There is an unseen hand behind The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art's latest exhibition, "The Angel of History." On the surface, this is an eclectic, almost random mix of avant-garde photography that spans the last 80 years and includes the work of Man Ray, Diane Arbus, Christian Boltanski, Robert Mapplethorpe and others. But weaving this all together are the theories and poetic words of Koji Taki, a well-known art critic who died last year at the age of 82.
According to the museum's curator, Etsuko Watari, Taki's spirit, exemplified in a poetic text that he donated to the museum, is the heart of the exhibition.
"We have selected the works according to that text," she told me on a recent visit. "This is the third time we've used Taki's text as a basis of a show. The first time was in 1996, but each time it becomes more relevant to the present day."