gratitude to all of those who have honored us with their
unstinting cooperation in realizing this exhibition.

MOT Collection:
Seven Beauties in the Bamboo Forest
Special Feature NOMURA Kazuhiro
Eye to Eye

Seven Beauties in the Bamboo Forest

Sat. 3 August- Sun. 10 November 2024

1. TAKAGI Toshiko

Collection Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art
Tokyo

TAKAGI Toshiko (1924–1987) was a fiber art pioneer whose
works woven from vibrantly colored thread evolved in thecourse of her career from the two- to the three-dimensional.
Works by Takagi acquired following the “Fabric in Space”
exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in 1987
were subsequently passed on to the Museum ofContemporary Art Tokyo. Opportunities to display them
have however been few to date, so we are pleased to do so
now on the centenary of the artist’s birth.
Born into a family of weavers in the Nishijin district ofKyoto, Takagi learned traditional weaving techniques fromher father, and design from embroidery artist KISHIMOTO
Keishun. In 1940 a masterfully executed tsuzure-ori (tapestry
weaving) wall hanging by the 16-year-old Takagi was selected
for the exhibition commemorating the 2600th anniversary of
the Chrysanthemum Throne. Following this was a series oftextiles featuring figurative renderings of seasonal motifs,
people at work, and other subjects, submitted to exhibitions
like the Nitten. Gradually though Takagi’s works took on amore abstract appearance, exemplified by Tapestry, Face
(1963) with its raised middle section drawing attention to
the presence of the thread in arresting fashion. Much of thischange can likely be attributed to life with her husband avantgarde artist YAGI Kazuo and their children, and from 1962,
contact with the diverse sensibilities of students at the Kyoto
City University of Arts. To give shape to what she foundherself wanting to do, she “abandoned without a moment’s
hesitation” the tsuzure-ori that had been her family’s
livelihood for generations, and growing tired of exhibiting at
Nitten with its size limits on entries, from 1975 onward
mainly exhibited solo.1 Moving away from interior
decorations to hang on walls, she began making threedimensional forms hung from ceilings for exhibition.
Takagi described her art-making process as:
encountering an attractive form, then a short interlude tryingout different things using scrap paper, followed by cheerfully
setting about the weaving as calculated, then sewing together
the roughly-woven pieces only to find bulges, pliable parts,and thickness emerging outside of those calculations, hanging
the finished piece from a tree in the garden, and watching it
swing and sway at will.2 In Form she joins colorful plain-woven
triangles in linen and silk, inserting bamboo that may wellhave been cut from the thicket growing behind herworkspace, to complete a work that seems to harbor theartist’s joy in its creation.

Foreword
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo houses over 5800
works of art from modern to contemporary, with aparticular emphasis on post-war art. The MOT Collection
exhibitions present works from that collection, adopting a
different approach on each occasion to advertise the diverse
attractions of contemporary art.
In a display dubbed “Seven Beauties in the Bamboo Forest”
and dominated by recent acquisitions, the first floor will focus
on seven female artists. The title “Seven Beauties in the
Bamboo Forest” comes from that of a work by KONO
Michisei held by the museum. In Kono’s painting, the ancient
Chinese “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” spurning
worldly concerns to congregate in a bamboo grove andengage in philosophical chat are transformed into women in
vibrantly-hued garb. Inspired by the sight of these seven
women of different cultures and eras mingling harmoniously
among the flowers and birds of a light-filled bamboo forest,
for this exhibition we decided to illuminate the work of somefemale artists whom the museum has hitherto had few
opportunities to showcase. The character 妍 (ken) of thetitle, meaning beauty, generally refers to a certain grace orrefinement in appearance, but here refers to how each of theseven artists has engaged with the idea of beauty, andproduced art accordingly. Offerings from MADOKORO(AKUTAGAWA) Saori and TAKAGI Toshiko, both born
exactly a century ago, URUSHIBARA Hideko, KOBAYASHI
Donge, and MAEMOTO Shoko will comprise mainly new
additions, while the works of FUKUSHIMA Hideko and
ASAKURA Setsu, already in the collection, will be grouped
together. To coincide with this display of work by the seven
women, the first floor will also play host to a special exhibit
by NOMURA Kazuhiro, an artist with a career characterized
by the exploration of the creative act via conceptual works.
The third-floor exhibition, titled “Eye to Eye,” turns its
attention to different types of gaze. Kicking off with gaze as
painted by the likes of Alex KATZ, NAKAMURA Hiroshi, and
NAKAZONO Koji, “Eye to Eye” goes on to include a diverse
array of works, including sculptures in reflective materials by
TADA Minami and Monir Shahroudy FARMANFARMAIAN;
the works of Georges ROUSSE, who creates illusory
installations in derelict buildings and photographs them; andan installation by KAIHATSU Yoshiaki, who brings aplayfulness to the space between the visible and invisible.
There will also be a special exhibition of work by
HASEGAWA Shigeru, a painter consistently dedicated tointerrogating the status of paintings as “things to be seen.”
In closing, we would like to express our heartfelt

