Sometimes, for whatever reason, a "buzz" develops around an art exhibition, and soon everybody is talking about it. I'm still not sure exactly why, but there was a real buzz at the vernissage for "I Dreamt of Flying," a new Rika Noguchi show comprising about 40 photographic prints that is now showing at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward.
For months the Hara people had been talking the show up, and in the weeks before the opening the press release was delayed because, a museum staff member told me, Noguchi wanted to make absolutely certain everything was just right.
I was skeptical the Saitama-born Noguchi, who at 32 years old is one of the youngest artists ever to have a solo show at the Hara, could do justice to that venerable institution. But, with a surprisingly sensitive use of the Hara's 1930s Bauhaus-style interiors, Noguchi has delivered one of the better photo shows to go up this year.