Tokyo's galleries have woken from their summer slumbers — or, more likely, beach naps — with a vengeance. The current wave of openings started out in the east, at the complex of galleries in Kiyosumi, with shows that are set to close this Saturday (two were reviewed here this month).
Now, Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, supported by the municipal government, is showing an exhibition from their artists-in-residence. One, American artist Marina Kappos, has been working since spring in TWS's Aoyama studio on a project inspired by her stay in Japan.
Kappos has covered two of the walls in TWS's main gallery with bright and blocky paintings that capture many of the features of the city and its culture that are striking on first encounter, but then slowly settle into the back of your mind. Seemingly simple, the more you look the more you see the many elements of the Japan we live in — apartment blocks, overloaded telephone poles, the old mixed with the new.