1. Takagi Toshiko, “Ori ni yoru zōkei sakuhin” [Woven sculpture],
Gendai no me: Newsletter of the National Museum of Modern Art,Tokyo(January 1978).
2. Takagi Toshiko, “Tsurusareta mono” [The hung object], INAX Art
News (June 2, 1986).

12. Madokoro (AKUTAGAWA) Saori

2. Akutagawa Saori, “Tsukuru mono no yorokobi” [The joy ofcreation], Fujin no tomo (June 1956).
3. Akutagawa Saori, “Sasayakana geijutsu” [Modest art], Geijutsu
Shincho (September 1955).
4. Ikeda Tatsuo, “Ten’nyo no uta—Madokoro Saori ga Akutagawa Saori
datta koro” [Song of the heavenly maiden—
When Madokoro Saori was Akutagawa Saori] (1995), reprinted in
Defiant, Passionate, Intense:The Life and Work of Saori Akutagawa (Tokyo
Shimbun, 2024).
5. Akutagawa, “Tsukuru mono no yorokobi.”
6. Madokoro Saori, “Jinsei o nido ikiru shiawase” [The happiness ofliving life twice], Fujin seikatsu (August 1964).

This year also marks 100 years since the birth of
MADOKORO (AKUTAGAWA) Saori (1924–1966). The
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is showing two works
by Saori as part of the Museum to Museums project(organized by the executive committee of the Madokoro
Akutagawa Saori Archive) in which ten art museums around
Japan exhibit works by the artist from their holdings, in a bid
to reexamine her short-lived but productive career.
Saori began learning painting and music in her teens,going on to study music at the Tokyo Academy of Music(now the Faculty of Music of Tokyo University of the Arts)
before turning to painting following her marriage tocomposer AKUTAGAWA Yasushi. Though as a newlywed
she had strived to make a living from singing, she eventually
gave up, the difficulty of making her own voice coexist withher husband’s world of sound leading her to abandon musicas well. As she threw herself instead into keeping house,“from somewhere within me the urge to vent all that stifled
self-expression arose, like a lament.”1 This led her to study
wax-resist dyeing with NOGUCHI Michikata, and learn
painting from INOKUMA Gen’ichiro. Saori wrote that she
filled sketchbooks with the constant stream of ideas thatspilled from within her in the manner of the ceaselessclamor of a cicada.2 Woman XI, which she entered in the
40th Nikaten exhibition at the suggestion of OKAMOTO
Taro, was displayed in room no. 9 (commonly known as theTaro room), and won a special prize. Saori chose dyeing as atechnique because she was unable to get comfortable withoil paints, and was seduced by the dripping of the wax andluster of the dyes,3 but this fast way of making art, which
witness painter IKEDA Tatsuo described as “dynamic andspontaneous”4 doubtless also suited a woman set on giving
shape to her productive urges in the limited time available
while taking care of children. Prince Izanagi Creating JapaneseIslands takes as its theme Japanese myth, on which Saori
turned her gaze following a trip overseas in 1954. The
woman and god with glittering eyes in the aforementioned
two works dominate the center of each canvas by means ofintense color contrast. Because the works are dyed, they do
not rely on the substance of paint, solely the power of theimage itself, bearing directly down on the viewer. Saori
vowed to continue tearing down the notion that painting
equals oil painting, using the time-honored techniques ofdyeing to portray modern Japanese women and makepaintings for the modern world,5 and her works aretestament to that determination.
After divorcing in 1959 Saori traveled to the UnitedStates where she studied design and oil painting, andmarried MADOKORO Yukio before returning to Japan in
1962. This seems to have been a time of significant change
in both her style, and her life, but one suspects that her
vocal desire to “be none other than an artist! Someone
who tells the truth of the spirit! Who carries on striving,
without reward, to achieve this!”6 remained undiminished.

