10 Things in Tokyo: April Round-up

Roppongi Art Night will be held on and around Saturday April 25th. Katsuhiko Hibino returns as artistic director, in addition to working with Media Art Director Seiichi Saito. Together they promise to “explore new possibilities in technology and media art” in this year’s festival. Another new addition is an open call art project in which members of the public had the chance to apply to be a part of the ever-expanding event.

Major art museums in the Roppongi area will stay open all night on Saturday 25th as part of the festival. Mori Art Museum has aligned its re-opening with Roppongi Art Night, with its new exhibition, “Simple Forms: Contemplating Beauty,” starting on Saturday 25th of April and running until July 5. At the Suntory Museum of Art, gaze in wonder at the eccentric animals of Edo period (1600-1859) artists Jakuchu and Buson. The exhibition runs at its regular opening hours until May 10. 21_21 Design Sight will also keep its doors open until midnight for its current exhibition, “Measuring: This Much, That Much, How Much?” (exhibition runs until May 31) and The National Art Centre Tokyo will admit visitors to their Louvre collection exhibition until 10pm. The exhibition is until June 1.

Intermediatheque is hosting a joint exhibition with Quai Branly of Maori wood sculptures from New Zealand (or Aotearoa in the Maori language). Musée du Quai Branly of Paris positions itself as the foremost museum of indigenous cultures of the world and this is the third exhibition of their collection at this Tokyo institution. Until April 30.

Akira Yamaguchi‘s masterly imitative ukiyo-e style paintings, often featuring anachronistic elements that link for example samurai with motorcycle gangsters, are part of a solo exhibition at Art Tower Mito. Until May 17.

Yokohama Art Museum opens its annual collection exhibition, this year with the theme of the body and how it relates to making and viewing art works. Works by Yasumasa Morimura, Takahiro Iwasaki, Yoshitomo Nara and Modern masters are on display. Until May 31.

Jio Shimizu‘s pictures are sampled from within the gallery, such as from the floor, wall and office space, and then magnified over a thousand times to reveal elements unseen by the naked human eye. On display at Misa Shin Gallery until April 25.

Taka Ishii Gallery for Photography/Film is showing prints from “Love on the Left Bank,” the iconic postwar photobook from Ed van der Elsken. The book was a major influence on many Japanese photographers, including Eikoh Hosoe and Nobuyoshi Araki. Until May 2. Over at Taro Nasu gallery, Michiko Tsuda is a video artist whose simple, analogue techniques play with perception. This solo exhibition, her first at Taro Nasu, will include several of her works. Until April 25.