I got some positive feedback on my review last week of the Doug Aitken show at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery. My remark, "I just don't like visiting galleries to sit on the floor and watch videos," struck a chord with a number of readers. Not that I don't like video and new media art, but most galleries -- even those focused on contemporary art -- were not designed as theaters. I have taken to calculating the time required to view the videos at recent contemporary art shows, with many totaling a knee- and back-straining several hours. The floor is not a nice place to spend this length of time.
Of course, there are many artists bucking the prevailing tendency toward new-media art, with most of them working in photography and painting. This week I want to turn to a couple of exciting young artists who are determined to evolve one of the most traditional (and threatened) of creative mediums -- sculpture.
"Cast Cycle" is a two-person show now at the established and influential SCAI the Bathhouse, located in a refurbished former sento near the Yanaka Cemetery, in Tokyo's Taito Ward. In the early 1990s, SCAI helped launch the careers of current Japanese art-world superstars such as Taro Chiezo and Takashi Murakami. Now, with the help of former Rontgen Kunstraum curator Yuko Yamamoto, the gallery is showcasing the work of a couple of very promising emerging artists, Yasuyuki Nishio, 34, and Motohiko Odani, 30.