3. FUKUSHIMA Hideko
FUKUSHIMA Hideko (1927–1997) was active primarily as apainter from the late 1940s to the end of the 1980s. This willbe the first substantive showing of her works at the Museumof Contemporary Art Tokyo for some time, since theacquisition of a large number mainly from the 1950s and ’60s
following special exhibition at a 2012 collection show.
After graduating from Bunka Gakuin, while continuingwith her own painting, from 1951 to around 1957, Fukushimajoined friends with artistic and musical aspirations, plus her
brother Kazuo, in a group that art critic TAKIGUCHI Shuzo
dubbed the Experimental Workshop. The activities of thegroup, which included a lighting designer and an engineer in
its plastic arts and music sections, were designed to create across-genre, integrated “Environment.” As part of this, in1953 Fukushima and Kazuo exhibited Foam is Created, an
automatic slide projection featuring circular and sphericalobjects and verse by Fukushima: “Foam is born again /Through the white mist / An indistinct life steps forth / From
inside the eternal resonance / It becomes an infinite
configuration / The theme of my celestial body / Is being
created,” against Kazuo’s soundtrack.
Taking this “foam” as a starting point for viewing
Fukushima’s painting, we find the idea appears to have led totechniques using water, and expression employing circles.
Paint dissolved in water manifests on white paper in subtle
gradations of light and shade. Tin cans have also been dipped
in ink or paint and pressed onto the paper to form circles ofvarious sorts. This pressing technique is a distinguishingfeature of Fukushima’s output, and is not confined to roundobjects but includes works formed by pressing onto thepaper linear objects, or soft items like fabric, in a method of
production that could be said to incorporate the propertiesof “matter” as well as water and paint.
Color plays a large part in this production. There are
paintings composed of the adjacent hues of red, orange,
yellow, and green, and paintings where Fukushima employssumi ink to represent a range of colors, yet it is blue that attimes constitutes the main tone, and at others, lingers faintly.
In due course this was to culminate in canvases entirely inblue. In later years Fukushima wrote that it was water thatfascinated her most, and that this fascination had become
linked to blue to summon up spaces.1
Takiguchi said of Fukushima’s works that “her paintings
possess an inescapable motive that resides elsewhere than in
showing off her expression.”2 If Fukushima’s work can be

1. Akutagawa Saori, “Watashi no kekkon to rikon” [My Marriage andDivorce], Fujin club (December 1958).

2

seen as driven not especially by a need to express herself,
but in part at least by that to find the “indistinct life” that
doubtless exists somewhere in foam, one suspects she
returned time and again to water, circles, and blue in an
attempt to confirm this visually.

of everyday life is the manifestation of a powerful energy,
product of Urushibara’s personal vision.

