Art used to be about what you could see, but now, thanks to a more "conceptual" approach, it is often about what cannot be seen. Except the artist still has to demonstrate in some way what it is that can't be seen — in other words, to make it visible.
This is the paradox that underlies "Constellations: Practices for Unseen Connections/Discoveries," the latest group show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT). The declared intent of the exhibition is to "introduce experiments by artists who take various invisible points that exist scattered throughout the world and discover connections that link them, grasping these as new constellations."
The connection with astrological so-called star signs is not some casual happenstance, but very much part of the concept. After all, constellations have for millennia evoked a sense of mystery and magic, something that much contemporary art could do well to emulate.