Despite a new lockdown, the city’s galleries are presenting impressive works by Japanese and international artists alike

Tokyo: six must-see exhibitions

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After a lush start to spring with museums and galleries putting on crowd-drawing shows, Tokyo has once again come to a near standstill with a new Covid-19 State of Emergency issued by the government on April 23. Despite this, however, the city’s galleries have forged ahead and are staging an impressive range of exhibitions featuring established and emerging artists from around the world.

Noe Aoki, ‘Mesocyclone’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/15651/Anomaly">Anomaly</a> Through June 5, 2021Noe Aoki is known for massive iron sculptures that appear somehow freed of their inherent heaviness. At&nbsp;Anomaly, she presents a site-specific installation that spirals and snakes from the gallery’s floor to the ceiling. The structure –&nbsp;which will be disassembled after the exhibition and never seen again –&nbsp;is made of welded metal rings that rise and fall in vertiginous arches and swirls. Smaller sculptures, alongside new prints and drawings that echo the abstract shapes of the iron constructions, are also on display. The shapes of the works reflect the movement associated with the show’s title: Mesocyclones are rapidly rotating air masses within thunderstorms that often give rise to tornadoes.

Aki Inomata, ‘Memory of Currency’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/8403/Maho-Kubota-Gallery">Maho Kubota Gallery</a> Through May 22, 2021<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/32860/Aki-Inomata" target="_blank">Aki Inomata</a>’s artistic practice revolves around living creatures. In her series ‘Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs?’ (2009–ongoing), she creates miniature models of cities with a 3D printer for hermit crabs to inhabit. More recently, she began exploring the relationship between modern and ancient forms of currency in what she calls ‘money fossils’. For these works, collectively titled ‘Memory of Currency’ (2018–ongoing), she makes impressions in pearl oysters of figures who appear on national banknotes, including George Washington and Queen Elizabeth. The oysters then cover the portraits with nacre, creating a pearl in the shape of the individual. The current exhibition at&nbsp;Maho Kubota Gallery&nbsp;features these shells, along with photographs and&nbsp;a video. A film online shows Inomata returning the husks to the sea –&nbsp;perhaps to one day be rediscovered by humans curious about outdated systems of value.

Arakawa, ‘BOTTOMLESS–1960s Paintings and Two Films’ SCAI Piramide Through May 29, 2021The inaugural exhibition at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1264/SCAI-The-Bathhouse" target="_blank">SCAI The Bathhouse</a>’s new space, SCAI Piramide, focuses on the late conceptual artist and architect&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9431/Shusaku-Arakawa" target="_blank">Arakawa</a>. Having&nbsp;once proclaimed, ‘Death is old-fashioned,’ he was obsessed with transcending what he considered to be the ‘prehistoric’ human condition of mortality. As the titles suggests, on view are early paintings and two experimental films from the 1960s and '70s. The paintings, modeled after technical design drawings, act as blueprints for moments spent thinking through the nature of existence. The feature-length films, meanwhile, concern themselves with the physical limits the body places on the soul. On both canvas and screen, Arakawa, who was influenced by the semiotics of Duchamp, questions the relationship between image and reality.

Andro Wekua, ‘Drift Angle’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1291/Take-Ninagawa" target="_blank">Take Ninagawa</a> Through June 12, 2021For his first solo exhibition in Asia, the Georgian-born, Berlin-based artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11551/Andro-Wekua" target="_blank">Andro Wekua</a> debuts new paintings along with a recent sculptural installation. The latter is positioned near the center of the gallery, with a golden statue of a boy balanced between a palm leaf and the black body of what could be either a shark or a dolphin, its tail fin in the air and its head disappearing beneath the pink floor. The paintings are similarly vibrant and mysterious, combining the realistic with the fantastic. In vivid blues, oranges, greens, and purples, Wekua creates collages with a tropical ambience, as if a hurricane has swept through the scenes to jumble abstract and photographic imagery. The works could be seen to have sociopolitical undertones, but they more emphatically suggest a layering of memory and a maelstrom of emotion.

Maiko Haruki, ‘still life’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1450/Taro-Nasu" target="_blank">Taro Nasu</a> Through May 15, 2021In ‘still life’, photographer Maiko Haruki gives Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Totoro, and Moomin the Alfred Hitchcock Presents treatment: Plush versions of these characters and&nbsp;others are presented in 10 black-and-white images; the toys themselves, however, are enveloped in darkness and only their shadows are visible, cast in shafts of light. Whether these pop-culture icons have been left to languish forlornly or lurk menacingly depends on one's interpretation, but the photographer is pointing toward something larger. She alludes to the conundrum of the readymade as a mass-produced object with individual personality as well as to the lonely aftereffects of superficial consumption.

Hiroki Tsukuda, ‘4021’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1415/Nanzuka">Nanzuka</a> Through May 23, 2021Spanning&nbsp;Nanzuka’s two temporary spaces, ‘4021’ showcases a range of otherworldly works by neo-futurist illustrator and sculptor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15511/Hiroki-Tsukuda" target="_blank">Hiroki Tsukuda</a>. At Nazuka 2G, small figurative sculptures made by dis- and re-assembling figurines from Star Wars and Monster Hunter are exhibited alongside other three-dimensional pieces created with various found objects and plastic parts. At 3110NZ by LDH Kitchen&nbsp;(located within a sushi restaurant designed by Daniel Arsham's Snarkitechture),&nbsp;Tsukuda’s abstract mixed-media paintings showcase his skill in combining ink and acrylic with silkscreen techniques. In New Collapse (2021), metal scraps, a dinosaur skeleton, enigmatic numbers, and a giant triangle all vie for space. With this exhibition, the sci-fi, manga, and video-game enthusiast welcomes viewers into his visionary world, seamlessly melding the real and unreal.Please note that galleries may be closed due to the pandemic. Be sure to check official websites for the latest updates before visiting.Jennifer Pastore is an editor at Tokyo Art Beat. She also writes for artscape Japan.Top image:&nbsp;Aki Inomata, detail of a work&nbsp;from the series 'Memory of Currency', 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo. &copy;︎ Aki Inomata.

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