WEDNESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Last New Year" @ Ink Tank Lab / 1319 Rosewood Ave, 7-11p. The 10-member Austin art collective comment on an end-of-the-world theme—a tongue-in-cheek take on the 2012 doomsday phenomenon—with varying site-specific cataclysmic installations to their bungalow space. The show begins with a gallery talk at 7:30p and is open THU 8-11p and SUN noon-6p.
* Viewpoints on: Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 6p. Rachel Adams, Arthouse's Associate Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs, leads a discussion of Magid's very awesome, multilinear exhibition "Failed States" (see my review under CURRENT SHOWS).
* "Liza With A Z" (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972) Celluloid Handbag screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Oh, FIERCE! Can you handle hostess Rebecca Havemeyer? Because — and trust me w/ this one — if you can handle Mizz Havermeyer, you can handle Liza Minnelli in this silver screen classic.
* "Messiah of Evil" (dir. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, 1973) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. This week's installment of Weird Wednesday at the Ritz is right on the money. Ex: take the director of "Howard the Duck" and his WIFE, pair them w/ beautiful actresses from "The Baby", "Invasion of the Bee Girls" and "Pretty Maids All In a Row", and basically let 'em cut loose w/ a dreamy non-narrative subtitled "Dead People".
* The Kills (US/UK) + JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Stubb's / 801 Red River, 7p/$25. HUGE. Alison "VV" Mosshart and Jamie "Hotel" Hince are The Kills, a swaggering, sexy blues-rock combo feat. fiery crooning, screeching guitar riffs and more all-out rockin' than you can handle. That goes for openers & Nashville swamp-punk brothers JEFF, who commence the crowd-surfing and heavy perspiration early.
TOKYO
* The Loyettes + ジ・アジナーズ @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. Kanagawa-area quartet The Loyettes are obsessed w/ dissonant garage-rock, straight outta early '90s London, and frontwoman "Deepa" sounds shockingly like Kim Gordon! Then there's ジ・アジナーズ ("The Aginers"), a Kanagawa "hardcore girl group" formed by frontwoman Aina Ougi. w/ VOLGA
* the HIATUS @ Zepp Tokyo / 1-3-11 Aomi, Koto-ku (Yurikamome to Aomi Station), 7p/2500 yen. Chiba alt-rock heavyweight Takeshi Hosomi (of Ellegarden) fronts this engaging super-group, whose single "Deerhounds" off new LP "A World of Pandemonium" was consistently on MTV Japan's Top Ten when I visited Tokyo in December.
THURSDAY
NYC
* Motoyuki Daifu "Lovesody" @ Lombard-Freid Projects / 518 W 19th St. Last year this young Yokohama-based photographer wowed me and loads others at the gallery's awesome "Minor Cropping May Occur" group show. Daifu returns w/ his debut solo here, a followup to his "Family" series that traces his brief, intense personal relationship with a young single mother.
* Chris Martin @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. BIG Martin fan here — not the Coldplay guy but rather the Brooklyn-based painter. He just got off a solo at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and, in his third exhibition at the gallery, introduces newspaper clipping grids into his wildly textured, colorful paintings. I am stoked.
AUSTIN
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. I fell in love with this gallery last September, in the NY painterly badass group show "Wild Beasts". Heidkamp was in that exhibition, and now he unleashes his mesmeric, textural interiors and exteriors in a solo show. This is the first time his nonfigurative works will be shown independent from Heidkamp's portraits, and he's got a knack for both. Count me stoked.
* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 9p (also JAN 28 5:30p, JAN 31 9p, FEB 4 8:15p). Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. Holy hell, highly recommended!
* "Shiny & New" @ Elysium / 705 Red River, 10p/$10. Frequent LIST-readers—and particularly those of you who know me in person—understand me a big burlesque buff. Yet what's the scene like in Austin? Apparently it's BOOMING, as this showcase promises, spotlighting newish trio Head Over Heels Burlesque (Gemmi Galactic, Merci Fa'Tale and Norah Leans), w/ guest performances by Nova Nyx (Vaude-Thrills) and pole-dancer Miss Sophie (Brass Ovaries).
FRIDAY
NYC
* James Rosenquist "F-111" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). NYC, you MUST see this. The American Pop alchemist's magnum opus, 23 sections and about 86 feet of garishly colorful antiwar agitprop and good ol' Americana, blended discomfortingly w/ aluminum panels and day-glo accents. "F-111" kicked off MoMA's refurbishing at the new 53rd St HQ and it's reinstalled once again, this time on the 4th Fl Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Gallery . Highly recommended.
