Tokyo Big Site East Hall 4
Sept. 17, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Japanese art star Takashi Murakami is hosting the 10th Geisai art festival this Sunday at Tokyo Big Site (www.geisai.net). Held every six months, the event is an open call for young artists to show their latest projects. Geisai is much like Tokyo's other biannual art fair, Design Festa, but differs in its sponsorship by Murakami, arguably Japan's most successful contemporary artist, and in assembling luminaries from the international art world to select exhibiting artists for a series of awards.
Judging by last year's top winners, Soichi Yamaguchi, Takaaki Tsuchiya and Kazaharu Ishikawa, the aesthetic of the show tends toward Murakami's Superflat/Pop art. Thus the weekend should promise a sprawling exhibition of works that are striving to enter the mainstream of Japan's modern art world, rather than the world of manga and anime as often appears to be the case at Design Festa.
