National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Closes in 24 days
Apparently the smudged and blurry divide between reality and the realm of fiction and fantasy concerns women more than men. At least it seems to at "Fiction for the Real," a relatively small exhibition at MOMA, Tokyo (www.momat.go.jp), that brings together 14 works by four cutting-edge female artists — Sophie Calle, Leiko Ikemura, Miwa Yanagi and Chiharu Shiota.
Each, in her unique way, explores the issue of identity and the connected factors of desired, projected and perceived image. French conceptual artist Calle sets arbitrary rules for herself, then records the results in pictures and text. As with her offerings here, her work often seems more suited to the book form than a gallery space. Ikemura's naive, childlike terracotta figures express the desire and confusion of a middle-age artist who refuses to grow up. Shiota's "Bathroom," a monochrome video installation, shows the artist in a bath of mud, washing herself in a slow, strange rhythm. This perverse ritual could have grand political resonances with the way humanity relentlessly pollutes its own environment then wallows in the filth, but in the exhibition's context, Shiota seems to be awkwardly fighting the male objectification of the female — one that she has invited by presenting herself naked in her own work.