With courageous exhibitions and surprising dialogues, the Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren has long since acquired an excellent national reputation. Nevertheless, it is a risk to deny an exhibition exclusively with Japanese contemporary art. But for Jan T. Wilms, director of the Kunsthaus for eight years, it is important to surprise his visitors. “I want to show art that you wouldn’t expect in Kaufbeuren.” This undoubtedly applies to “Nippon Mania”, a show that is dedicated to the diversity of current Japanese art and does away with some clichés.
This is not the first time that Japan has been a topic at the Kunsthaus. Five years ago, Wilms showed the grandiose exhibition “Crossing Cultures”, which revolved around color woodcuts in Europe and Japan from 1900 to 1950. And already in 2009 outstanding works by Japanese masters could be seen in “Cézanne, Degas, Matisse – Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro”. But this time it is not about a dialogue of cultures.
Wilms exclusively presents contemporary Japanese art, mainly by artists who are unknown in this country. Like Toko Izumi, born in 1992, whose pictures gently lead you into strange worlds. Her enigmatic works appear to have fallen out of time. The monumental painting “The story of a certain collector” could also be considered a fresco of a pharaoh’s tomb. Between oversized ferns, horsetails and thistles, birds and other winged creatures cavort in a surreal landscape, their faces covered by African masks. Another work shows a man floating in front of trees and a mountain panorama.
Ryo Kinoshita’s irritating sculptures made of charred wood and braided clotheslines, reminiscent of fish traps, fit into this enchanted forest. More accessible are his incredibly elaborate “paintings” (Kinoshita), collages made from everyday materials that play with the viewer’s perception. On a coarse scrim, he combines garish plastic bands, sometimes attached to the stretcher with rivets, scraps of canvas, pearls, dabs of paint, plus small silhouettes showing figures with targets. The work is called “He is sneaky”.
It takes quite a long time until you discover the counterpart to the target men in the crowd: a gun with a finger on the trigger. In another picture, high-wire artists show their skills. Here, too, the abysmal camouflages itself quite perfectly. Only after a while do you notice the acrobats, who are either tied up or, as if hanged, swinging through the air with a noose around their necks.
Aya Kawato also deals with mechanisms of perception. Her small-scale chessboard grid – she lays up to 120 different acrylic paints on top of each other – simulates recurring structures and patterns, only small mistakes disturb the calm repetition.
Leiko Ikemur, born in 1951, who has lived in Germany for a long time, works reduced. In her “Tree” series, individual trees, the seat of the gods in Shintoism, tower like dynamic beings in barren landscapes. Minimalist aesthetics characterize the works of the painter Keiko Sadakane, who also lives in Germany. In her abstract paintings, restrained tones of gray and brown dominate, she relies on the subtle power of intermediate tones, drawn from the tradition of her Japanese homeland.
The photos by Hiroshi Sugimoto provide an amusing change. He photographed cinemas all over the world for a while. Since he exposed each shot for the same length of time as the respective film lasted in the empty cinema, nothing remains of the film but a white, glowing surface that illuminates the room. Comedy shines brighter than tragedy, by the way. At least that’s what Sugimoto claims.
The series “The Will of Inheritance” by his photographer colleague Keiichi Ito is designed to last. He uses platinum-palladium prints, a high-quality photographic printing process developed in England in the 1870s that is considered more durable than the silver gelatine prints invented at the same time. The aesthetic shots focus on the hands and tools of artisans. And prove that in the Japanese cultural area there is still hardly any difference between art and handicrafts. The ceramics by Kayoko Mizumoto go well with this on the upper floor. With her original forms, she has taken up the old tradition of Kutani ceramics and developed them further in strong colors and glazes.
Yayoi Kusama can be seen here once without points
On the upper floor you will also find the oldest and probably also the most popular artist in this exhibition: Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929. However, she is not represented in Kaufbeuren with any of her garishly dotted color worlds, but with the video work “Kusama’s Self-Obliteration”, created in the 1960s, when the artist lived mostly in New York and was known for her happenings. Her trademark are the polka dots, colored dots that she paints, collages or projects onto canvas, sculptures and people. Wilms believes her often illicit actions were intended to embody a female counterpart to the Polka-Dot Man, who has been criminally active in Gotham City in a polka-dot costume since 1962. The slide projection “Walking Piece”, a walk through New York, which the artist undertakes in a traditional kimono, is also attractive.
Photo artist Nobuyoshi Araki presents himself as a complete opposite. On the one hand the melancholic series about the death of his wife Yoko, from whom he says goodbye with a “Sentimental Journey”. Wilms contrasted these touching images with the clearly sexualized shots of young “innocent” schoolgirls. So it’s fitting that the photo artist Satomi Shirai is also available as an erotic projection surface right across the street. She plays with the classic female role and contorts herself cleaning in absurdly crowded rooms. A fun play on clichés and an amusing counterpart to Araki.
Nippon mania. Contemporary art from Japan, until June 11th. Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren, Spitaltor 2, 87600 Kaufbeuren