* "Village of the Damned" (dir. John Carpenter, 1995) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Ahead of James Watkins' harrowing Hammer horror film "The Woman in Black" (you know, the one w/ Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe) comes Carpenter's glowing-eyed classic, in gorgeous 35mm!!! "Children of the Corn"? Dug it enough, but Carpenter's platinum-haired squadron of demonic kneebiters is just so so sick and twisted. Have fun! ALSO SAT
* "The Theatre Bizarre" (various dirs, 2012) midnight screening @ Sunshine Cinema / 143 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave). This new horror anthology, inspired by Paris' legendary Grand Guignol theatre (i.e. so there's a LOT of subject matter to draw from), plays but two nights! I suggest going FRI, when co-director Douglas Buck attends (he's one of six directors, incl. Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain (cinematographer of Jason Eisener's Canadian exploitation film "Hobo with a Shotgun"), Richard "Hardware" Stanley and Tom "Maniac" Savini) w/ actors Lindsay Goranson and Debbie Rochon, plus executive producer Daryl Tucker. ALSO SAT
AUSTIN
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based artist creates a site-specific installation in the VAC's vaulted gallery, utilizing a 3D modeling program (a first-time in Al-Hadid's practice) to form both a painterly space and an immersive sculptural experience. I should note that Al-Hadid was just in Texas for her "Sightings" contribution to Dallas' Nasher SculptureCenter (her installation ended JAN 15).
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Boyd incorporates field recordings into his destructuralization of the gallery, adding geometric and glass elements to morph perceptions of space.
+ "Across the Divide". A group exhibition of two generations of Chinese artists, from Mao- and Post-Mao eras but who all took graduate studies in America. The blend of Eastern and Western cultural aesthetics across these two dozen artists should be intriguing.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience.
* "The Grey" (dir. Joe Carnahan, 2012) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Liam Neeson punching wolves in the remote Alaskan wilderness. That in itself is so mind-blowingly badass that it deserves inclusion in my LIST. But wait! There's more! Because beyond the notorious scene is a survival tale, of oil-rig workers stranded in a plane crash in the icy north, led by rugged Neeson to an uncertain escape amid packs of ravenous wolves and imperiling weather. I, for one, am stoked.
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7p. YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!
TOKYO
* current of air @ Koenji HIGH / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p/2500 yen. I was totally enamored by the bright pop riffs from Tokyo-area quartet current of air (they headlined the same show that included darlings PASSEPIED). I've got a feeling this showcase, part of Koenji HIGH's 4th anniversary, will be awesome. w/ newline and vivid bease culture
SATURDAY
NYC
* Real Estate @ K&K Super Buffet / 1678 Palmetto St, Bushwick Heights (L/M to Myrtle/Wyckoff), 9p/$5. According to Brooklyn's über-indie concert promoter ToddP: "K&K Super Buffet is a transformer. Family-style Chinese steam-table buffet restaurant by day…soaring ceilinged, opulently decorated, decadent party palace and cheap-assed bar by night." That Ridgewood NJ's surf-rock kings Real Estate headline a night of awesome local-ish bands means this trek is more than worth it. w/ Black Dice + The Babies
* NULLSLEEP @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford/JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Or hell, you want some great indie but can't bear to be on the L for 45 minutes? Chiptune soul-meister NULLSLEEP is just the ticket. w/ dissassembler
AUSTIN
* AMODA Performance: Matrices & Entropy @ Mexican American Cultural Center / 600 River St, 8p/$15. The cutting-edge digital arts organization curates an evening of percussion and electronics, feat. Austin ensemble Line Upon Line and NYC composer Sam Pluta.
TOKYO
* Suehiro Maruo "New Century SM Pictorial" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Maruo-san, one of the kings of ero-guro manga ("Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show" ring any bells?!) — and he's an accomplished artist beyond the pages — celebrates the release of his new collected works publication "New Century SM Pictorial" with a signing party, from 5-7p, at the gallery!
* Tatsuo Majima "All the right moves" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). Majima takes on classic Tom Cruise movie posters in the artist's ongoing collision of cultural differences in modern society.
* Neat's @ Shimokitazawa GARDEN / B1F 2-4-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station, S. Exit), 7p/4000 yen. A "one-man show" and LP release party for Yui Niitsu, the young singer-songwriter and pianist behind RYTHEM and her new-ish solo project Neat's. Her debut "Wonders", full of sparkling keys and Yui's honeyed voice, launches tonight.
