of disparate one-person shows with little sense of wholeness. Yet the benefit of this is that one approaches each work solely on its own terms, and those pieces that rise to the challenge and command attention are all the more interesting for doing so.

Taidoh Ishida, Drifting Objects, 2005 photos Courtesy of The Taro Okamoto Museum

Among these, Riusuke Fukahori’s The Goldfishing stands out both for its technical mastery and a superb blend of presentation and narrative drama. In the work, several tiled plinths stand with small traditional bowls placed on top. Inside the bowls are sublimely executed paintings of goldfish suspended in successive layers of clear lacquer that create a trompe l’oeil effect of realism. Yet what holds the eye, and makes these works more than technical one-liners, is the evident drama unfolding between their aquatic characters. In one wooden sushi bowl, several fish crowd to the side as they look on in revulsion at two others summarily nibbling at their belly-up brethren.

In another, there is no bowl at all.

We find only one small opening in the plinth and inside a solitary fish all alone in the void.
Other pieces of note include the gender-bending installation of paintings by Youichi Umetsu. These pieces, while being unapologetically narcissistic, captivate through their bejeweled and painterly surfaces. Also, Jiro Ishihara’s playful InterMétro is a surprisingly rewarding digital record of subway systems worldwide. What initially seems to be a ho-hum collection of videos becomes increasingly interesting through unintentionally voyeuristic glimpses of urban life captured from the windows of trains in cities like Beijing, New York and Mexico City, among others.

Though this ninth installment of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Award for Contemporary Art exhibition doesn’t rival the excitement and scope of previous years, the exhibition remains one of the most welcome opportunities in the Tokyo area to see and experience some of Japan’s latest emerging artists. Coupled with the museum’s location in Kawasaki’s Ikuta Ryokuchi Park, this exhibition is one of the most enjoyable and irresistible of the spring art season.

Taro Okamoto Museum, until March 26. See exhibition listings (other areas) for details.

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