1. Fukushima Hideko, “‘Mizu’ to ‘ao’ no keiseki” [Traces of water andblue], Bessatsu bijutsu techō (Summer 1982).
2. Takiguchi Shuzo, “Gasō no aida” [Between painting aspects](1975), reprinted in The 12th Exhibition Homage to Shuzo Takigachi:
Hideko Fukushima (Satani Gallery, 1992).

The career of printmaker KOBAYASHI Donge (1926–2022)
spanned from the early 1950s to the 2000s. Kobayashi’s
output was showcased in an exhibition at the Sakura City
Museum of Art in 2019, laying the foundations for further
study. The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo acquired alarge number of her works in FY2022, on display here forthe first time.
Daughter of a family of traditional confectionery makers
in the Tokyo district of Kameido, Koto-ku, from an early age
Kobayashi Donge (real name Fumie) was a day-dreamer
with a love of poetry and painting. She studied Westernstyle painting at Joshibi University of Art and Design, but
mesmerized by a Lucien COUTAUD copperplate print
spotted in a museum, with an introduction from printmaker
KOMAI Tetsuro, she mastered the techniques of etching andaquatint at the copperplate printmaking workshop run by
SEKINO Jun’ichiro at his home. Around this period, throughSekino, Kobayashi also became acquainted with poet andscholar of French literature HORIGUCHI Daigaku, in what
was to become a lifelong relationship of mentor and pupil. A
Buddhist monk she knew gifted her the name Donge, fromthe udonge (udumbara) plant said to flower only once every
3000 years, and from then on she presented her work
under this name. In 1956 she staged her first solo
exhibition, at the Yoseido Gallery. The gallery also staged
exhibitions by Akutagawa Saori, Urushibara Hideko,
Fukushima Hideko, and Enomoto Kazuko, in a bid to shine a
spotlight on the work of five promising young female artists.
Kobayashi maintained a link particularly with Urushibara,
until the latter’s death.
Kobayashi’s works employ the technique known asengraving: using a specialized tool called a burin to inscribe
directly onto metal plate. She chose this technique out of adesire to express in copperplate the elegant lines ofnihonga painter KOBAYASHI Kokei. The plate remaining
after printing is scored with sharp, clean lines, the printed
work highlighting the beauty of those lines. The womenappearing in prints inspired by the likes of UEDA Akinari’s
Tales of Moonlight and Rain, the novels of Edgar Allan Poe,and Oscar Wilde’s Salome, regard the viewer with a cool,slightly unearthly gaze.
“A copperplate print is created through incising andscratching the solid material of a plate with the sharp bladeof a burin. Mystical lights and shades are generated throughthe entangled and overlapping multi-layers of thin lines,
which are similar to the thread-like stems of udumbara
flowers. To me, this medium is a perfectly ideal andirreplaceable form of expression. My burin engraving isbased on a technique that I happened to discover. Thus,
similar to a deep-sea fish, I can silently sink into the very
depths of my own inner world, via my own original
method.”*5. KOBAYASHI Donge

