For a decade now, Yoshiko Shimada has been a lonely but tireless torchbearer of feminist consciousness in Japanese contemporary art. After spending time in Germany and America, the 44-year-old returned to Japan in the mid-1990s to tackle taboos -- subjects such as the Emperor's complicity in World War II sex slavery, the re-emergence of nationalism and militarism, and the second-class status of women in contemporary Japanese society.
Now Shimada is joined by four artists -- Mako Idemitsu (from Japan); Park Young Sook and Yun Suk Nam (South Korea); and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (the United States) -- in an exhibition themed around feminism and gender politics. "Borderline Cases" is organized by F.A.A.B. (the Feminist Art Action Brigade) and curated by Kim Sunhat of the Mori Art Museum. It is now running at A.R.T. Gallery in Ebisu, a mid-size art space run by art impresario Johnnie Walker.
Shimada's contribution to the exhibition is an installation that collects and reveals shameful and suppressed family secrets. "Bones in a Tansu -- Family Secrets" is a work-in-progress: Gallery visitors can enter a booth resembling a confessional and draw a privacy curtain, write down their secrets and slip them into a locked wooden box. Through the run of the show, Shimada will treat then display selected submissions in the adjacent, waist-high tansu (traditional Japanese chest of drawers).