The Osaka Collections

louis majorelle "dresser"1900

Thru Jul 1

Suntory Museum

This exhibition is an innovative joint effort among Osaka City Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of Art, Osaka, and Suntory Museum, to realize a dream exhibition through combining collections. This exhibition looks back on the birth of modern design with 160 historically significant articles, including related paintings from the National Museum of Art, Osaka, posters from the Suntory Museum, and highlighting a worldclass design collection of furniture, graphics, photographs and so on - provided by the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art. It also examines the roles played by and interrelations among Britain's arts & crafts, French and Belgian art nouveau, Austria's Wiener Werkstatte, Germany's Bauhaus, Holland's De Stijl, Russia's constructivism, and Finland's Scandinavian design, in the evolution of modern design. Today's world was visually brought to life by creative forces with visions of a 20th century utopia. This exhibition reviews their idealism and offers a place to explore and let new dreams of the 21st century bloom.

Getting there: Subway Chuo line, Osaka-ko stn
Open: 10:30am–7:30pm Closed Mon
Admission: ¥1,000/¥700/¥500
Tel: 06-6577-0001

Suzuki Atsushi so what?
001-300 and 8 Landscapes of Osaka

Thru Jun 24

Remo, Osaka

Atsushi Suzuki, living in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka presents the video series entitled so what? "including 300 short pieces, as well as his new works shot in Osaka, 8 Landscapes of Osaka. This video series consists of simple short pieces Suzuki captures from ordinary landscapes and scenes in daily life. These seemingly casual videos are filled with humor, comicality, melancholy, loneliness and beauty hidden in human behavior and nature that Suzuki pursues. Suzuki's worldview will give us the opportunity to rediscover the world and to have diverse viewpoints through the so what? series.

4F, Festival Gate
Getting there: Subsay Midosuji/Sakaisuiji line, Dobutsuen-mae, exit 5/ JR loop line Shin- Imamiya stn, east exit
Open: 3-9pm (Thu-Sun)
Admission: ¥500
Tel: 06-6634-7737

Graphic Messages from ggg & ddd 1986-2006

Thru Jun 28

ddd Gallery, Osaka

The ddd Gallery, closed since September 2006, has reopened after relocating from Dojima to Namba. The first exhibition to be held in the new site was on display at the Ginza Graphic Gallery in January and February this year to commemorate its 20th anniversary. The ggg was established in March 1986 as a focal point for the cultural and artistic activities of Dai Nippon Printing Co, Ltd, and ddd Gallery opened five years later in Dojima, Osaka. These two galleries have since invited and held exhibitions of numerous international designers who are at the forefront of their fields. This show features messages and representative works produced by 166 of those artists from 25 countries, whose creations have been displayed in the ddd and ggg galleries in the 20 years since 1986. It also attempts to examine how design has confronted, co-existed with, and responded to an age of rapidly changing values, with its concomitant advancements in technology, developments in a range of media, and cultural metamorphosis.

Subway Yotsubashi line, Yotsubashi stn. /Subway/Kintetsu Namba stn
Open: 11am–7pm Closed Sun/Mon/hol
Admission: Free
Tel: 06-6110-4639

The Challenger Photographs: Locating the Japanese Landscapes By Gary McLeod

Jun 18-30

Gallery HOT, Nishi-Tenma, Osaka

You wouldn't think you would have to chase a landscape. It sits there and doesn't move, save for the ground vibrating occasionally, but for the past nine months, Gary McLeod has been doing this very thing: chasing landscapes. Working from original images of Japan taken by an English photographer in 1875 as part of the HMS Challenger voyage, he has been literally 'hunting' down the original locations with the intention of documenting them as they are now. Whereas the original photographs were taken with a Victorian wet plate collodion process, the artist has chosen to use a Victorian period antique lens (similar to the one originally used) combined with a modern digital SLR. Such a combination of old and modern technologies creates a mechanical eye that sees far less than it used to; a shrewd analogy, perhaps, for the way that we, as people, see today. The resulting images have to be stitched together, reconstructing the landscape as it would appear to be but also as we fear it to be. Gary McLeod has been working with lens-based media and the landscape for the past four years. He is most notably known for his video installation works drawn from traffic lights and this exhibition, marks a deepening fascination with the complex Japanese landscape and its kinship with the equally complex digital image. His works have been frequently exhibited in Osaka and a new work will be exhibited in Ireland during the summer.

Getting thete: Subway Tanimachi-line, Minami Morimachi stn, 5 min on foot
Open: 12pm-7pm Mon-Fri, 12pm-5pm Sat, Closed Sun
Admission: Free
Tel: 06-6363-2536

Kansai Art Listings June

ART section compiled by Maki Nibayashi