4. URUSHIBARA Hideko
URUSHIBARA Hideko (1929–2002) came to notice in 1952
with her first solo show, staged on the recommendation ofart critic TAKIGUCHI Shuzo at the Takemiya Gallery, andfrom there continued to produce drawings and collages forpresentation mainly at similar solo exhibitions. Thanks to aconnection with Urushibara’s family the Museum ofContemporary Art Tokyo managed to acquire a number of
her works in FY2023, and this is our first opportunity topresent examples of her output from the 1950s to 2000s en
masse, plus archival material.
Urushibara’s father, woodblock artist URUSHIBARA
Mokuchu, traveled to Europe in 1910, and while continuing
to make woodblock prints was employed part-time at the
British Museum. Hideko spent the years from her birth inLondon, to the family’s return to Japan in 1941, on foreignsoil, the British Museum a familiar playground. This
environment, and the aesthetic likely cultivated there, were
to have a major influence on her own later work. In 1946 she
graduated from the International School of the Sacred Heart,and the following year went to study under painter ABE
Nobuya. Abe’s studio was frequented by other young artists
including Fukushima Hideko, MIYAWAKI Aiko, ENOMOTO
Kazuko, KUSAMA Yayoi, and KATSURA Yuki, the talents ofeach nurtured through dialogue and critique of their work.
In Urushibara’s oil paintings, beings neither man nor beast
gaze out from shut-off spaces devoid of depth, a whiff of quiet
menace suffusing the canvas. In their search for novel formsof expression after the war, many of the new painters thatappeared in the 1950s depicted distorted, crushed humanfigures, in works that seemed to condemn contemporarysociety. Urushibara’s works did not conform to this trend,and can perhaps be viewed as attempts to gain proximity to
the unknown, via powers of imagination nurtured within theartist’s own interests and surroundings. In her drawings on
paper too, amid the vibrant hues of colored pencils andwatercolors emerge distorted spaces in which cell-like things,
bones, eyes and buildings mingle freely. In the collages thatappear from around the 1980s, ornamental patterns,
pointillist patches, wavy lines and eyes, all rendered in pen toan almost excessive degree, coalesce, the surrounding blankspace highlighting a gloss and mystery reminiscent of jewels
or fruit. The diaries kept by the artist intermittently from1979 to 2000, though day-to-day jottings, consist ofcalligraphic writing, drawings, and collages, and likely served
as esquisses for her works. This creativity on paper born out
37. MAEMOTO Shoko*Donge Kobayashi, “Dōhanga to watashi” [Copperplate prints andme] (1972), reprinted in Donge Kobayashi Retrospective: Femmes Fatale(Sakura City Museum of Art, 2019).

MAEMOTO Shoko (b. 1957) began her career as an artist in
the early 1980s. In recent years her works have attracted
fresh attention amid renewed interest in the art trends ofthis time, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo alsoacquiring a number in FY2023, shown here for the firsttime.
Dominating the gallery is an enormous dress. Looming
larger than life, it has tentacles akin to a sea anemone’s,
crawling along the floor; glitter and mirrors added to pink,
blue and gold causing the giant garment to sparkle
uncannily. In making her dresses Maemoto draws on thedolls she had played with as a girl, and her work on theatre
and dance productions and film screenings at Kyoto
University’s Seibu Kodo hall during her student years at thejunior college of Kyoto Seika University. Initially placed on
stretchers or in picture frames in the manner of paintingsand displayed on the wall, by moving off the wall andstanding alone these dresses now evoke a more theatricalspace. This husk of a dress absent a performer’s body
excites the imagination, in the viewer’s eyes its swollen form
starting to resemble the repository for a mass of pent-up
desires.
Though the huge dress speaks of covetousness and selfaggrandizement, in her book Maemoto extolled the idea ofliving in proud, queenly fashion, noting that if everything ismine, I should also consider the oceans the hem of myskirts, the earth my garden, and all the earth’s children myown.1 Such a belief is also echoed in reliefs like I am the one
who will protect my child and In a Pandora’s Box, products of
Maemoto’s personal experience of birth and child-raising,manifesting here as a giant eye that seems to stare down
the evil eye, and a mother sitting on a lotus flower.
Rendered in air-dry stone clay, these images are an
extension of the tactility and joy the artist felt making
reliefs as a student by coloring papier mâché and sticking
on sequins. This motion of hands based on personal
experience, and skill in customizing existing materials, canbe found throughout Maemoto’s body of work.
“My works have their origins in ‘the diversions of womenand children’ but to my mind, those ‘diversions’ have a vitalelement that must surely be the foundation of art, that is,making ‘for someone else,’ with all one’s heart.”2 An artist
who says she made a kamidana (Shinto household altar) for
herself when she set her sights on a career in art, Maemotocontinues to make altars and imbue them with different
prayers. Such invocations are also to be found in Cocoon ofsorrow 2024, a work that embodies Maemoto’s impressions
as one living in these times, and serves as an offering to
comfort the soul of the young woman who was first victimof the coup in Myanmar, and the many others who
followed.