* PASSEPIED @ Shibuya LUSH / 1-10-7 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/2300 yen. The magnetizing Tokyo quintet PASSEPIED won me over back in December, channeling a distinctly Japanese "Twin Sister" in their heady cocktail of electronics, rock accoutrements and songbird Natsuki's soaring vox. w/ The Puzzles
* SLUDGE-TAPES release party @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 6p/2000 yen. The experimental "mutant music" label and champion of Tokyo's indie scene unfurls a wall-to-wall fiasco of beautiful sonic disarray. Feat. pairings like PAINJERK vs. Kelly Churko, miclodiet x Yousuke Fuyama, plus telco suicide, Nobuki Nishiyama and more.
* Poleco Night Vol 2 @ Decadance Bar / 9F 5-17-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Fukutoshin Lines to Shinjuku Sanchome Station), 11p/2000 yen. Yeah, this is going to be a riot. Highlight for me here, beyond the DJs and visual talent, is the "Sexy & Cute" pole-dance duo Aloe & Kikurage, both members of tokyoDOLORES and both guaranteed to rock your socks off.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Henry Taylor @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq). The LA-based artist had a residency in PS1's former classrooms leading up to this exhibition, a sort of creative brain-space where he painted new culturally perceptive works for the show.
AUSTIN
* Twin Sister (Brooklyn) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 9p/$12. Brooklyn in the house tonight, that's right! Gorilla vs Bear presents this awesome, transfixing disco-rock quintet, who have been mesmerizing me since I took a chance on 'em like three years ago. w/ Ava Luna (Brooklyn)
TOKYO
* Michiko Kanade 「２４人の解離性ミチコ」 @ Gallery Bar Amarcord / 2-18-7 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit), 9p/FREE (500 yen/drink. So Amarcord is two awesome things: a fetish bar AND a gallery. The title hints at the nature of this show, "The 24 people of dissociative Michiko", as the titular model/photographer/dominatrix was photographed in two very different styles by 12 photographers. My mind reels just thinking what that means. And beyond the displayed prints, Michiko-san created a dedicated photo-book to accompany this exhibition. AND Amarcord's usual door charges have been decreased for the duration of the show (2000 yen for men/1000 yen for women, through FEB 29). Check back on my LIST, as Michiko-san's got a special "dissociative" Valentine's Day event in the works.
* "Vivid" @ Ucess Lounge / 4-32-13 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku Station), 4p/2000 yen. Who's up for some tech-house in the afternoon? If it involves the ültra-fierce ME:CA (Torture Garden Japan/Night Mare), then count me totally IN. Plus, META (SonicTribe) and others.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "A Lonely Place to Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.
TOKYO
* "Minimal/Conceptual" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). A transformative array of international artists represent and re-present the amorphous subject matter, feat. works by Vito Acconci, Sarah Charlesworth, Max Ernst, Imi Knoebel, Glenn Ligon, Ugo Rondinone, Donald Sultan and others.
TUESDAY
NYC
* Megafortress + Carlos Giffoni @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. A slightly different taste from the always-dependably fun but usually indie-rock/pop/electro driven venue. Synth lord Bill Gillim's drone outfit Megafortress celebrates its debut, self-titled LP (out on Software). And if that wasn't enough, we've got Brooklyn noise stalwart (and former operator of the celebrated No Fun Fest) Carlos Giffoni on the bill. MAYJAH. w/ Slava
* Captured Tracks showcase @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Brooklyn's ice-cold coolest indie label, hands down, is Captured Tracks. Maybe that's my opinion, but they launched "The Shoegaze Archives" this past Nov (reissuing obscure '90s shoegaze classics, like deardarkhead and Should) AND they continue to sign sharp romantic talent. Tonight's blowout feat. Blouse (who made their NYC debut in Sept), Cosmetics (those dreamy Canadians), The New Lines, Beige and Mosaics. For lovers of yesteryear pop and lovers in general, this is unmissable.
AUSTIN
* "Computer Error!: The Worst CGI in Movie History" (various dirs.) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. I'm a freak for practical FX, and while I "get" that CGI is important, useful, awesome…when put in the wrong hands, it's just LAME. Witnessing 90 minutes of some of the most eye-mauling examples in filmic history might raise my blood pressure to obscene levels, but thankfully this is the Drafthouse, and there's a lot of beer to cushion the blow.
* "The Car" (dir. Elliott Silverstein, 1977) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Six years before Stephen King and John Carpenter's automobile horror "Christine", there was badass desert sheriff James Brolin vs. a Satan-propelled, 666-mph custom cruiser!
CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
+ Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani "Toute la memoir du monde/The world's knowledge". The artists reinterpret Alain Resnais' '56 film, filming the historic and now barren original location of the French Bibliotheque Nationale and the imbued memories within its empty shelves.
