Thursday, April 03, 2014

Noguchi Tetsuya at the Nerima 練馬区立美術館で野口哲哉

The Nerima entrance in the rain.

Today I carved out a bit of time between writing and research work to head out to the Nerima Museum in West Tokyo to view the current exhibition of Noguchi Tetsuya's work. The exhibition was whimsical and entrancing, consisting mostly of uncannily realistic miniature samurai sculptures and groupings of traditional-style paintings of samurai. Everything in the exhibition had an element of history to it, but with some sort of twist- a painting of a group of samurai with a cat in the top position, a tiny samurai holding a briefcase, or a samurai in full armor, but with the Chanel logo emblazoned across the chest. The figures were so beautifully crafted- hair, texture, the light hint of a vein beneath the surface of the skin, as well as the tiny armor that each wore (click here for installation shots). Truly an amazing exhibition and an interesting young artist to watch.
 
 Signage near the train station.
 
There were no photographs in the exhibition, so I took this from the catalogue. This figure is about one foot tall.
 
An even smaller figure, about six inches. I expected this one to look up at me and start speaking. Creepy or cool? I tend towards both.
 
Exhibition flyer.
 
I took the Seibu-sen to get to the Nerima Museum.
 
A local Seibu-sen car, unusually empty for Tokyo. 

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