6. ASAKURA Setsu
ASAKURA Setsu (1922–2014) is known as a stage designer,
but early in her career tracing back to the 1940s, she was apainter of nihonga. Amid growing posthumous reappraisal ofher painting, in FY2017 the Museum of Contemporary Art
Tokyo acquired a number of works subsequently displayedin collection exhibitions, starting with Weavers of Worlds―A
Century of Flux in Japanese Modern/Contemporary Art in 2019to mark reopening of the Museum following renovations.
On this occasion we present not only Asakura’s paintings,
but material connected to her career in stage design.
Asakura grew up living in the atelier-cum-residence
designed by her father, sculptor ASAKURA Fumio, its
unique spatial composition helping to cultivate her own
aesthetic sensibilities. Tutored at home rather thanattending school, in accordance with the philosophy of her
father, Setsu spent her days in his studio, sketching models.
It is here she refinded her feel for the volume andmovement of human figures. The sketchbooks she left
contained, as well as female figures, scenes from the fishingvillages, coal mines, and factories she visited with likeminded companions who shared her questions about how
best to represent modern society in art. In each case, nomatter how the subject is formed, one can sense Asakura’s
incisive gaze, searching for its framework and core.
The motifs and themes that emerged from
confronting reality in this manner manifest on the painted
plane as color, line, and texture. For example, in the case of
the two figures sitting on the ground, the men’s exhaustionand hopelessness are expressed in vibrant, clear pigments,
the addition of a robust frame stressing the work’s powerfulpresence. 1963, believed to have been inspired by amineshaft scaffold in a coal field, is a dynamic piece of
expression, its vertical composition on a large sheet ofplywood reminiscent of the towering structures sprouting
up in a society being transformed ahead of the Tokyo
Olympics.
Having worked in stage design alongside her painting
endeavors, in 1965 Asakura joined the Japan Association of
Theatre Designers & Technicians, and over time repivoted
from painting to work for the stage. It is not hard to
imagine her starting to question, and find irksome, the idea
of taking raw sensations captured visually, in fact by thewhole of her body, and sitting in solitude before the canvas,
sealing them into painted space, and deciding to instead
evoke those sensations in three-dimensional temporary
spaces, as an alternative reality. One suspects that sharing
sensations with a large number of people as she
collaborated to create a performance, in turn sharing withthe audience the new reality subsequently unfolding, gave
Asakura the great joy and sense of achievement that comefrom connecting directly with the community.

1. Maemoto Shoko, Jissen! Zettai ohime-sama shugi [A practical guide toliving like a princess] (Takarajimasha, 2000).
2. “Sakka hōmon: Maemoto Shoko—Wastashi o miteiru watashi”[Artist visit: Maemoto Shoko—The me looking at me], Bijutsu techō(November 1983).

