National Art Center Tokyo
National Art Center Tokyo Sign
Right before hopping on a plane to go to America for business, there was a day off and R. and I went to the National Art Center Tokyo (but I thought it was the New National Art Musuem? the English and Japanese seem to tell different stories.) I was excited to go to the museum because I had never been before, and I knew it was architecturally interesting. I really like the exterior (and interior for that matter) and have seen it from Mori tower in Roppongi Hills before. I had no idea what was going on, but when have you ever gone wrong by visiting a cool museum?
For me the big thing was walking around the building and checking out the space. I really love the organic smooth flow to the building. It has a nice, roomy interior and an interesting play of light and shadows inside the building.
The exhibition was Artist File 2009, and was pretty cool. I really liked SAITO Meo‘s work in particulat, even though some of the text-heavy stuff was hard to understand. The paintings had themes, all using the same shape with two different series shown. It was cool. Very detailed, very nice. There was also a series of fake encyclopedic flora, things like “suicide flowers” or other flowers that are representing concepts. Those were much more interesting if you took the time to read the justification and explanations, but it was difficult for me to do. I enjoyed puzzling out what I could though. There were other interesting things, some nice portraits (large format) and abstract paintings that had nice colors (inoffensive, easy to look at, but not as challenging or interesting as SAITO Meo’s stuff.)
If you are in Tokyo and have some time, I really liked this museum. I recommend it, check it out!
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