When you first encounter the sculptures of Koji Tanada, you might get the initial impression that he's being facetious or whimsical, and assume that his sculptures are all part of an elaborate practical joke, designed to drive home some droll but not very profound point. And why not? After all, this is the rather low emotional and spiritual level that most contemporary art seems to operate on.
Tanada's creations — brought together for "Rise," a major retrospective of his work at the Nerima Art Museum in Tokyo — definitely have that tongue-in-cheek quality. The exhibition is full of comically skinny figures, with hard-to-decipher facial expressions, dressed in underpants, with quaint and unfashionable haircuts or headgear.
Sculpture is usually considered the most monumental of the arts, but there is nothing grand and imposing about these fey, anorexic mannequins with their sad eyes or coy looks.