4

Special Feature NOMURA Kazuhiro
8.
Since the mid-1980s artist NOMURA Kazuhiro (b. 1958) has
moved away from conventional painting to develop amultifaceted approach to art-making that encompasses
sculpture, performance, video, writing, and his own uniquepainting format, as he engages in a wide-ranging, ongoinginterrogation of the meaning of creative acts, and what makes
something appealing. While at university he became close to
and was influenced by ENOKURA Koji (1942–1995), known
as a Mono-ha artist, and says he was also drawn to the Arte
Povera trend in later 1960s Italian art. In 1988 Nomura went
to study in Dusseldorf, where he experimented extensively,
primarily with readymades, and explored what he calls“painting-style works” consisting of arrangements of tiny
dots of pigment. He returned to Japan in 1993, and has
continued to produce new work.
1-350, 1-351 and 1-352 are three of over 400 pieces by
Nomura based on the Western-painting formats of drawing,
work on canvas, and mural. A predetermined number ofpoints in five colors are used to make up the same image (atoy potted plant) according to rules devised by the artist,with an element of randomness thrown in. However these
extremely delicately rendered picture planes are difficult toview in the usual manner. Keep observing, searching for a way
to see, and numerous questions around how the paintingscame about are thrown into sharp relief: questions about the
viewpoint and distance that will allow the viewer to grasp
the whole image, for example, or the state of the paint as
matter, or rigor and probability associated with the act ofplacing color. Altar of Laughter, made from buttons tossed byvisitors, can be viewed as a more liberal unfolding of this “act.”
The act of multiple people as one throwing different buttons
at a target is repeated on each occasion as a game-likechallenge, maker and taker swapping places at a dizzying pace,a constantly changing creative setting manifesting midway
between failure = 0, and success = 1.
A single shoe, mismatched books and toys, lost buttons... theabsence and unbalance so frequently featured in Nomura’s
works could be said to consistently also present alternative
possibilities to that absence and lack of balance. Through theworks of Nomura Kazuhiro, with their built-in
metamorphosis and formation, we find ourselves engaging
repeatedly with the genesis of creation.
Eye to Eye
9. Eye to Eye:The painted gaze
Can you sense multiple gazes watching you from the wall?
This floor focuses on various manifestations of the gaze, andpresents a diverse collection of works as examples. By way
of introduction, observe the gazes in paintings in this room.
In Linda by Alex KATZ (b. 1927), a long sideways
composition with the figure’s face audaciously chopped at
top and bottom, the eyes of the woman look straight into
ours, as if exchanging glances in the rear-view mirror of a car.
Her hint of a smile and the soft, almost backlit glow of the5

white background seem to warmly enfold this intimate
exchange. Meanwhile, in the Andy WARHOL (1928–1987)
self-portrait in silkscreen on canvas, the gazes of the six
Warhols sink into the flat silhouettes of different colors,
giving the work a mysterious aura that only serves tobefuddle the viewer.
In Eye from Chiaroscuro, NAKAMURA Hiroshi (b. 1932)
takes six vivid yellow picture planes, draws lines that give
each a different sense of depth, and paints as if floating within,black-and-white chiaroscuro faces looking intently in our
direction. Their gazes, arranged code-like against thebackground, guide and disrupt the gaze of the viewer.
The children NARA Yoshitomo (b. 1959) likes to draw
are distinguished by the way they glower at us from under
their brows, with eyes at once innocent and rebellious. In
Post Human by NAKAZONO Koji (1989–2015), countless
faces jostle on the canvas, yet never meet each other’s gaze,and the eyes looking this way also seem dull and empty. In
Untitled, a white face with multiple eyes rendered in coarse
brushstrokes is overlaid with other faces in black lines, but
none of the eyes meet those of the viewer.
Being conscious of how our gaze intersects with that in apainting may help us to sense what that painting is trying toshow us. At the same time, engaging our gaze with thepainting may also prompt us to think about what we areseeing, and how.
10. Reflection: The involving gaze
In this section we focus on three female sculptors who
experimented with unique modes of expression in the 1960s,
using new materials and techniques: Minami TADA (1924–2014), Aiko MIYAWAKI (1929–2014), and Monir Shahroudy
FARMANFARMAIAN (1922–2019).
Tada Minami, born exactly a century ago this year,
employed materials such as glass, aluminum, steel, and acrylic
in sculptural works that attempt to draw the surrounding
space inside them. After studying Western painting at Joshibi
University of Art and Design, she was drawn to the streamof materials and technologies emerging in the turbocharged
economy of Japan's high-growth years, and began to makesculptures, teaching herself as she went along. Afterestablishing Minami Tada Associates in 1962 she went on tocreate architectural spaces combining cutting-edge
technology with craftsmanship in projects including theImperial Hotel, and Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, plus works
that merged seamlessly into busy urban spaces, and natural
settings. Taking in the scene, and their own figure, bending
and warping in the distortion of light reflected in thematerials, the viewer finds that even sensation and cognition
seem to unravel.
Miyawaki Aiko is another artist who took an interest in
the innovative materials of the 1960s and used them to
explore new methods of expression. She is best known for
Utsurohi, an outdoor sculpture made from stainless steel wire,
but began with paintings in oils blended with the likes ofenamel and marble powder. The paintings presented here all
share a three-dimensional quality, the bumps and hollows,
textures peculiar to the material connecting endlessly on thepicture plane, almost straining toward the viewer. Rhythmical
chains of irregular forms draw the eye and give the works anirresistible tension.
The work of Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmian is dominatedby the time-honored geometric patterns of Islam, and thedecorative technique of ayeneh-kari mirrored glass used sincethe 17th century. For centuries, mirrored glass has been
embedded in building interiors, the mystical spaces generated
by light effects deeply connected to religion and meditation.
Fascinated by the beauty of mirrors, which change visage as
people pass by, the artist explored taking a traditional art
form and expanding it into different environments, and by the
1960s was producing sculptural works in a singular style.