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
* Laurie Frick "Quantify Me" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Shoot, back in university, had you told me there's an exhibition of geometric abstract wall reliefs composed from up-cycled paper, wood, cardboard and industrial color samples, BUT ALSO culled from neuroscience and engineering, well I would've been all over that in a heartbeat. Consider me a bit older and jaded now, though I still quite dug Frick's installations. The titular work is a hanging labyrinth of laser-cut, textured paper, augmenting itself by throwing amorphous shadows off the gallery walls. Another highlight, for the sheer gaudiness of subject matter, is "Moodjam", a long wall covered in shimmering color tiles like a showroom from hell. What's your daily mood, in color?
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Assume Vivid Astro Focus "Cyclops Trannies" @ The Suzanne Geiss Company / 76 Grand St. You need to totally check AVAF if you've not already. It's in the former Deitch Space, run now by the Projects' former executive director Suzanne Geiss, so that's a biggie. Plus AVAF (a Deitch mainstay) debuted Geiss' first iteration of the company, at 2011 Art Basel Miami Beach w/ their "Acid Flashback" installation. AND they collaborated w/ Lady Gaga in Barneys store windows for the 2011 holiday campaign. Mayjah.
* Jazz-minh Moore "Is That All There Is?" @ Lyons Wier Gallery / 542 W 24th St. Moore features her sister in a ramshackle Oregon cabin, echoing the artist's birthplace, and integrates her realist compositions with the woodgrain of their panel backdrops against her sister's tattooed skin.
* Matta: A Centennial Celebration @ The Pace Gallery / 534 W 25th St. It's grand exhibitions such as this (and Romare Bearden's cross-institution survey) that elucidate the very memorable, very great and old artists we've enjoyed and lost — and brings my attention to the superlative Louise Bourgeois (also born in 1911, on Dec 25) and what should come for her. But of that later. This exhibition focuses on the famed Chilean artist's later oeuvre, some 14 massive canvases following his powerful adaptation of biomorphic surrealism and abstraction. Now if only the complete "Matta 1911-2011" museum retrospective would travel from Santiago to the states...
* "Out of Nowhere" @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. Back at this indie coffeeshop during uni, one of the baristas always had The Weakerthans on repeat, meaning that slightly goofy track "I Hate Winnipeg". Not to be outdone, Winnipeg-born breakcore maestro Venetian Snares released an album entitled "Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole", containing tracks like "Winnipeg Is a Boiling Pot of Cranberries" and the title track. Who knows? I've never had the pleasure of visiting. This group show of Winnipeg artists, curated by Sarah Anne Johnson and Meeka Walsh, may well shed some celestial light to the far northern city.
TOKYO
* Masumi Sakamoto "Good-bye Idols" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). The Osaka-born artist fuses an Impressionistic style and landscape with entirely nude youths. (ENDS SAT)
TOKYO
* Aki Eimizu "birth" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). I was speechless when previewing Eimizu's second outstanding solo exhibition at the gallery. Or rather, I was talking a lot, to her and to gallerist Matsubara, but all short phrases of giddy bemusement. Eimizu's talent is layering tiny, tiny methodically applied paint-dots to canvas or paper, or covering a panel with so many thinly translucent washes of paint that the end result is preserved in a resin-like history. Or, alternately, becomes three-dimensional, swirling or stretching out depending on your angle to the canvas. Her palette of opal-ish whites and grays extends here with seductive traces of firefly yellow, both cosmic and entirely earthly, like seeing will o' the wisps in the fog.
* Ryan Gander "Icarus Falling - An exhibition lost" @ Maison Hermes 8F Le Forum / 5-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku (Ginza Line to Ginza Station). The London-based Conceptualist celebrates Le Forum's 10th anniversary as an exhibition space by reflecting on the history of art exhibitions themselves, incl. the 10 years of them in this space. He also showed at the 2011 Yokohama Triennale.
* Bunpei Kado "Nest" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Kado's style is like Dada mixed w/ steampunk, as he dissects furniture, steel and found objects, pairs them w/ delicate living (or once-living) things, and fashions out these awesomely emotive sculptures. (ENDS SUN)
TOKYO
* M.C. Escher @ Bunkamura Gallery / 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). YES! Bunkamura is back open, after nearly a year-long refurbishment. I missed this joint, so what better way for the box gallery to kick off 2012 than a dozen prints from the trompe-l'oeil legend M.C. Escher? (ENDS MON)
TOKYO
* Motoyuki Daifu x Ken Kagami @ Strange Store / 12-3-301 Uguisudani-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Toyoko Shibuya Line to Daikanyama Station). Young realist photographer Daifu-kun and the absolutely bonkers Ken Kagami (like a younger, Japanese Mike Kelley…sort of) collaborate in a special dual show…which, considering their respective backgrounds, should be nothing short of badass. (ENDS TUES)