fur. A painting in which pleated fabric somehow resembles
the outline of a dog’s countenance also connects to thecanine theme, at a meta level. So are these paintings of dogs?
The deliberate arrangement of elements, an enumeration ofvariations in ways of depicting, may in the case of all thesepaintings really only stress that the dog theme was merely an
excuse to put a picture on the surface of the canvas.

Texts by
FUJII Aki (1-7),
CHINZEI Yoshimi (8),OKAMURA Keiko (9, 11)
TAMURA Mariko (10)Translated by Pamela Miki Associates

11. Paintings are for looking at: HASEGAWA Shigeru© Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 2024

Painter HASEGAWA Shigeru (b. 1963) has been exploring
the possibilities of figurative painting in his own highly originalmanner since the 1990s.
Hasegawa contends that “paintings are for looking at,” so
it is sufficient to do just that. Freely acknowledging that
ultimately, paintings are merely images rendered on a flat
surface, no more, no less, accordingly, through his experienceof looking at paintings Hasegawa has physically internalized
the language and techniques of visual expression tried andtested throughout the painting history of East and West, andmade them fodder for conversion into his own distinctive
paintings. Supplementing works acquired in recent years withothers on loan, at the artist’s direction this chapter surveys
paintings completed from 1995 to 2023, taking its cue fromhis multilayered series of forms and images.
happy white macaron-chan and lucky chocolat crème bruleechan, two pet pups rendered in effortless strokes on canvases
approximately three meters high, are prime examples of thelarge-format paintings produced by Hasegawa in quick
succession in the late 1990s. In these two works, whilechoosing a common subject in Western painting—dogs—theartist invalidates any narrative qualities by opting for startlingscale and a style shorn of shading.
Like the majority of Hasegawa’s works, on their debut
these two did not have titles. Declining to supplement themeaning of a painting with words, to add a story or message,
could be described as an article of faith for Hasegawa, forwhom the painting’s qualities of form are paramount, but
perhaps it is that the artist himself could not clearly prescribe
what he was painting. Giving some of his works titles utilizing
odd phonetically equivalent Japanese characters, dubbing thisa “service” to viewers, is a tactic trialed by Hasegawa since2019, although their addition does seem designed more to
muddy the meaning of the painting even further.
On the same wall are a number of later paintings also
derived from the canine motif. One shows pole-like forms
reminiscent of vegetables and furniture legs combined tomake the kana characters イヌ (inu) meaning dog. Anotheris a form resembling a strange, hairy creature in the shape of
the kanji character 犬, also meaning dog. In another painting,four fish combine to form the character 毛 meaning hair or6